After a brief summer hiatus, Mal Reid’s J, K & L newsletter has returned and been sent out to drivers of pre-1930s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s historic racing and sports cars.
It’s also now available for you to peruse on the Club website. Read on, and enjoy!
It’s the Pits, May 2017
With the traditional HSRCA February summer meeting moved back to a later date (and hopefully a little more pleasant weather), the first major outing for our old JKL bangers was the annual Phillip Island extravaganza.
As usual there were a number of cars (11) from all over the world to give the locals a hard time and they proved too quick all weekend.
Young Will Nuthall from the UK in the T53 Cooper showed the way in qualifying, cutting a very tidy 1.49.86 after only 4 laps. He led our old mate Julian Bronson visiting this time in the very impressive Scarab GP and running a 1.52.
The locals finally got a look in with Nick McDonald coming to grips with father Ian’s Scott Holden Repco 1.55.07, 3rd. David Reid in the Faux Paus 1.55.15, UK regular Rob Jolley in the big silver Lister Jaguar 1.55.66 next and yours truly finally getting some track time in Prad Mk3 Repco Holden only a smidge behind with a 1.55.9.
Paddins Dowling (UK) ERA, John Clark (UK) T51 Cooper and the mighty flat head ford V8 of Graeme Raper rounding out the top 10 in the George Reed Monoskate, a very impressive result from Graeme and the big Ford in very good company.
Racing all weekend was as good as it gets on this wonderful circuit. This is now a full three-day meeting and, following qualifying on Friday morning, the first race was on in the afternoon. The visitors out front had no trouble keeping the locals at bay but they did share the wins around.
Will Nuthall suffered all weekend with a lack of 1st gear in the T53 and was slow away from the starter’s flag, but once going really showed his class. However, it was the Scarab first over the line by a reasonable margin first from Rob Jolley and then Nuthall 3rd. The 2 Holden Repco Specials, Scott and Prad were next from the mighty Dalro Jag with Les Wright as usual at the wheel.
It’s always a touchy subject down south and it’s advisable not to predict the weather as it can change in an instant. Saturday dawned bright and sunny and so it was to be for the whole week end. Probably as good a weather as I’ve seen in the 39 years since I first ran Monoskate at the 78 meeting. Yes we’ve had some beaut days but to get 3 in a row was great and it brought in the crowds from all over.