Mt Cotton is about 20min south of Brisbane. Nice and close to home for me. Great liitle track too.

Turn 1? its heavily on-cambered... but yes, you have to be careful to get the car turned in on stone cold fronts. Most people who understeer off there, turn in too early - its an easy mistake to make there - the camber of the road sort of draws you in.

I'm still in 1st when I get to turn 1, and dab the brakes to get it turned in, then hard back on the gas - the camber of the road helps you get the power down hard there, and I find a touch of oversteer is the best way through that corner. Its a bit of an over-rev as I exit the turn and grab 2nd as soon as its straightened up. Hold 2nd gear until the top of the hill, again a bit of an over re, but quicker than shifting up to 3rd on the steep hill. Then grab 3rd in the 1st loop as the road levels out. If the track is good, hold it flat in 3rd through the loop, take a deep breath and aim for the yellow painted tyre on the inside of lovers leap - flat out in third. Most people lift there, but my 1200 is a bit underpowered for the times it runs, so I have to make up time through the loops... anything can happen over the leap depending on track conditions and how fast a run you got through the loop. But it normally involves lifting the inside wheels (yes both of them - thank god for the locker!) and a hint of oversteer. Straighten it up and get hard on the brakes and back to 1st for the hairpin, which has a crazy amount of camber in the road. Tuck in tight but stay off the ripple strip, and its surprising how fast you can go through that hairpin. hard back on the gas before the apex to get the best run out of there - the roads camber will stop the tail from jumping out.
I change into 2nd as soon as I've straightened up and hold it to the top of the hill. There's a bit of a kink right, then you have to brake hard and stay out wide as you approach the 2nd loop. Again, most people turn in too early and are slow through this turn. You have to make your self stay out wide as you brake, then a late turn-in aiming for the apex at the extreme fence post. Its acually an early apex, but you can be hard on the gas from that point if you got it right, because the rest of the loop open out and you can just stay on the black stuff as the armco approaches at the top of the downhill run. I grab 3rd about there for a moment, then hard on the brakes agan and back to 2nd for the reverse run through the hairpin. It's low in the revs in 2nd, and you have to get a good clean run to stay on-cam, but 1st is too low... I grab 3rd just before the return run over lovers, and can hold it flat, if the track will take it. if its too cold or damp there it often gets very hairy with lots of opposite lock and its pretty tight betwen the bank and the fence and the armco of the finishing turn is coming up too... get it right and its flat out in 3rd over the finish line and out of that corner, and if it all went smoothly,that's 48.37 seconds of heart-in -the-mouth, pure adrenaline rush...

I'm hoping to be back out there with a new engine before too long (maybe even the next event), and I'm going to try to get some in-car footage...

hiya harry,you've forgotten something on that map.that's where they park the tow truck to pick up all the cars that roll after the finish line.this occurs because there is a bloody great hump as the finish leaves the main track,& if you get too enthusistic,you're into the armco barriers.this is why the finish straight is lined with armco,to pinball the cars down to where they park the wrecker.plus,that first corner is off camber,so if you do too big a burnout,you arrive at the first corner with cold front tyres & sticky backs.perfect recipe for understeering into the infield & totally blowing the run.mt cotton is a perfect example of the use of control,if you charge in like a lunatic,you're going to see car-nage.

Where is Mt Cotton in Qld

i wish our club would do hillclimbs, that looks fun, we're the Motorsports club of tas and all we do is off road stuff :( i would love to get into "track" stuff,

thought this might interest some of you guys. I took a heap of pics of the Mt Cotton Hillclimb course last week and a mate is hosting them for me.

Pictures really don't do the place justice. They really don't capture the elevation changes, and how steep those hills actually are.

These pics were taken early afternnon. It's normal for the track to stay damp in the loops (the sweeping corners at the top of the hills) because they're so shaded by the tall trees. And if there's been decent rain in the lead up to an event, you sometimes get water flowing across the track out of the hillside even if its not raining on the day. Awesome place...

this is the veiw of the track as you wait to be signalled forward for your warmup burnout just before your run...




something funny happened with the numbering - for some reason the editing program thinks 1 comes after 19 and before 20, 2 comes after 29 and before 30, and so on... weird. But if you can follow the numbers in the file names its a sequence of the whole track - like walking around the track. Pics 3 to 9 are on page 2.
http://www.dairally.net/harry/mtcotton/

and here's the track layout