I had my first event for the year last weekend. The 1st round of QLD Super Sprint Series at Morgan Park Warwick. They now have a number of track configurations at their complex, and for round 1 we used the old short cuircuit which is just 1.1km, very tight and very technical layout including two 2nd gear hairpins!

This was a 2 day event, and the format is 4 lap, standing start, multi-car sprint with 4 cars on the track at once. You grid up in pairs and you can race when the flag drops (passing is allowed) or go in your own time against the clock (timing starts when your wheels move). They give a total time for the 4 laps(no individual lap times).

There were all sorts of cars from Lola open wheelers, Historic touring cars like XY Falcons, Monaros, Mustangs, Lotus Cortinas, some sports cars like Datsun sports 200's, MGB V8's, Improved production cars like mine, and as always a couple of those bloody clubmans, and only 1 rotary, a Series IV RX7 turbo. so at least it didn't make the horrible loud rotary bark...

anyway, I reckon all Stevo's talk about his throttle linkages jinxed me - one of my throttle levers started slipping on the shaft on the first run on Sunday. But I managed some dodgy repairs (involving 'epoxy steel' and a hose clamp) and got back out to post my fastest time for the weekend, despite some minor fuel surge on the left hand sweeper that is the back straight, to get me back into 2nd place ahead of a 2litre Gemini race car by 0.5 seconds - which is damn close considering their timing system is a total time for 4 laps from a standing start! Chris Berry (a friend of mine in a 1600 that keeps beating me lately) was 1.6 seconds ahead of me. Even though that's over a distance of 4 laps, it's still a bit of a thrashing... His car handles pretty well, probably thanks to a good friend of his who lives close by - a guy by the name of Murray Coote. And goes pretty well because of another mate of his - Stew Wilkins who built his engine. Guess I'll have to become more friendly with Fulcrum!

Anyway, I had a blast. But it's definitely more fun when you win...