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Day 39 - No standing, please consider those behind you.
Willowbank Raceway
Gone are the days of sleeping in, no-body sleeps when they’re this excited! No early morning call from the birds, just the glorious thunder from the 530 entrants in the pits! There’s nitro in the air and the dark grey clouds are being swept far away by the lovely white billowing ones!
In fairness we could have slept in as they don’t start til 1pm today but to be in the atmosphere you need to be awake and we were! Willowbank is set in a wooded area which gives the place a completely different feel to the tracks back home especially when you’re out in the pits. Each ‘group’ has it’s allotted pit area, the groups climb up from the sportsman classes through to Top Fuel.
Walking through the pits we find yet another front-engine slingshot which is, of course, gorgeous so we’re looking forward to watching that take the track by storm. There are altereds galore but we’ve only seen a couple sport injection set ups so far. It’s taking us a couple of attempts to get our heads around the different classes, there is a Wild
Bunch class which run at other events in New South Wales however sadly they’re not running as a class at this event here in Queensland. Today’s classes are Super Street, Modified Bike, Super Gas, Modified, Competition, Competition Bike, Super Stock, Junior Dragster, Super Sedan and Supercharged Outlaws. Both of the front engine slingshots are running in the Modified class and are low 7 second cars when on song.
The Winternationals is billed as the largest drag race event outside of North America. When we first read and heard that statement we were a bit surprised but it’s seemingly true! For example there are 87 Junior Dragsters here! 87!!!! It was a sight to behold with them all lined up in the fire up road, which incidentally runs along side our camping pitch! The juniors came out after the afternoon ‘sun break’ at 5pm and they were done within 40 minutes.
It will be good to walk around and get chatting to some of the teams and also catch up with Kerstyn Dance who drives the Flashdance modified rear engine dragster. We met Kerstyn the last time we were here and it was great to watch her race today,
the car’s looking good!
There’s a good array of grandstand seating plus the grassy banking area for the die hards! The commentary team kept us well entertained today and they’re very knowledgeable about the classes and competitors. They’re got a new PA system here this weekend which they’re delighted with as it means they can boom over to more people throughout the event! We’re not trying to make comparisons, there’s no point because when it all boils down drag racing is the same the world over, it’s fantastic no matter where you are so long as it’s dry!
It’s a full afternoon of action with all the classes putting on a great show for the spectators who have braved the fairly dim weather forecast! As it’s turned out we had one shower of rain this morning way before racing was due to start and that’s been it! There are notices around the grassy bank viewing area telling you there’s no smoking on the bank and there’s no standing. The sign says ‘No Standing - please consider those behind you’. And guess what, nobody was standing up today on the bank, everyone was sitting down!
Darryl is in
his element. Not only are we drag racing but Willowbank is very close to Amerberly RAAF base so the amount of jet fighters and carrier planes is giving him a bit of added excitement!
We sat on the bank and watched all of the days racing right through til 7.25 when they came to a close. Supercharged Outlaws finished the show and the only lighting by the time they started was the artificial ones above the race track! It’s another huge class (50 or so cars, probably more) but only a few ran down into the 6 second bracket which the commentary team seemed disappointed with. The first pairing we 6.85 @ 209mph v 6.87 @ 199mph so it was none too shabby! Joy of joys, another front engine slingshot comes to the party! Running through with a 7.65 @ 171mph we’ve another car to seek out in the pits and watch out for tomorrow!
The FIA European Finals got a mention from the commentary team and subsequently a cheer from us!
We’re looking forward to another great day tomorrow and will try to infiltrate a couple of pits!! We spied a miniature John Deer tractor so
we need to try and get a ride on that tomorrow for Harley!
All smiles
Dar & Sar
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