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Day 42 - We don’t need to tell you what time we got up this morning do we? You’re all with it now aren’t you?! Welcome to day 4 of the Castrol Edge 42nd Winter Nationals here at drag racing’s finest Willowbank Raceway! We have an appointment with a couple of Harley Davidson motorbikes this morning so we make sure we’re ready in good time and start our ritual walkabout of the pit area just after 7am!
There’s quite a few racers about this morning as the strip is due to open at 8am. The familiar start up routines are present and we find plenty of beaut cars to gawk at! During our wander we also catch up with Kerstyn of Flashdance fame which was lovely. They’re such a friendly family and it’s great to see them again. They were in the fire up road last night when the rain came down so they should be out pretty early today. They’ve completed their start up routine, a quick turn over and installation of the block warmers! It’s a very quiet pit! We wish them luck and we’ll come back to see them a bit later on. We wander towards the direction
of the track as it’s nearing 8am so the comforting thunder of engines starting should be ringing out shortly! The first class out is Super Sedan and a few runs are made but it's hard to ignore the huge, dark cloud containing a different sort of ‘thunder’! The heavens opened and down the wet stuff came complete with lightening flashes and everything! It was the sort of downpour that wasn’t going to be a 30 minute clean up once it had finished so that made our minds up … we were definitely going in the Harley Davidson tent to see if we could get on the dyno challenge!
We paced patiently outside until Darryl spotted an opening! Yippee, we were on at 10am and because we were novices, no real experience on motorbikes, we would get extra tuition! So, the set up is this, two mid 9 second Harleys are rigged up on a rolling road with a ‘christmas tree’ in the middle of them and screens either side recording reaction time, ET and MPH. Up we go and the challenge is on, we’re given the talk and the demo by Gordon before we are put on our bikes.
We go ‘into stage’ and then the lights count down! All racers go on amber so we do and then it’s just a case of letting the clutch out and changing gears whilst ramming the throttle open! WOW!! 11.42 v 11.02! Not saying which was which, you can guess that! We loved it and were yelling and shouting so much that Marcus who was running the thing told us to put out names down and come back for the next try out!!! So we did and this time we swapped bikes and the outcome was 11.02 v 10.76!!! Get in!!! We were well chuffed and we now want a Harley each!! Thanks very much to Mel, Marcus, Ashton and Gordon for their time and for being such top sports. Cheers.
So, back to the racing which had just about started by the time we came down from our Harley shaped cloud 9! The sun was shining again and we were back in the grandstands to watch the day unfold. There’s so much going on at Willowbank, crowd entertainers galore from very attractive young ladies in hot pants to a man with a tickling stick, a pink hog doing break-dancing
in the burnout box and a roaming band with huge hats! There’s something to see everywhere you look!
The racing today was excellent, absolutely superb. The lump in the throat moment came during the ‘Opening Ceremony’ before the fuellers came out. Not only was the track blessed for safe racing and safe journey’s home but the national anthem was beautifully sung from the start line and the Australian flag deposited at the top end by a sky diver! After that there was huge applause and the commentator simply enthused “Let’s go drag racing”!
Top Fuel pulled out the 4’s and the 300+ mph runs, you can’t ask for any more! The Top Alcohol final had everyone fired up as Debbie Read needed to win the race to also win the series. That would have made her the first woman to have won a professional Australian championship. The team had been fiercely consistent all weekend and when her opponent red lit the dream seemed to be heading towards reality but then drama as her rear engine dragster went into a wheel stand coming down heading straight for the wall. Debbie did skim the side of the car so it
was a case of ‘first or worst’ and hitting the wall was worst so her opponent took the win which meant Gary Phillips took his 13th championship in the class. There were so many close races throughout the day, it was just fantastic to watch. We were keeping an eye out for Kerstyn in her Flashdance ‘Modified’ rear engine dragster and cheered when the class was finally called early afternoon. The field is huge but everyone runs eliminations from the get-go although it’s not seeded, you just run whoever you are paired against in the stages lanes. They only go for the seeded ladders when the numbers get down to 16. Kerstyn was paired with the current or former (we can’t remember which!) track champion for the class so the pressure was on! They both felt it because they both red lit but Kerstyn’s was first so she was on the trailer. Darn. We met her back in the pit to find her smiling, as always, but a bit disappointed. We really hope that we’ll see the family again before we leave the Sunshine Coast, fingers crossed we’ll make that happen.
As the racing draws closer to the semis
and finals for the ‘sportsman’ classes we whizzed back for tea at the van. Whilst we were there we found that the TV picked up the commentary and the live coverage of the event! Result, now we really wouldn’t miss a thing!! We cooked dinner and remained glued to the excellent racing! We’d been up in the stands for most of the day standing right at the top where the view is fantastic. Having the two huge Castrol Edge screens on the banking gives you different viewing platform and the repeats are just great! It’s remarkable how hot the days are but how cold the early evening is. People are wrapped in blankets on the banking and the stands now, the true die hards …. as we watch from the warm! We rush back to the track as the finals are being run and then it’s time for the presentations. The winning cars are lined up on the track and the crowd gather around for lots of cheering and applause. Each class winner of the event and each overall class championship winner makes a speech, they’re all very good and thank their family and crew and sponsors and of course
the amazing group of people that are ‘Willowbank Raceway’. We stay right to the end and catch up with Steve Werner before he has to head off back to Brisbane to continue his holiday further on up north before returning to Santa Pod in a few weeks. Everyone is sad to see him leave, he’s a fab bloke and has pitched in and really worked hard with the track crew. Great to see you Steve and we’re looking forward to hearing all about the rest of your travels.
Jeff is still working hard and making sure everything is running smoothly. We have some photos taken with him and Steve, thanks for doing that Jeff, and we also manage to get our photo taken with the winners trophies from Top Bike! Thanks very much to Jeff and the crew of Athol Williams for that opportunity!
And there it was, four days of fabulous entertainment and racing gone in a flash. We’re staying here until Thursday or Friday we hope and there’s 2 days of track testing which will be great fun too.
Our sincere thanks goes to Jeff Rice for having us here, we’ve had an awesome time.
Everything about Willowbank oozes professionalism and the hard work, long hours and outstanding effort put in by the team really does make the whole event stand out on it’s own and their ‘tag line’ of “Drag Racing’s Finest” is very much deserved. Good on you Willowbank!
Dar & Sar
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Lisa Rumble
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Photos
Hi DASH, Cracking photos, we can not wait to see more when you get back. Its sounds like a great weekend. Louis is hoping to test out his new camera this weekend at Summer Nationals. Speak to you soon, Lisa & the Boys