Thursday, February 18, 2010

"You Play, you Pay"


Friday the 13th Nov 2009, 6am & we are on road heading for “The Hill” to the 12th annual running of Historic Noosa Hill Climb
Off to the National Park, up the picturesque, Gyndier Drive at, Tewantin, regarded is one of Australia’s premier hill climb courses & after walking the 1.5 ks up this baby, I agree wholeheartedly, 14 right, left, right, left, turns, I can see the weekend is going to be loaded with lots of thrills and spills!

Even though we were doing the speed limit towards town
I could hear the longgggg line of cars say behind us, “Joy of joys” as we come to the 2 lane part of the highway
Engines racing, tyres screeching & so the hordes rushed past us!

All too early we hit the Gateway congestion of traffic & we come to a halt!
So much so for leaving early enough to escape this, not early enough it seems!
Luckily within 15mins, we are again rolling happily along with no more hold ups

The day looks very overcast!
Radio forecaster says, a mainly fine weekend, wonderful
But wait they have now changed their minds!
Showers expected, with storms!!!
ahh discussion ensures

But fear not we are prepared; we have the wet weather tyres at the ready on the tyre rack, if needed
The sky looks very like the dust storm of last month!
The radio reports “A smoke haze over the city from small fires around Noosa!!”
Yeah right! just where we are heading!
“Visibility is down from 8ks from 20ks”
Yea Gods & little fishes!!
We arrive, set up camp & familiarise ourselves with our surroundings, then head for the air-conditioned comfort of our Unit

Saturday dawned bright & sunny & warm, ohhh soooo warm
More than 165 cars were entered & nearly 10,000 spectators lined the road over the two days to see some of the world’s oldest & most valuable cars do battle
Thrills & Spills were right with more than a few crashes, but after all it’s a professional motorsport event,” so what more do you expect
It wasn’t all smooth sailing though with a couple of the vintage cars coming off second best after accidents, thankfully no one badly hurt
A Ferrari & a jag, & a RX7 to just name a few, either took a detour off the side of the mountain!!! or into the wall

Bri was running with number 18 so was one of the first starters, he managed to get in 4 runs, the sighting run was 75 & the last run of the day was 72

Ohh this is looking pretty good!

“Darling you need to be not quite so much the crowd pleaser at take off, with all that smok’in, sreetch’n tyre shit, you lost valuable seconds with that ” I tell him

The Mustang, being a race car & not road registered, had to wait up the top of the mountain until there were 20 or so cars ready to come back down the track together

During the last run down of the day he thought he heard 2 loud bangs!!

He backs into our pit area with some difficulty, on his return down the mountain, wheel spinning with one tyre!!
He's head down bum up under the rear end of the car for some time, BUT!! all seemed well!

Oh & did I mention the Group A Pinepac Mustang Touring car! in that total of, Thrills & Spills, previously?

No??

Well add it to that total! now!!
The big bang was something after all

The weekend came to a depressing conclusión!

She wheel spun on the way to fuel up, for the first run of Sunday morning!
I had to climb out & help push her up an incline, 2 Gallant Gentleman rushed to my assistance

Bri just said a few choice words! & drove straight back to our pit!!

Either a broken Axel or a broken diff!!!
Thus cancelling out another good days racing!

1 comment:

  1. was it a curse that started on FRIDAY the 13TH??? Too bad about the bad luck.
    lucky you had some gentlemen out there to give you a hand Pam, couldn't have you doing all that work by yourself.

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