Podium Photos & Race reports
Race 1 - Mornington Park - 9/10/22
1st - Phil Kalbfell
2nd - Bruce Thomas
3rd - Rob Golley
1st - Phil Kalbfell
2nd - Bruce Thomas
3rd - Rob Golley
Race 1 Report
The start of a new series always elicits great excitement & an anticipation in the air, and such was the case again this week with the commencement of the next new series for the year, and the introduction of the Fly Trucks. There was so much excitement around the track that it proved too much for both Dave Bantoft (who promptly packed up & went home), and Dave Gray, who left the driving of his truck to Adrian . This left us with 10 hardy (or should that be foolhardy ?) souls who set out armed with their heavy artillery to embark upon the mission of navigating these monsters around the track…….or destroying all and sundry in the process. At least Dave Grays track is a very robust one & breakable scenery is mostly non-existent, I shudder to think how Phil's lovely looking scenic track will fare after running the first round there in a few weeks !
Anyway, back to the action, and the Fly Trucks certainly proved a handful for all but a handful of drivers. So much so that from this point onwards they shall be known by their short name of F-ucks! Co-incidentally the sound of people calling out this name that could be heard regularly during the heats over the course of the evening.
There were, however, a couple of drivers who weren’t vocalising quite as much as the rest of us, and Phil Kalbfell somehow managed to have his F-uck running as well as most cars to notch up the first win of the series with 102 laps. This was however only 1 lap clear of a great first up performance by Bruce Thomas who finished a very good 2nd on 101 laps for the night. Bruce managed to find a very well performed F-uck albeit after bringing along a collection of F-ucks to rival the entire Lyndsay Fox transport fleet & then testing them all out prior to racing, much to the horror of track owner Dave Gray!
These two were well clear of 3rd place getter & reigning F-uck champion, Rob Golley who showed that his F-uck will still be a consistently good runner with his total of 96 laps. Another 5 laps back in 4th on 91 laps, was John Batich who was the first home of the rest of us mere mortals. In 5th & on 90 laps was the writers F-uck, just 1 lap clear of Rhys Filbee who finished in 6th on 89 laps. The big Stars & Stripes F-uck of Scott Wayman took a good 7th spot on 88 laps, with Adrian Gray back in 8th on 86 laps for the evening. Dave Schofield had 1 unlucky heat that affected his overall total of 81 laps & saw him finish in 9th. I’m certain that during this heat on lane 3 Schoee was quietly muttering under his breath a few nasty things about his F-uck. In 10th spot for the night, Thomas Males in the Mercedes Rent-a F-uck of Phil's on 75 laps.
In summary, it was certainly an interesting experience for someone who has not had the pleasure of driving the F-Ucks at all before and could take some re-thinking of driving style in the rounds going forward. The complete absence of such simple pleasures such as brakes for instance make for some novel consequences at the end of any straight bit of track. Good luck next week !
The start of a new series always elicits great excitement & an anticipation in the air, and such was the case again this week with the commencement of the next new series for the year, and the introduction of the Fly Trucks. There was so much excitement around the track that it proved too much for both Dave Bantoft (who promptly packed up & went home), and Dave Gray, who left the driving of his truck to Adrian . This left us with 10 hardy (or should that be foolhardy ?) souls who set out armed with their heavy artillery to embark upon the mission of navigating these monsters around the track…….or destroying all and sundry in the process. At least Dave Grays track is a very robust one & breakable scenery is mostly non-existent, I shudder to think how Phil's lovely looking scenic track will fare after running the first round there in a few weeks !
Anyway, back to the action, and the Fly Trucks certainly proved a handful for all but a handful of drivers. So much so that from this point onwards they shall be known by their short name of F-ucks! Co-incidentally the sound of people calling out this name that could be heard regularly during the heats over the course of the evening.
There were, however, a couple of drivers who weren’t vocalising quite as much as the rest of us, and Phil Kalbfell somehow managed to have his F-uck running as well as most cars to notch up the first win of the series with 102 laps. This was however only 1 lap clear of a great first up performance by Bruce Thomas who finished a very good 2nd on 101 laps for the night. Bruce managed to find a very well performed F-uck albeit after bringing along a collection of F-ucks to rival the entire Lyndsay Fox transport fleet & then testing them all out prior to racing, much to the horror of track owner Dave Gray!
These two were well clear of 3rd place getter & reigning F-uck champion, Rob Golley who showed that his F-uck will still be a consistently good runner with his total of 96 laps. Another 5 laps back in 4th on 91 laps, was John Batich who was the first home of the rest of us mere mortals. In 5th & on 90 laps was the writers F-uck, just 1 lap clear of Rhys Filbee who finished in 6th on 89 laps. The big Stars & Stripes F-uck of Scott Wayman took a good 7th spot on 88 laps, with Adrian Gray back in 8th on 86 laps for the evening. Dave Schofield had 1 unlucky heat that affected his overall total of 81 laps & saw him finish in 9th. I’m certain that during this heat on lane 3 Schoee was quietly muttering under his breath a few nasty things about his F-uck. In 10th spot for the night, Thomas Males in the Mercedes Rent-a F-uck of Phil's on 75 laps.
In summary, it was certainly an interesting experience for someone who has not had the pleasure of driving the F-Ucks at all before and could take some re-thinking of driving style in the rounds going forward. The complete absence of such simple pleasures such as brakes for instance make for some novel consequences at the end of any straight bit of track. Good luck next week !
Race 2 - Mornington Park - 25/10/22
1st - Bruce Thomas
2nd - Phil Kalbfell
3rd - John Batich
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Race 2 Report
Race 2 Proved to be even more interesting than Race 1
Dave made the call to run the trucks as the second race so the track grip was very high.
Dave Schofield was already struggling with too much grip as was Rob. Adrian had his first race with the fly merc replacing the SCX Merc. Not sure if it was much quicker as he too suffered with plenty of grip.
My Susi seemed as though it has targets on it, attracting a lot of attacks,Rob even managed to go across all the lanes to make an assault.
Rob ended up running his tyres across the dusty floor in an attempt to reduce the grip,it worked took most of the last bracket to regain some traction.
Toms Merc cried in pain during the race and spat the crown gear.
Meanwhile Bruce just cruised around enjoying the added grip on his treaded tyres and easily won the night.
John Batich managed to finish third just keeping out of trouble.
I think most people are now looking at tyre options for future races.
An interesting race!
Race 3 - Stratton Valley - 1/11/22
1st - John Batich
2nd - Rob Golley
3rd - Bruce Thomas
1st - John Batich
2nd - Rob Golley
3rd - Bruce Thomas
Race 3 Report
Breaking News - Read carefully:
Upon advice from the Office of Workplace Health & Safety, the following directives have been issued.
When running the Fly Trucks on track, all marshals are recommended to wear the OH&S approved protective equipment.
As shown in the following example* -
Breaking News - Read carefully:
Upon advice from the Office of Workplace Health & Safety, the following directives have been issued.
When running the Fly Trucks on track, all marshals are recommended to wear the OH&S approved protective equipment.
As shown in the following example* -
*Note, organisers will not be held responsible for any failure to observe these safety recommendations resulting in loss of fingers.
Race 4 - Mornington Park - 15/11/22
1st - Bruce Thomas
2nd - Rob Golley
3rd - Phil Kalbfell
1st - Bruce Thomas
2nd - Rob Golley
3rd - Phil Kalbfell
Race 4 - Report
After the close (& mostly clean) racing of the Historic NASCAR earlier in the evening, it was time to switch our attention to the F-ucks for round 4 of this well-loved class. It is also a particularly delightful series for the Marshals, and one they look forward to each week with anticipation. This week the marshals certainly didn’t have long to wait. First corner, first heat…..something resembling this:
After the close (& mostly clean) racing of the Historic NASCAR earlier in the evening, it was time to switch our attention to the F-ucks for round 4 of this well-loved class. It is also a particularly delightful series for the Marshals, and one they look forward to each week with anticipation. This week the marshals certainly didn’t have long to wait. First corner, first heat…..something resembling this:
Anyway, after this carnage was sorted out, we got the heats underway……..again. Unfortunately, this was a preview of the entire evening, and all the Marshalls were busier than a 1 legged man in a bum kicking competition. The tight confines of the Mornington Park track played havoc with these behemoths, and most drivers suffered at its hand, some worse than others. One of the few to cope with the track this week was Bruce Thomas. His total of 99 laps saw him take out this week’s round, and then unsurprisingly announced to all & sundry how much he loves this class of “vehicle” .
Unsurprising of course, due to it being a Bruce series and yet another series in a long line of “interesting” series choices put forward by Bruce……..
I digress, battling on well for 2nd (and I do mean battle) was Rob Golley 1 lap back on 98 laps, with Phil Kalbfell picking up 3rd another lap back on 97 for the evening. John Batich drove a well-controlled series of heats to finish 4th on 95 laps, 3 laps clear of 5th placegetter Scott Wayman. Scott had a good run early on & was pushing for a very good result, however he got a bit caught out by the peculiarity of lane 3 (Blue) and eventually finished 5th on 92 laps. He wasn’t the only one to suffer at the blue lane’s hands. More of that later. Just 1 lap back in 6th was Rhys on 91 laps, 2 laps clear of the writer in 7th on 89 laps & Adrian Gray in 8th on the same lap total (89).
Dave Schofield had some challenges on the evening to finish 9th (85 laps), ahead of Dave Gray in the top 10 on 83 & Thomas Males in 11th on 72 laps for the night.
The real winner on the night though was lane 3…….the Blue lane of death. In an unusually vindictive frame of mind this week, lane 3 brought all (but 1) drivers to their knees in varying degrees. Some suffering lot worse than others that’s for sure, but certainly everyone except for Phil Kalbfell had a tougher run on lane 3 than either of the other two lanes. In the worst cases, there were up to 4 laps difference between drivers best & worst from lane 1 to lane 3. I certainly haven’t solved the mystery of this lane yet, and don’t look like doing so in the near future either !
One final entry for this week, a notable absentee from this week’s racing was Callan Thomas. Apparently, he had some sort of excuse for not attending, however he still had time to spread around you-tube clips during the day so his reason for not coming along seems like an inadequate one. We’ll keep a very keen eye on his attendance over the upcoming weeks.
Unsurprising of course, due to it being a Bruce series and yet another series in a long line of “interesting” series choices put forward by Bruce……..
I digress, battling on well for 2nd (and I do mean battle) was Rob Golley 1 lap back on 98 laps, with Phil Kalbfell picking up 3rd another lap back on 97 for the evening. John Batich drove a well-controlled series of heats to finish 4th on 95 laps, 3 laps clear of 5th placegetter Scott Wayman. Scott had a good run early on & was pushing for a very good result, however he got a bit caught out by the peculiarity of lane 3 (Blue) and eventually finished 5th on 92 laps. He wasn’t the only one to suffer at the blue lane’s hands. More of that later. Just 1 lap back in 6th was Rhys on 91 laps, 2 laps clear of the writer in 7th on 89 laps & Adrian Gray in 8th on the same lap total (89).
Dave Schofield had some challenges on the evening to finish 9th (85 laps), ahead of Dave Gray in the top 10 on 83 & Thomas Males in 11th on 72 laps for the night.
The real winner on the night though was lane 3…….the Blue lane of death. In an unusually vindictive frame of mind this week, lane 3 brought all (but 1) drivers to their knees in varying degrees. Some suffering lot worse than others that’s for sure, but certainly everyone except for Phil Kalbfell had a tougher run on lane 3 than either of the other two lanes. In the worst cases, there were up to 4 laps difference between drivers best & worst from lane 1 to lane 3. I certainly haven’t solved the mystery of this lane yet, and don’t look like doing so in the near future either !
One final entry for this week, a notable absentee from this week’s racing was Callan Thomas. Apparently, he had some sort of excuse for not attending, however he still had time to spread around you-tube clips during the day so his reason for not coming along seems like an inadequate one. We’ll keep a very keen eye on his attendance over the upcoming weeks.
Race 5 - Stratton Valley - 22/11/22
1st - Phil Kalbfell
2nd - John Batich
3rd - Rob Golley
1st - Phil Kalbfell
2nd - John Batich
3rd - Rob Golley
Race 6 - Mornington Park - 5/12/22
1st - Phil Kalbfell
2nd - Rob Golley
3rd - Scott Wayman *(and well done Scott on a first podium finish)
1st - Phil Kalbfell
2nd - Rob Golley
3rd - Scott Wayman *(and well done Scott on a first podium finish)
Race 7 - Stratton Valley - 13/12/22
1st - John Batich
2nd - Scott Wayman
3rd - Bruce Thomas
1st - John Batich
2nd - Scott Wayman
3rd - Bruce Thomas
