..said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but, as Charlie Brown in the “Peanuts” cartoon said, “This is ridiculous!”
Right on cue, the wet weather that we had been promised for some days, arrived on Saturday morning, just in time for the weekend. And, sure enough, it was a speedway Saturday. The meeting promised to be a beauty with a big card featuring the NSW Title for AMCA Nationals. Some explanation. AMCA Nationals is an Australian version of the American dirt track modified cars. The formula is fairly free in terms of bodywork and suspension but there are two “controls” or stipulations in the technical regulations. One is that the front subframe of the car must be taken from an HQ to HZ model Holden (1972-1978 models) A replica subframe is not allowed, the subframe must have the plate attached that shows it has been taken from a real road-going car. The second stipulation is that the cars must all run the Holden 253ci V8 engine that was an option in that model run of road cars. The motors are tuned, however, and run on methanol fuel. Because of the relatively tight regulations, the cars are similar in performance, relatively cheap to build and maintain and, as a consequence, are plentiful and provide excellent close racing.
So it was Nowra’s turn to run the NSW Title for this category and 25 nominations had been received so it was shaping to be a good show…
…except for the fact that, come Saturday morning, I awoke to the sound of rain on the roof. RATS!! Nevertheless, mid-morning I received the call from Club President, Lenny Davis, saying that the meeting was still on and that it hadn’t rained much at the track. So, I left home in the pouring rain with ominous thoughts coursing through my mind. Amazingly, the closer I got to Nowra, the more the ceiling lifted and, by the time I arrived, the rain had stopped and things looked considerably more hopeful. My usual lap of the pits talking to drivers, familiarising myself with competitors who hadn’t raced there before (there were quite a few since it was a title meeting) and it was nearly time to get under way. Everybody was asking the same question, would the rain stay away so that we could run?
We got five races done before the question was answered. No. A strong rain shower descended on the area and it rained for about 10 minutes. Now, normally, this would have been more than enough to see the meeting cancelled. Nowra’s track surface is primarily clay and, once clay gets wet, it retains the moisture and racing usually stops for the night. The shower abated and the track looked sodden and done for the night. However, the AMCA drivers, anxious that their title meeting not be abandoned and fuelled by information from the internet that said that there was no more rain coming in from the west after the shower we had just had, opted to go back out on the track and wheel pack in attempt to squeegee the water out of the surface.
Now here I must explain. Wheel packing is an essential precursor to racing at every track. Before the meeting starts the track will be roughly prepared and graded, and hit with a light coating of water to stop it drying out. After the drivers’ briefing, all drivers are asked to take their cars out on the track and do the final track preparation, wheel packing. The cars circulate at low speed around and around the oval, driving in a straight line (not sliding the back end out) and gradually moving down towards the infield as they do. As this process continues, the rough track is smoothed out by the constant action of the cars’ wheels until they are circulating the track down on the pole line and the surface is smooth and ready for racing. Nobody likes doing it as it is tedious and it gets the cars dirty, but every driver knows that, if they do the wheel packing properly, they will have an excellent racing surface when it is their turn to go fast.
Wheel packing had already been done earlier in the night before the first race was run, of course, but many drivers, and the officials also, felt that the track could still be saved if the drivers were to wheel pack again. So the call went out to the pits and all available cars went back out onto the track and started the process again. To start with, it was extremely difficult. Clay tracks are ridiculously slippery when they get wet and it wasn’t looking good. Drivers were finding it very difficult to get traction and to keep their cars pointing in the right direction. Nevertheless, against all odds and logic, the surface started to pack down again and a noticeable dry line started to appear up on the fence line, it was working. Gradually working their way down the track, the drivers managed to not only rescue the surface but make it into a better one than it had been before and it was pretty good to start with! This process took nearly 40 minutes and the spectators waited patiently, knowing that, at the end of it all (barring any more rain), the meeting was going to go ahead.
A few very light showers throughout the rest of the night didn’t disrupt the racing at all and the meeting ran its course. The officials did cut out one round of heat races so that they could ensure the feature races had a chance of being run but there were no complaints about that. The 30 lap NSW Title race for the AMCAS was a cracker and saw victory being taken by Victoria’s Tim Reidy, 2nd place by the South Australian driver, Ray Alexander and 3rd by the Queenslander, Steven Potts. Everyone agreed that it was a great meeting and the drivers were full of thanks for the officials who didn’t cancel the meeting at the first sign of rain (it does happen)
The closer we got to Wollongong on the way home, the more threatening it became and it was raining quite heavily when I pulled into my driveway at home. Into each life some rain must fall.
And, on that subject, my Phillip Island plans have had to undergo a major restructure. I was due to fly out to Melbourne tomorrow morning, as you know, but, yesterday afternoon I received a telephone call from my solicitor saying the other party in my injury claim case had scheduled an “informal conference to discuss a possible settlement”. It has been over three years now since my accident and there has never been the slightest hint that they would be prepared to discuss this so this could be a major breakthrough. The “rain” part? The conference is scheduled for late Thursday afternoon and cannot be changed or rescheduled. So, instead of Wednesday, I will now fly to Melbourne as early on Friday as I can and try to fit in my obligations to MotoPod as best I can. I will certainly be unable to get any where near the number of interviews that I would have been able to get on the Wednesday and Thursday, but I will do the best I can.
By the way, my two sets of interviews from the Island Classic have now been published and you can listen to them by clicking on either the link above or the permanent link to the right of this text.
Enjoy your, hopefully, rain-free day.