Bits and Pieces

Hi All

Michelle has asked if all club members can please make sure that she has your email addresses so that you can recieve club correspondance.

Martin is close to finalising this seasons calender and it just waiting to hear from a couple of tracks and then it will be released. Hopefully we'll see it on the next few weeks.

Well it seems that most of us are rebuilding and restocking for the new season and i know of one excited young man in Mandurah eagerly awaiting the arrival of his new toy from the US.

Hopefully this will be the first of a few new cars for this season.

Well thats all for now so stay safe and dry.

Mike

SKIP JACKSON -AFOS COLLECTION.

Hi all,

I am collecting donations for Skip Jackson on behalf of our club.

There is a press release on the Limited Sprintcar Web site telling about Skips condition.

I urge each of our club members to help us reach our goal of $2,500.00 but would love to see this go beyond to even double.

As a sprincar fan please get behind this initiative and offer support to Skip's family by way of a donation.

For those who do not know Skip is a former Australian Sprintcar Champion and lives in Knoxville where he has raced since leaving Australia.

As at today Wednesday 8/06/2011 we have raised $710.00

I will be emailing as many people as I can and phoning as many as I can to ask for your assistance in achieving our target.

We have 1100 hits per month to this blog so even if we only get 100 people donating we would pass the first goal.

Steve Crabbe

Carnarvon Wrap Up.

Hi all,

Shane Webster asked me to post this, for memories sake.

Carnarvon was another weekend of fun, first night was rained out and we hit the local pubs, just like the old days of playing rugby when we travelled around the Pilbara there were plenty of crew members and family out and about but the local drivers were conspicuous in there absence, we had plenty of amber fluid and food but all got out of there early enough to be fit for a 2pm double meeting race day on Sunday.

Sunday came and the track started to dry out, at 1pm we started wheel packing but it was to no avail, the mud just would not pack, the track was too wet for a grader so we waited some more, about 40 mins later 4 super sedans went out and started to try and run a line in, they succeeded and we took the sprintcars out again to help out, we rolled a 1.5 car wide line in and we were muddy but ready to go.

Not sure who won all the heats as we were bum up and head down in our camp but I can tell you Annette lost a fuel pump drive coming off of turn 4 which put her into the wall gently, the race was called after we got about 3 racing laps in which pissed me off no end, after getting several tonnes of mud on the car to get the race meeting going it appeared we were going to be given the short shift all night which is exactly what happened, there was no crane or anything else sent out to get Annette's car, it was left on the wall and we had to go and get it ourselves, thanks for coming 900km's to support our club, in the words of Sheldon from the big bang theory "that was sarcasm".

I won heat 3 and started off the back of heat 4, a big move on Robbie Stephens down the back straight on the outside had me tearing out the Jacobs ladder mounts on my chassis, my night was run, we got my power steering pump into Annette's car and my headers off and onto Glen's car being driven by Cory Gilpin and got them back out for the last few heats and the feature.

There were no other problems for the others and the track dialled in very fast.

The feature had Mick McGinnes off pole and Mat Peaker from Karatha on the outside pole.
Mick got away quickly and the positions really did not change from there, although the track was a bit one lane, the speed of the surface ensured unless someone made a big mistake it was a drag race for the brave.

1st Mick McGinnes
2nd Mat Peaker
3rd Robbie Stephens.

In summary we had a great time, but if the sprintcars run with the North West Championship for Sedans next year then we will be giving it a miss, it is just to far to go to be messed around.

The crowd may not have seen too much passing but they witnessed some of the fastest sprintcar racing you will see.

Steve (prima donna) Crabbe

Mick Doble update.

The off season has arrived for most of the drivers and crews, but we have decided to continue racing what meetings we can.

Mick McInnis and I travelled to Karratha on the 27th and 28th of May to compete in the Nickol Bay Speedway Sprintcar muster. The car numbers were not as good as they had hoped but the racing was fast and very close in most races, some of the local limited cars are not as fast as we are used to but to talk to them at the end of the night and to see how much fun they are having it just goes to show you don’t need all the latest gear to enjoy this sport.

The Limiteds started off with 9 cars and dropped off slowly throughout the night. The first was Burke Holla with an engine problem that saw him pack up and head back to Carnarvon, one of the local drivers tagged the wall and another chased a fuel problem all night.

I am sorry I did not get all the names of the drivers or the positions they came but the results I can remember are below.

Aaron Ishiguchi was fast in the first heat leading all the way, I started off the rear and finished second.
The second heat I lead for the first 4 or 5 laps only to run over a piece of curb that had made its way onto the track and cracked the left rear wheel and blow the tyre, on the restart one of the local drivers had the left rear wheel come off and stopped the race again and with this the race was declared, this should have meant Aaron picked up his second win.

The third heat I picked up the win from Aaron.
On the second night Dusty got his fuel problem sorted out and was on the pace. The first heat went to e from Aaron and Dusty came in third.

The second heat had Dusty take off and lead the race from start to finish with me finishing in second. Aaron clipped the wall early on and ended on the infield but luckily did not have much damage.

The feature came around with its share of confusion, first the officials didn’t want to have an interval so this gave us no time to prepare our cars but after a discussion took place they agreed to give us 10 minutes to get ready. After this there was a mix up with the division that was to go out first and the 360’s had been told to get ready. Aaron and I continued to get their cars ready only to see the local limiteds being pushed out, when the pit marshals were questioned who was meant to be out they also had no idea but after contacting the stewards they announced it was the limiteds after all and we had 2 minutes to get on the track?? Unfortunately Aaron missed the time limit and had to start from the rear leaving Dusty to fill position 2 next to me for the start.

At the end I won from Dusty and Aaron.
I did not get the results in the other divisions but Mick McInnis was fast both nights and took a couple of wins and ended second in the feature race, and Shawn Bradford the only other car that travelled from down south was as always very fast getting around in the low 13 second range. Shawn took the win for the 410’s

It was a great week end of racing and we will be going back up again soon and it would be great to see some more cars make the journey up to support the Nickol Bay speedway. I would like to thank the committee and members who did everything they could to make it an enjoyable weekend and to see the smiles on the kids faces when they asked for autographs and posters etc makes it all worth the effort.

There is a race meeting in Carnarvon on the 4th and 5th of June with Steve and Annette Crabbe, Mick McInnis, Robbie Stephens, Andrew Pedlar and a few others heading up. Burke will be running a borrowed motor for the weekend as he hasn’t had time to fix his yet, there is also some very fast local drivers in Carnarvon so it should be another great weekend of limited Sprintcar racing. Unfortunately I will be working and will not be running again until the Far Western in Shark Bay.

Mick Doble