Improved Production, Collie Report
Posted on June 8, 2018 Tags: Collie Motorplex Ernie Hastie Memorial Western Australia
Race Report – Collie Motorplex – May 19
MAKE SMOKING HISTORY Improved Production State Championship Round 4
by Tim Riley
Over 3 Litre
“The story of the Spider and IPRAWA President Glen Melling got many laughs down in Collie, during the Ernie Hastie Memorial event. Your author had planned not to let the truth get in the way of a good story, but the truth turned out to be stranger than fiction.
“The story: Having travelled from Perth to Collie on the Friday and enduring a literally freezing night, the spider was rudely awoken from it’s slumbers in Race 1 – in the engine bay of Glen’s 6.0L Commodore. One cannot imagine the heat and noise in there, but to add insult to injury, Glen had an off-track moment, which would have given the spider’s chitinous exoskeleton a jolly good sand-blasting.
Don’t rile a miffed Arachnid
“By now nice and warm, if a little miffed, it seems the big arachnid recognised what was about to happen and decided it was time to make an escape as Race 2 started. As the big spider crawled up the windscreen through T1 & T2, most of us would have just accepted it would fly off in the wind. At race pace, Glen was uncertain if it was inside or outside the glass, so he tried the windscreen wipers. Spider flew off to the right but, unknown to Glen, it had flown in through his open window. Next thing is the spider falls from the sun-visor, under heavy acceleration, right into Glen’s lap, where furious swotting killed it. Glen was later seen walking kind of funny, but we’ll let Annette Melling tell you any further details!
Broken driveshaft ends game
“Meanwhile, we were there to race: Nic Mitic in the agile BMW M3 qualified on Pole and took Race 1, setting a new lap record of 49.4684 seconds. He looked set for a big haul of points, but then disaster struck on the warm up lap for Race 2. Broken drive shaft = end game.
“Long story short, Reuben Romkes won the event in his Green & Black Monaro, followed home by Dom Coniglio in the Evo V11 and ‘spiderman’ Glen Melling in the infested Commodore.
Under 3 Litre
Garry Edwards had a clean sweep in the Medina Automotive Service BMW E30.
Under 2 Litre
In a similar way, Ron Coote in the RS2000 Escort also got the broom out for a clean sweep.
Under 1600
Brad Wheeler in the Brad’s Handyman Honda Civic repeated the close racing of last month with Tim Riley (Infiniti Designer Pools), but this time reversed the fortunes and won a clean sweep of all three races. The pair never finished less than 1 second apart, but Brad always had just enough to do the job.
Casualties
“No serious casualties for the day, the worst being the mechanical failure for Nic Mitic. Finally, IPRAWA is grateful to our principal category sponsors Healthway for their ongoing support this year. IPRAWA is proud to support the Make Smoking History campaign. As always, a huge Thank You to Yokohama, and also thanks to additional sponsors Jasmat Steel Fabrications and JP Pallets. Please support the health message and the companies that support our racing.”
EDITED by AC
Leave a Reply