After months of negotiation and hard work by some club members and some help from CAMS staff and VORAP chairman it is great to be able to advise you that we have an alternative venue to Grinters Pit to run our race on 23 and 24 October 2010. Colin Grinter has been a fantastic host for us to run some very popular races on but we are very pleased he is now getting the rain required to grow some good crops and make some money after quite a few hard years.
The new track is located at the Mafeking Rover Park 20 minutes from Yea which is about 1 hour from the outer eastern suburbs. There is a sealed road to the gate, full camping facilities including powered sites, toilets and showers. The track we have planned will be 7 kms long. It is an interesting driver’s track with various terrain, including open fast sections, slow and fast corners and a steep twisty descent down the side of a hill. The race will be run over several heats over 2 days with the rest of the details still to be decided.
Congratulations to all that ventured to Sea Lake and Finke for the biggest weekend on the off road calendar. I had a good time at Sea Lake helping out where required. The track was in the best condition it has been for years with some nice rain a couple of weeks before the race and perfect weather throughout the weekend. Fantastic conditions only sucked competitors into a false sense of security resulting in 6 rollovers for the weekend. Check out the 2 articles later in the newsletter for all the news from the weekend.
Prologue went well for most; Toby Francombe in Bob Strawbridge’s new V8 powered Mk6 Southern Cross cleaned up in prologue and then won the dash for cash only to break a CV when leaving the start line on Sunday morning. Peter Sibson was pushing his Baja buggy along for a very good time. Cameron and Jodi Lyne were having a great time getting used to his new motor and power steering repairs. Travis Conrad had a disappointing time after fitting some hot cams to his Honda powered Southern Cross and spent the weekend looking for answers. Some of the other hard luck stories include Brett Osbourne who is rumoured to have had the most spectacular roll over, 6 times after clearing a fence but not seen by many. Paul Carolan on the other hand rolled Sandy Bowman’s Nissan right in front of everyone on the hill on the start finish straight after clipping a tyre resulting in a trip to hospital for both.
Alan Gerardi took the Saber Racing Pro Lite to Finke, he had trouble on Sunday but after some repairs late in the evening had a good run back to Alice Springs on Monday. More stories from the weekend from reporters on the ground are later in the newsletter.With round 2 of both the National and State Championship coming up in 2 states on Queens Birthday weekend most of you will be getting prepared to race, navigate or help out at one of the races. Good luck and have a good time.
View the Finke Results at Off Road Racing.com.au
Until next month,
Brett Price
President
Dear Offroader
Due to concerns raised by competitors at the recent AORC event at Hyden, the Off Road Commission has spent considerable time as promised, assessing firstly the need for an upper noise limit and secondly the effectiveness of the current noise testing method.
While it would certainly be easier to just give up on this, the Commission feels it would be environmentally unsound to permit "open exhausts", which in essence would be allowed if we were to abandon the current noise regulation. Given that over ninety percent of current AORC fields are complying with the regulation shows that the 95dbA limit is achievable.
The drive by method of testing vehicle noise, has come into question as the results can vary from event to event due to environmental and weather conditions. To help alleviate these variances, the Off Road Commission this year introduced an allowance of +3% over the limit,as well as three opportunities to reduce the noise of offending vehicles to below the limit. As a result of criticism of drive by noise testing, myself, along with Fred Severin and other scrutineers have been working on an adapted static test that would ideally be carried out at scrutiny and be easily replicated away from the track. Although results of this trial are promising, we will not be replacing the current method until we are sure the static test is effective.
I respectfully ask that if you wish to discuss this, or any other matters at the Finke Desert Race you approach myself or Marilyn Emmins (Deputy Chair AORCom) or any of the Commissioners present rather than to disrupt any official proceedings during the event.
Regards
Ben Erceg
Chairman AORCom.
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We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.
Venue: Shell Australia
Ground Floor, Room 14
8 Redfern Road
Hawthorn East
When: First Thursday of the month (except January)
Supper provided
Contact on night - Cass Ritchie - 0418 59 88 59
Opportunity to: * Meet new committee and club members
* Have your say about the future direction of the club
* Find out the latest Off Roading news at National, State and Club level
* Renew your membership - NOW DUE!!
* Catch up and find out about the Club Championship