Round 3 - 2013

A MSG FROM THE PRESIDENT!:

Hi All,

Just a quick note (you know it won't happen) to say how incredibly impressed
I was with the Ballarat Light Car Club today. I cannot remember the last
time I spent a day at the races without hearing some sort of gripe, usually
warranted ones. Today I heard nothing but praise all day, and I loved it
too.

I'm not really sure where to start but I will give it a shot as today was a
fantastic example of the things that make a day at autocross fun and there
are many things that all clubs could take away from today. It's probably
easiest if I just write you a great big list.

By my count we were getting through about 80 cars an hour, ensuring that 90
cars got six runs in daylight. This did not happen because competitors drove
faster, as we would like to think, it happened because there was never an
interruption in the flow of cars for any period of time, break downs and the
dreaded water truck did not slow things down for longer than 5 -10 minutes.
That is just plain old great organization that made that happen (and having
three cars on the track at a time, hint hint, hint hint)

You knew your time instantly. Now that is pretty flash, having a screen
showing the time as you go over the line and then three monitors displaying
the progressive scores for all to see is a nice touch, especially because we
could scroll up and down as it progressively added times as if by magic
(Which is a good trick too).

But, at the point that you have a smart phone app that is sending times to
you as they come in I am truly in awe. Now I don't really care that it
stopped working through the day because it will get fixed and it has sewn
the seed for great things. And, as I said in drivers briefing, it is also
showing off, when I was a boy your times got mailed to you and delivered to
you by a bloke on a postie bike some time after the event.

The catering and officials were all fantastic. Everyone just did their job
and did it well, all were well informed and accessible, I saw one timing
stuff up for the day, which means 99.8% of the time everything worked
beautifully. That may sound easy but timing cars of different shapes and
sizes, in multiples and on the dirt is not easy at all, the dust alone
screws most systems.

I checked every class A and B car for class eligibility myself during the
day, as it tends to be a contentious issue. Not one was in the wrong class,
there were 8 or 9 of them, frankly this is unheard of.

The track is ace, and held up damn well under 540 runs on rally tyres. One
corner just seems to flow into the next, it's just golden. Congratulations
must go to Martin Grigg for breaking the track record, throwing it on the
ground and then later setting it on fire. I believe more than 2 seconds were
shaved off. Although I do feel sad for you if you missed the spectacle of me
trying to drive that bloody thing on to the trailer, it is always good for
the soul to have a laugh at a less fortunate idiot than yourself.

I think that will do, I'm in danger of sounding like defecting. But
seriously, real congratulations need to go to Arron Secombe and his team who
did a great job all day.

We may be back there sooner than you think....watch this space

Good to see you all today too,

Cheers

Jade Lawson
VCAS Chairperson 2013

VCAS RD 3 REGS HAVE JUST ARRIVED BACK FROM CAMS. Download them here now!

Because of the delay in getting theses regs published BLCC will waive the extra fee for late entries. The VCAS series competitor priority scheme however will still apply.

Camping is available at or near the BLCC autocross complex on Saturday and Sunday nights. Contact Arron Secombe on 0425857824 for further details or see the blcc website http://www.blcc.net.au/?page_id=87

Event Date: 
Sunday, 21 April, 2013