Motorsport

It was hard work getting out of bed this morning (I thought there was only one 5 o’clock in the day and it is in the afternoon). By Day 3 it is almost like Groundhog Day with leaving the track in the dark and arriving in the dark as well.

The weather today was probably perfect with periods of cloud.

Today was a full program with races for the V8 Utes, Dunlop V8 Development Series, Formula 3, Carrera Cup, Aussie Racing Cars, GT Championship and of course, Race 1 of the V8 Supercars. There was even some Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars putting on a show.

The notorious Turn 8 claimed a few more scalps during the V8 Supercars with one crash taking out 3 cars.

The V8 Supercar race was a nail biter with the last lap deciding the winner with Jamie Whincup passing Will Davison just a few corners before the finish line. A Holden over a Ford win certainly brought most of the pit straight grandstand to their feet cheering.

Although we didnt have any fires today, there certainly were plenty of recoveries.

Another late night with a twilight race for the GT Championship with some light rainfall to make it interesting. Will be looking forward to as much shut eye as possible tonight.

Well the 2012 Clipsal 500 was upon us and we thought that it was going to be washed away. All day yesterday being the last day of summer, it rained constantly with temperatures in the low 20′s. Apart from doing the setup and pulling out bogged trucks, it was all ready to go.

Move forward 12 hours and it was a different day. The rain had stopped but was still overcast and the ground was starting to dry up.

An early start and briefing for the 100 fire marshals, many of which we had not seen since last years race meeting. Even though we were down a little in numbers, we still had enough to maintain a safe presence on the track.

The obligatory hit of caffeine before heading up to Race Control and it was time to bring on the cars.

It was a relatively quiet day on the track with only 24 recoveries and 1 fire.

After a senior officials briefing at the end of the day, I managed to make it home before dark but only just (lucky we still have daylight saving).

The Final Day for the Clipsal 500 is normally a laid back sort of day compared to the other three. There a couple of races in the morning to fill in the time til the pomp and ceremony of the Driver’s Parade, a V8 Ute Race then the final 250 kms of the Clipsal 500 to finish off the day.

This morning wasn’t all that different to other final days except that there was a hint of rain on the way. Not a little bit of rain but tropical rain from the north. After yesterday’s perfect conditions, it was going to make today’s racing interesting.

The rain kept holding off but we had an eye on the radar. We got through the first races with no issues, then a Driver’s Parade with 200 Harley Davidson’s then the Driver Photo.

It was then time for the V8 Ute Race and the heavens opened up. Perfect timing with the utes just on the grid. This was going to be fun as they have little control in the dry.

The utes behaved themselves until the last lap then they let loose. I am not sure how many were in the field at the start of the race but I had 11 broken utes to organise recoveries with only 9 tow trucks (we thought that would be enough) and the big race to come.

We cleaned up th track with time to spare and it was time for Race 2 of the Clipsal 500. The track was still damp and the cars were running wet tyres. After around 25 laps, the track started to dry and crews starting to change to slick tyres and it wasn’t long before we had more rain and then cars starting hitting concrete barriers. We had one recovery out of that downpour with the others limping back to Pits.

Wet tyres were put back on and of course the track started to dry again. Sicks started to go back on which resulted in the rain coming down which brought out another Safety Car for another recovery. The race did finally finish but I am unsure of what tyres were on at the time.

It was a matter of seconds after the last car crossed the Finish Line before the track invasion began. How no one was cleaned up, I am not sure.

Our final task in Race Control was to fair well the Chief Medical Officer, Roger Capps, who was retiring after this year. It was then on to the Thankyou BBQ, not before having a couple of beverages at the A Team in the rain.

Another good year is complete …..

There is one constant with the Clipsal 500 – we get to the track in the dark and we leave the track in the dark with a small window in between to grab a few hours shut eye.

Today was no different. In fact, we had another twilight race which ran later than last night. It was a one hour Australian GT Championship Race but after half an hour we weren’t sure whether the race would last that long.

In the first half hour about half of the field was out of the race, leaving 13 cars to compete into the dark and the flaming pyrotechnics at the completion of the race.

Being the second day, I had another 20 fire fighters at my disposal which made the “chess game” of positioning fire marshals a lot easier.

Today looked like it was going to be a quiet day for recoveries and it was but we still got a lot of business from the Formula Ford and Aussie Racing Cars.

Bring on Day 3 …..