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 …..
