Tag Archives: Motorkhana

“What’s the bet that we can’t find a $200 car, buy it, and race it tomorrow? That’s only $50 each…”

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This is the tale of 4 knockabout blokes, and their spur of the moment quest to find a car, buy it, prepare it and race it – all in less than 24 hours.

Our story begins at the Southern Districts Car Club’s Go-Kart night at Kart Mania on Saturday night. After a thrilling and physically tough race, myself (second from left), Damian Reed (third from left), Mark Williams (fourth from left) and Patrick Chan (not pictured because his race result sucked) decided to head back to Patrick’s for a post race beer or two.

As these things do, conversation soon turned to the following day’s dirt motorkhana at Lanac Park, and it turned out that none of us were going as no one had a suitable car. And then at about 10pm, a comment was flippantly made; a casual off the cuff statement that was the cause of some semi-serious laughter.

“What’s the bet that we can’t find a $200 car, buy it, and race it tomorrow? That’s only $50 each…”

Never has this meme been more accurate.

Nek minnut, everyone had their phones out and was surfing Gumtree. “I’ve found a Pintara at… oh wait, it’s an auto”. Our criteria was that it must be a manual, it must fit into our budget, it must have at least a day’s rego and it must be available that night.

Shortlisted cars included a Holden Apollo and a luxury spec Volvo 740 (an auto, but the leather and sunroof almost justified it). Damo thought he was onto a winner when he found a manual VH Commodore. It was $500, but Damo was confident he could talk the owner down. We had a good laugh watching the text message conversation with the serial Commodore owner, but unfortunately it had no rego and the guy couldn’t sell it to us until Monday. Damn. Continue reading →

OZGymkhana series – Gymkhana1

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It takes a dedicated group of individuals to organise a motorsport event, and a lot more goes on behind the scenes than any spectator or competitor usually realises. What’s even more amazing is when a group of volunteers decide to run a completely new type of event that’s never been run before. In addition to the usual myriad of organisational tasks, there are a few other hurdles that need to be overcome such as finding a location, finding a way to fit it within the event structures of governing bodies (ie CAMS), and last but not least, actually convincing competitors and spectators to come.

The team at Ultimate Motorsport Events (and the Southern Districts Car Club) are no strangers to staging impressive events – the Mt Alma Mile hillclimb and Adelaide Hills Tarmac Rally form their annual portfolio, so they were the perfect group of volunteers to run the first ever OZGymkhana event.

UME make no secret that they got the idea for OZGymkhana from the famous Ken Block Gymkhana practise videos, and the event was borne from the thinking that it would be pretty cool to run an event like that in Adelaide. The team picked Tailem Bend Motorsport Park (the old Mitsubishi testing and proving grounds) as the ideal location because of its mix of a long runway, skidpad and several curving access and test roads.

OZGymkhana runs on the principles of traditional bitumen motorkhana; you go from a standing start, navigate a series of obstacles and then finish when you come to a complete stop at the finish line. You are penalised by a few seconds for hitting cones, or penalised quite heavily for a ‘Wrong Direction’, ie going the wrong way through the test. The competitor with the fastest accumulated time after all tests is declared the winner. Continue reading →

Supersprint Round 4 & Porsche club motorkhana

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Perfect weather and perfect track conditions accurately sum up Round 4 of the MSCA Supersprint series. Instead of going through each individual performance, I’ll focus on a few of the highlights of the day as well as taking a quick look at the Porsche club motorkhana which was simultaneously taking place on the skidpad.

Guy Standen had the 124 out in its final shakedown before our Targa Adelaide campaign next week. Apart from a minor gearbox issue which has since been rectified, the 124 performed faultlessly and is ready for 4 days of tarmac rally action.

This Evo 10 won the award for biggest spoiler and ended up setting a high 1.16. It probably should have been at WTAC in Sydney though, which was happening on the same weekend. Continue reading →

OZGymkhana – a new series of events inspired by Mr Block

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Nobody can deny the impact that Ken Block’s Gymkhana Practice series of online videos has had on the automotive landscape. Setting all sorts of records for most views on Youtube and just about everywhere else, the Gymkhana series has spread to become an international phenomenon in a matter of just a few short years. Every car enthusiast with a pulse has surely at some time wanted to give Gymkhana a crack, and the good news is that OZGymkhana will enable you to slalom till your heart’s content.

Any Given Reason will be there to cover OZGymkhana, and we might even get behind the wheel for a bit of slalom action.

 

The official press release has all the info you need to know:  Entries are now open for Round 1 of the OZGymkhana series, an exciting new motorsport competition to be held by Ultimate Motorsport Events on September 23.

Modelled on the style of gymkhana made famous by Ken Block in his ‘Gymkhana Practice’ videos, OZGymkhana will see participants compete over a minimum of four specially designed tests on a tarmac surface at the Tailem Bend Motorsports Park. 

OZGymkhana takes a regular bitumen motorkhana, opens it up, gives it a few more gears and adds a dash of speed. It will allow the competitors to show much more flair in tests and is expected to provide faster and more exciting action for competitors and spectators alike. 

‘We’ve designed the OZGymkhana course to reflect the realistic and accessible challenge shown in Ken Block’s first Gymkhana video’ says Michael Clements, OZGymkhana Clerk of Course. ‘Every car enthusiast who watched that video must have at some stage thought about how much fun it would be to find an open area and do something like that, and it occurred to us that this would be a fantastic starting point for a new type of event’.

 Classes will be split by vehicle capacity and level of modification, and prizes will be awarded for the fastest accumulated time in each class across the day-long event. Gymkhana1, on September 23, will be the first event of a two round OZGymkhana championship, with Gymkhana2 set to be held on December 9.

Tailem Bend Motorsport Park, which has been developed from the old Mitsubishi testing and proving grounds, was chosen because it is the perfect venue for this type of event. The 1.4km long drag strip, carparks, skid pans and access roads provide almost limitless opportunities to design the series of challenging and exciting tests, whilst providing a safe environment with little risk of injury or damage. 

The team behind OZGymkhana, Ultimate Motorsport Events, is the same team who organise and run the popular Mt Alma Mile hillclimb at Inman Valley and the annual Adelaide Hills Tarmac Rally. The OZGymkhana series continues Ultimate Motorsport Events’ push to grow affordable grassroots motorsport that is accessible to as many people as possible.

Entries for Gymkhana1 are strictly limited to 60 places and close Monday September 3. The supplementary regulations, including the official entry form, can be found on the series website at www.ozgymkhana.com.au. ‘Like’ the event on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ozgymkhana to stay up to date with the latest news and information about the OZGymkhana series. 

And here’s Gymkhana 1, just for kicks. In my opinion the original is still the best.

 

2012 Fiat Nationals

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The annual Fiat Nationals took place at Benalla, Victoria, this past weekend (20-21 January). In what has become an annual pilgrimage for us, we made the 900km trek over in our 1987 Alfa Romeo Sprint and 1979 Fiat X1/9. Yes, that is correct. Every year we drive old Italian cars halfway across the country in the middle of an Aussie summer. Crazy.

See here for motorkhana photos.

See here for Show & Shine and Supersprint photos.

The event has been run as a motorkhana and next year will be celebrating it’s 50th running. Historically run around places like Dubbo and Wagga Wagga, 7 years ago the event moved to Bathurst and enjoyed the addition of a speed event for the first time – a hillclimb up the famous Bathurst race track. This was when I started attending and I ended up competing at the Bathurst hillclimb three times. The event then moved to Goulburn and featured a supersprint around the Wakefield Park circuit. Attending both of these locations from Adelaide involved crossing the Hay Plains (not a great deal of fun in summer), so it was with great happiness when I read that the event would be moving to Benalla, Victoria, for 2012. The event would also include a supersprint around the Winton circuit.

So that’s how I found myself behind the wheel of the Alfa last Friday, chasing one of the most amazing dawn sunrises I’ve seen into the distance. It was forecasted to be a hot day and the early morning air was refreshingly balmy as it kissed and caressed the skin. Lights on, windows down, we sped through the darkness with the knowledge that things were going to get quite a bit warmer as soon as that sun rose. Continue reading →