First Outing 2008

What better way to start the new than take the car to the track for a shake-down. We headed up to Queensland Raceway with my car and Brett's and had some great fun chasing each other around.

It was very rewarding to see the number 1 on the car. I think Brett in particular took a great deal of joy from placing the much coveted number 1 on the car.

Round one was at Morgan Park in March. I did enough to manage fourth place after the weekend's racing. A little disappointing as an outcome but Jim Mann ran away with the event leaving me, Nick Foster and David Lawrence to pick up some close points.

We returned to Morgan Park in April for round 2. I collected even fewer points than I did in round 1, but because of some problems for David Lawrence, I had accumulated sufficient points to move up the ranking to third place overall after the weekend.

For something completely different, we went to Queensland Raceway for round 3. Nick Foster ran away with this meeting. I did some typically consistent work that resulted in a second place overall for the weekend and retention of third place in the overall standings.

Who said motorsport didn't have its characters?

Round 4 was back to Morgan Park for the Southern Downs Winter Challenge. And a challenge it certainly was. David Lawrence had some car preparation and coaching done by Brett so now there was some good racing going on up front between him and Jim Mann.

This resulted in one race with them coming together and allowing me to jump into the lead for a while. Jim got by me again after getting going again only to take a huge wobble into turn one when a front suspension arm broke, the result of the nudge with David. I saw this as opportunity so I stayed in close. Too close as it turned out. Jim lost the car and stopped sideways across the track.

I all but stopped my car only to punch the nose of my car into his right rear wheel. I could keep going, but only after David managed to get by. Jim couldn't finish that race and I finished second behind David.

The end result was a second place for me for the weekend and an elevation to second place in the overall standings.

There were huge events in my calendar that occurred around mid-year. These were:

1) A trip to Monza Italy to drive a Formula 1 car; and

2) A trip to Phillip Island to race Formula 3.

Monza F1

I had been looking for a formula 1 experience drive for some time when Mary showed me an AMEX offer brochure about the Monaco GP. That wasn't of great interest except for one line on it the read "and while you are there, why not do the Bridgestone F1 Experience at Monza". Well, I was onto that in a flash and within three weeks I was at Monza fulfilling my life's ambition!

The experience was awesome. It was run by an Italian company called Puresport. They have a fleet of F3's, Formula Nissan, F1 and GT cars. I went for the ten lap F1 package. That package included ten laps in F3 to warm-up and get used to Monza a little in the morning. The afternoon switched to a briefing on how to get the F1 car off the line and manage it on the track.

The F1 car I drove was Jos Verstappen's circa 2000 Arrows. 700HP Cosworth V8 with six-speed paddle shift gearbox.

All I can say is that is was an awesome experience. You should go and do it sometime.

Apart from satisfying a life-long ambition, my trip to Monza to drive F1 also totally poisoned my mind about what I wanted to drive in the future. OK, so I had driven an F1 car and at Monza, the birth-place of Grand Prix racing. It was awesome but it was an experience drive, not a hard-edge test. I had also had a day in an F3 car at Eastern Creek in 2005. This was also pretty good, but still a little "soft".

What I wanted was a hard-edge test and race in an F3 car. I also wanted to drive at Phillip Island sometime. The opportunity to kill two birds with one stone emerged not long after my return from Italy.

I was poking around the F3 Australia web site, as I am prone to do from time to time, when I saw that Scud Racing had an F3 seat available in their F301 Dallara Opel Spiess for the upcoming Shannon's Nationals round at Phillip Island. I called the team principal Bill Maddocks and soon enough the arrangements were made for me to test on the Wednesday leading up to the event and race that weekend.

What an awesome experience that was! Not without its trials though.

After my first session on Wednesday morning, I was ready to pack up and go home! I had enormous difficulty in just getting the car off the line. I then stalled it four times at Honda corner (the first hairpin bend).

Things improved from there and by the end of the day I had beaten my target time of 1 minute 35 seconds. I did a low 34.

There were two practice sessions on the Friday. My best time was 1 minute 34.02 seconds. I was pretty happy with that even though that car is capable of 1 minute 27 seconds at Phillip Island in the hands of an F3 champion.

Qualifying on Saturday was a mixed bag for me. I was totally distressed to be punted off the track by a championship contender early during the first qualifying session. I recovered to post a 1 minute 32.7 second best lap in the second session. I didn't realise, but that placed me second fastest in category. I was stoked with that!

Fine weather had prevailed up to that point. Sunday turned on the rain for racing. I didn't like the prospect of that at all. Come race time Sunday, I looked at the wet track and the amount of spray being thrown up by cars and was thinking that there was no way I was going out there. Ultimately, I bit the bullet and strapped-in for the race. I ended up just driving the car around, but I am glad I did. I ended up with two second in class trophies as a result!

Round 5 was a mixed bag of fortune. I was delighted to present my new driving suit for the first time. I went for a retro look with the vertical stripes like from the Le Mans days of old.

Many thanks to Revolution Racegear for producing a very professional suit in Australia in a relatively short time.

I had an unfortunate incident first up on Friday practice when a rear brake line failed sending the car into the wall. That put an end to the day's practice while the boys repaired the resulting suspension and body damage. A huge thank-you to Greg Fahey who loaned me the nose and top body cover from his car so I could race.

There was plenty of good racing over the weekend resulting in a fourth place overall for the weekend and holding onto second overall in the championship.

Round 6 saw us at Morgan Park again with the car fitted with a new nose and top body cover. It was good to have the car fully repaired and back in action.

The racing was good as always with me ending up fourth again for the weekend and slipping to third overall in the championship.

The treat for the weekend was fitting an on-board video camera for the first time.

Round 7 took us back to Queensland Raceway for the last race meeting of the year. We ran on the shorter Clubman Circuit. It took a little more getting used to the Queensland Raceway layout than I might have expected. We managed OK and enjoyed the weekend.

It rained heavily toward the end of the last race which resulted in a red flag to finish the year.

Overall I ended up third for the year.

I'd like to thank Brett, Bryce and Simon of BF Racing for another year of great racing in a well prepared and reliable car.

Thanks also to my darling wife Dr Mary Dingley without whose support I wouldn't be racing in the first place.

Thanks also to Mark Coorey of deskmates.com for keeping my very sharp looking web site up to date.

Here is a round up of the 2008 season.