3rd Annual Club Drag Day – Heathcote Raceway

Another successful Heathcote Drag Day! The club’s 3rd year up there, and for the 3rd time in a row it was another stinking hot day!! At least we’re consistent! Whilst numbers were down this year, the turnout was still a very good one, with a solid number of cars making the journey (somewhere close to 30), plus several car-loads of spectators.

Most people arrived at the track nice and early to setup and prepare their cars, and of course get scrutineered. Slicks were fitted, exhausts dropped, and air cleaners removed – it was time to RACE! The day was run the same as in previous years – grudge racing to start with, followed by Dial-Your-Own racing in the afternoon with both a Male and Female class. The competition was fierce as usual, here are the end results for the DYO classes:

Dial-Your-Own (Male):

Dial-Your-Own (Female):

Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone else who raced and had a go. The day concluded after some more grudge racing, so it was time to pack up and make the journey home. This year we awarded the “Hard-Luck” trophy to Daniel Dickson with his Mazda RX7. For those who didn’t get to see his spectacular warm-up burnout, he actually managed to shear off every wheel stud and completely lost a rear wheel!! (My studs went that way, and my wheel went that way!!!! hehe). I’m sure everyone is happy to hear that all is now fixed, however he didn’t even get to make a single pass for the day – so that was by far the ‘Hard Luck’ story for this year.

Our 2nd trophy – the best “Light Of The Day”, which is awarded to the person with the quickest reaction time, this time went to none other than……. Dave J!!!! Well done. From memory, he managed a reaction time in the very low 0.4’s.

So another great day at the strip. Next year we are looking towards making the day a lot bigger in size, and inviting along a lot more people. That should ensure even better racing, and should make the day a whole lot more enjoyable for the spectators. A big thanks to all the Heathcote officials for running another smooth day for us, and also for providing the D.Y.O. trophies! They’ve also got some pics up on their official website www.heathcoteraceway.com.au so check it out!

The Results

Here are the results from 2005. I have tried my best to compile a thorough list, apologies to anyone I’ve missed who didn’t get their time into me at the last meeting, or who I didn’t manage to catch up with. Thanks to all those who emailed in their times!

For anybody interested in comparing these times to the last two years, drag out your old newsletters – Issue 3 (April 2003), and Issue 7 (April 2004). There have been some huge improvements for a lot of people. It’s great to see how close the cars are too in each of the various time categories.

- Brett Schubert