Part 1The much anticipated DECA Day, aptly named the “Drive like a peanut day” was a great success. Held on the huge skidpan of the Driver Education Centre of Australia (DECA), in Shepparton, the whole idea behind the day was to enable members and their friends to drive their cars around a series of various timed courses in a safe, controlled environment. Four events were held during the day – the first two on a dry skidpan, before the sprinklers were turned on, which then provided a wet skidpan for the second two events. Motorkhana – Entrants maneuvered their cars into a series of bays, both forwards and in reverse, before finishing up in the last bay. On a dry skidpan, it made for plenty of squealing tyres! Four Leaf Clover – The most popular event of the day. This was the highest speed event of the day. Entrants drove around witches hats in 4 corners, but each time returning and looping a central witches hat, and finally finishing in a bay. As predicted, plenty of drifting, plenty of spin outs, but it was all great to watch! Figure Eight – Entrants had to navigate their way through a “figure 8” shape made from witches hats, then complete a full circle around the entire lot, before finishing up in a bay. The catch – a wet skidpan! Suddenly the higher horsepower cars were in all sorts of trouble! This was another great event to watch. Mayhem – The objective here was to complete as many circles as possible within 30 seconds, around a central group of witches hats. Many believed this would be turned into a donut comp, however an outer circle of witches hats was also setup which prevented this! So all those spinning out on the wet skidpan had to correct and continue on. Once out of the course however, some very creative driving was to be seen! So what a great day! We arrived shortly after 8:30am, and didn’t leave until 5:30pm. With around 30 entrants, everyone got a huge amount of turns at each event, a lot of people were exhausted from driving so much! For only $25 a person you couldn’t have much more fun than that!!!! This was easily the best event I’ve ever been to with the club. I had an absolute blast! The skidpan was great fun! So much fun in fact that my accelerator fell off in one run, and my horn button fell out in the next, hehe. I thought all 4 courses were excellent & challenging, and this turned out to be an excellent day for spectators too, as they watched some entrants competing seriously, and others, well, just driving hard going banana’s! Can’t wait for the next one, - Brett Part 2I can’t think of a day where I have seen so many huge smiles as the day at DECA. With a vast range of cars about and heaps of “bumming of rides” - even those who weren’t driving at all had plenty of memorable moments. A few spring to mind:
As a non club member this great day at DECA has convinced me to join, see you all at the next club event. - Dan (that guy in the EB…I did try to get it on two wheels) Part 3Just wanted to let you all know that this was one of the best events I’ve been to with the club. It was like our own Spring Nats but we didn’t have to wait one hour for our turn! I was lucky enough to ride in about 25 of the 30 cars and also had time to drive my own. There were four events, two wet and two dry. My favourite was the four-leaf clover – the high speed sideways event! And a few Nut Cases just let loose like John and Stormy. I had a crack as well. During the break there were three or four cars out on the track trying to spread the water around for the wet events. The guys egged me on to help as well. Dave told me off so many times for drifting because I was spreading the water out where we didn’t want it. But Adam kept telling me to pin it – so I did! I just want to thank all who rganized this awesome event and those who helped to marshall. It was an absolute pissa of a day. That’s all kids, call me…. - Mackie |