The Mallala historic meeting was well supported in most classes with Formula Vee competing with the K,L,M, classes. This worked reasonably well as some good dicing kept everybody on their toes.
The weather was fantastic with 5 vees racing and 1 vee running in the regularity class.
Geoff Stone and Matt Scott benefited from some phone coaching on the Friday private practice which helped their competitive form throughout the weekend.
The weekend started badly for Team Shearer in the regularity class with their Elfin Vee having an un fixable Oil leak, so the entry was re allocated to Don Greivesons car which would run for the rest of the weekend in both Regularity for Matt Shearer on board and then in the races with Don at the wheel. Geoff Stone, Matt Scott and Paul Faulkner came from interstate and Frank Chessel and Don being local South Australians.
1 Qualifying session was followed by 2 races, a handicap race and then 2 more scratch races.
Geoff Stone was determined to race even with a recovering leg injury, and he did well after some private practice the previous day. The old fox worked out if he followed Don in Qualifying he would be in with a sporting chance, and Paul, Matt and Frank followed in sight of the more experienced pair to be not far behind.
Race 1 saw some real racing with the Vees giving the 3 other faster cars in the group in front a real hard time, Don having Paul and Geoff chasing hard and watching Don do his best to keep the pressure on the faster K,L & M cars. Matt and Frank were not far behind, in a separate battle.
Matt Shearer gave us a few heart beats after falling off the track twice in Don’s car in the 2nd Regularity, however we sorted him out, gave the car some more negative camber at the rear and some instruction on the downshift to 3rd gear and all was well. He remained on the black stuff in the other 3 regularity races, and lost stacks of points by going a lot faster than his nominated time.
Race 2 was deferred from the Saturday, as a number of incidents involving other classes had delayed the program. Again another titanic battle with Don showing Frank Chessell how to go about it. Frank had by now got the feel of his new set of Hoosier tyres and said he felt quite happy with them. Norm and Matt followed not far behind, with Geoff deciding to rest the leg a little longer in bed. Geoff was taking in the ambience of the Novatel in the Barossa Valley, if you get the picture. With perfect weather and not a sight of the northern climate tropical rain, we could all understand his enjoyment.
Next up a handicap, which we all took part in. Geoff Stone arrived and fit to get stuck into it. Geoff
had to go back into the memory bank to work out how it all worked, and in true old fashioned form he soon worked it out and we all proceeded to do some heavy passing and being passed by the faster front part of the K,L,M, class cars. All finished in fine form having had a bit of fun in the true picnic race format. Frank Chessell had a mechanical problem on the warm up lap which put an end to his days racing. Fortunately being a Formula Vee it shouldn’t cost much to rectify.
Races 4 and 5 saw the remaining 4 racing vees continue to show these more powerful other cars a thing or two about how fast a Formula Vee can be from the braking zone to the completion of a corner. Mallala has 2 hard braking zones and a tricky little esses that shows up the really strong points of a Formula vee. Don Greiveson was at a considerable advantage due to his local knowledge, and the others were ably assisted by this knowledge to be not far behind in lap times. Paul Faulkner [who also ran his Formula Ford] and Matt Scott picked up a trophy to support their efforts on the weekend
A good weekend was had by all our competitors in perfect weather, with no damage and plenty of racing for the very reasonable entry fee.