Saturday August 28 dawned a cold morning as Touge Alliance members Jason Bradbrook and Jared Green met with a couple friends in the Adelaide Hills town of Kersbrook. While cold and windy it wasn’t raining which was a relief – the weather reports had been forecasting rain all week. The initial meeting was a cruise to a ‘Come and Try’ event at the Collingrove Hillclimb, one of Australia’s premier Hillclimb venues.
For those who don’t know, Hillclimb is a speed event, where one car and driver runs over a defined course against the clock. In competition cars are classified into categories so as to even out the contest and having cars of like potential performance running against each other. However, the real contest is the individual one where each driver tries on each run to improve their individual time i.e., the hill and the clock vs the car and the driver. Come and Try events like this one are an opportunity for those who have never competed at a Hillclimb to participate at low cost and minimal requirements.
The diversity of competing vehicles was huge. Jason’s Mazda RX-7 and Jared’s Proton Satria GTi shared time on the track with an E36 BMW M3, a turbo all wheel drive Mazda Familia, numerous normally aspirated and turbocharged Skylines and Silvias, a couple Skyline GT-Rs, Mk II Escorts, numerous hot hatches (such as VW GTi and Peugeot 205) and many other cars, including a couple of purpose built full chassis race cars and a Toyota Prius!
The two drivers were joined by many other members who came along to cheer them later in the day. This poses minor problems, as all those in attendance now wish to compete themselves at the next one!
Both Jared and Jason posted competitive times in the mid-to-low 42s, improving all day and running their best times late in the day.
Jared (Proton Satria GTi) – 41.35
Jason (Mazda RX-7) – 41.98
While these times are well off the pace of the R33 GT-R in the mid 35 second bracket, both times are competitive when considered for their respective class (2A-Sports Cars Closed 1601-3000cc) At the recent Winter Cup event the top time for the class was a 39.5, so both drivers were close, and within improvement, especially when you consider that this was their first event.
Videos:
Jase warming up his tyres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keSlgq_HmNo
One of Jason's runs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48Qr8UVqrB0
Incar video from Jason's Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqgvvghaeEM
Jared warming up his tyres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6XNQ4ZFd8U
Jared from the starting line:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bmdHPs4W-Q
View of one of Jared's runs from the hill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfhuB98jyQM