The Adelaide Motorsport Festival is a recent initiative by the Sporting Car Club of South Australia and promoters to bring motorsport back to the CBD, combining the rejuvenated Classic Adelaide with the Victoria Park Sprint.
The “Sprint” event uses a abbreviated Adelaide F1/Clipsal 500 circuit, confined to the parklands. While the course appears short, it provides enough action and speed (comparable to Mallala).
The highlight of the course is attacking the chicane getting some awesome air time. Photography access was limited but one sneaky shot captured by Member August just captures some of the fun.
The real highlight of the event was the variety of cars and the festival atmosphere. Whilst we were stereotyped and quarantined to a small group of fellow skyline owners, each group of cars was great to watch.
There was no single favourite car, but to hear the sound of a ‘proper’ aural experience. To see Jim Richards behind the wheel of the JPS BMW was a flashback to a childhgood memory. The trackside festivities were enhanced with a great crew, featuring fellow Member Colin and Jenkies (a ring in from Dogzilla motorsport). To fill some time in between runs, we decided to perform some modest aero tweaks to the rusty bootlid on the GTR with a gurney flap sourced from local hardware suppliers. Needless to say, the “patina” and tek screws drew plenty of attention on the day.
To top off this modest attention, we went out with a bang in the last session. After another entrant's RB25 put a leg out of bed, some minor chaos ensued. Julian Newton found the oil and hit the wall hard, initially damaging his ego, a few ribs and his wallet the well prepared GTR which he had borrowed from a mate (luckily his ego was repaired shortly after he confirmed there was unsighted oil). Shortly thereafter Greendog GTR discovered the oil at the same time the throttle was lifted on the entry to the corner. Despite the close call, the only further damage was to the front tyres which sustained flat spots down to the canvas. There were a few others who also span on the oil, but their recovery was far more elegant.
We look forward to next year and would love to see some more variety from the Touge Crew both on and off the track in 2016. Big thanks to fellow Touge members Colin and August (Augustography) for helping out over the weekend.