Running from Friday the 10th of November through to Sunday the 12th, the 2017 Summer Festival saw us wrapping up the 2017 historic motorsport season at Sydney Motorsport Park with a weekend of good friends, classic sports and racing cars and magnificent motorsport.
We may have called the event the Summer Festival, but it was technically held in spring and that turned out beautifully. We enjoyed perfect conditions for motorsport over the weekend. The weather was warm and summery in feel, without the brutal heat and humidity that peak Sydney summer can supply. Kind on the cars and kind on their drivers!
As always, it was a friendly and relaxed weekend, albeit this time out somewhat quieter than our summer meetings usually are. The event kicked off on Friday with private practice run by the ARDC, before settling in to qualifying and races on Saturday and Sunday. Eight grids joined in the fun, including:
- Formula Vee
- Group N
- Group MOP, Formula Junior and Invited Group QR
- SuperSprint
- Formula Ford
- Group S
- Regularity
- Group QR
It was great to see a varied and interesting group of cars out on the circuit, including rare and special machines and new some faces as well. As always, all of the cars presented were beautifully prepared and a joy to see driven in anger.
The Group S Relay Enduro was our feature event for the weekend and was a lot of fun, especially during the mid-race scramble when cars pull in to the pits for the driver swap or solo racer pit-stop. We were also happy to award a series of trophies on Sunday, with very special thanks to club patron Ron Tauranac who joined us for the presentation.
Sunday saw club members joining us for a club plate run and classic car display. Thanks to Rick Marks for organising the run and display, and to all of the club members who came along. Your participation and display added a great deal to the atmosphere and it was lovely to share the day with you.
The racing, regularity and super sprinting over the weekend was very good as always, with competitors putting on some great events. The standard of driving at our meetings is consistently excellent, displaying not only exciting dices, quick laps or consistent regularity, but safe, respectful and skillful driving conduct. This improves the safety of the sport, allows people to get involved with confidence and also allows us to get and enjoy the cars, sharing them with fellow fans, in a competitive, but safe, respectful and well-supported environment.
We’d like to send our sincere thanks to competitors, entrants and teams for supporting not only this event, but the HSRCA and sport of historic motorsport in general. The weekend itself represents the tip of the iceberg in terms of all of the work that goes into competing, and we greatly appreciate your passion and dedication.
On that note, the people who make up the club and who join in our events are some of the nicest you could hope to meet and it’s always a joy to spend a weekend together. The atmosphere at the track was friendly and relaxed, with the pits and paddock full of people chatting, tinkering and chillin’ out after events. Thanks for making Sydney Motorsport Park such a pleasant place to spend a weekend.
Most importantly, we, and I’m sure everyone involved, would like to send a ‘THANK YOU!’ of immeasurable importance to the many volunteers who support us and make all of this possible. Thank you for the time, talent and hard work that you lend to the sport and its people. Without your help, we wouldn’t be able to do any of this.
Thank you!
So with that, let’s move on to the photos! Take a few minutes to scroll through the photo galleries below, and please click through to the photographers’ websites if you’d like to organise prints or soft copies to support their work and the effort they put in to covering HSRCA events.
Images thanks to Riccardo Benvenuti, Daniel Ferraro, Bill Fonseca, Rod Mackenzie, Ken Meredith, Cori Mitchell, Brent Murray, Seth Reinhardt, Geoff Russell and Peter Schell.
For more from Riccardo, please see his website here and for more of Daniel’s work visit ferraroautomotivephotography.com. Bill Fonseca’s website can be reached by clicking this link. You can find Ken’s work at www.kenmeredith.com and Rod’s at rodmackenziecollection.com. Find Brent on Facebook at At Speed Images. Check out Geoff’s work on Instagram here.
If you’d like to reach out to Seth, Cori or Peter, please send Seth an email at seth@hsrca.com.
2017 Summer Festival by Riccardo Benvenuti
2017 Summer Festival by Daniel Ferraro
2017 Summer Festival by Bill Fonseca
2017 Summer Festival by Rod Mackenzie
2017 Summer Festival by Ken Meredith
2017 Summer Festival by Cori Mitchell
2017 Summer Festival by Brent Murray
2017 Summer Festival by Seth Reinhardt
2017 Summer Festival by Geoff Russell
2017 Summer Festival by Peter Schell
The HSRCA will return to race tracks in 2018! Put the following dates in your diaries:
- April 7 & 8 Autumn Festival at Wakefield Park featuring Formula Ford
- September 22 & 23 Spring Festival at Wakefield Park featuring the Mini Challenge
- December 1 & 2 Summer Festival at Sydney Motorsport Park featuring Formula 5000, ’60s racing cars and international visitors
