We’ve just returned from a magnificent spring weekend in Goulburn, where we enjoyed two delightful days of classic motorsport at the 2019 HSRCA Spring Festival. Now that we’ve returned to the present and the rigors of the working week, it’s time to reminisce!
With a good weather forecast in mind, the knowledge that Goulburn was blanketed in snow just a couple weeks ago and extensive prior experience, I did the usual thing and prepared for every atmospheric anomaly possible. Thankfully, it was all in vain because Goulburn turned on a picture perfect spring weekend – excellent conditions for a race meeting.
The action got under way with private practice on Friday, kindly hosted by Wakefield Park, and carried on almost uninterrupted through to Sunday afternoon. Thanks to expertly prepared cars and excellent driving standards, as well as the incredible support of many volunteers, the event ran like clockwork and drivers were able to enjoy plenty of track time.
Amongst our usual group of historic sports and racing cars, the event featured the awesome machines of the Australian Historic Sports Sedans Series, which ran in Supersprint, and the Regularity enduro. Along with the ever-impressive Group S, these were the most well-supported categories at the meeting and brought out some magic machines.
The Australian Historic Sports Sedans series joined us for the first time at the Spring Festival last year in 2018, and are a perfect fit for the HSRCA. They bring some truly spectacular cars out to play, with a lot of interesting history behind them, as well as a great deal of variety throughout their grid.
At the 2019 Spring Festival we were pleased to host the final round of their 2019 John McCormack Trophy. Victory went to Garry Ford, Ford Escort, followed by Aarron Hodges in the Falcon-powered Anglia and Ian Baird in the mighty little yellow Austin A30. With his win this weekend, Garry Ford took home the 2019 John McCormack Trophy.
Regularity took over the track on Sunday morning to contest a half-hour endurance event, which saw groups of closely-matched drivers throughout the field having plenty of fun. While it’s not quite as action-packed as the Group S enduro coming up at the Summer Festival later in the year, this is a great event which encourages some very impressive strategising from competitors, and is a lot of fun to take part in.
The winning team in the Regularity enduro was comprised of Ian Aston, Geoff Morse and Phillip Powel driving MGBs and the MGA of Richard Rose.
Group S fielded the largest grid over the weekend and, as always, put on some great races. At the Spring Festival the category was headlined by more than a couple quick Porsches and MGs, with the little Lotus Seven S4 of Michael Byrne in amongst it as well. This is one of the most competitive categories running at the moment, and produced some great drives over the weekend.
Similarly competitive are the open-wheel race cars of Historic Formula Vee and Historic Formula Ford. While the two grids were great to watch on their own, they were spectacular when combined on Sunday. The cars are very close on the performance front, and with closely-matched drivers there’s a lot of drafting, passing and action in their events.
The big wings ‘n slicks cars of Q & R and the historic sports and racing cars of L, M and O also fielded good grids at the event. Elfin, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and will be featured at the Summer Festival, was particularly well represented in L, M & O, with three Streamliners, a 600, 600B and Elfin Mono all competing. It was great to see a strong field in Q & R as well – these cars are evocative of their era, and awesome to behold.
On Sunday we were joined by the MG Car Club Canberra, who put on a feature display and went out for a run around the circuit over the lunch break. Thanks to everyone involved in this – the display added to the atmosphere of the event, as did the excellent company.
Thank you to all of the drivers, family and friends who support HSRCA events. The race weekend is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to preparing and running these cars, and we greatly appreciate everyone’s efforts!
Speaking of atmosphere, as always the vibe in the pits and paddock was friendly and relaxed, full of good conversations and industrious maintenance and setup. An enjoyable weekend away with friends is part of the allure of our Wakefield Park meetings and we’re both proud of and grateful for our wonderful community.
Most importantly, thank you to the many volunteers who dedicate, time, expertise and talent to make HSRCA race meetings possible. Without you, our club and our sport would not exist, and we would not be able to create these wonderful memories and keep the history of Australian motorsport alive and kicking. Thank you!
Thank you from Rod, Richard and the HSRCA committee for a great meeting! The Summer Festival is rapidly shifting up to top gear, and we’ll be opening entries soon. We look forward to seeing you again over the 30th of November and 1st of December to cap off the year with a brilliant Summer Festival.
With that, settle in and spend a few minutes clicking through the following links to enjoy the excellent work of the many talented photographers who cover our events.
Images thanks to Riccardo Benvenuti, Jeremy Dale, David Jenkins, Seth Reinhardt, Mark Richards and Dallas Thomas. To get in contact with Seth or Jeremy, email Seth at seth@hsrca.com.
2019 HSRCA Spring Festival: Dallas Thomas
2019 HSRCA Spring Festival: Mark Richards
2019 HSRCA Spring Festival: Seth Reinhardt
2019 HSRCA Spring Festival: David Jenkins
2019 HSRCA Spring Festival: Jeremy Dale
2019 HSRCA Spring Festival: Riccardo Benvenuti
