2024 Formula Classic – Round 5
Wanneroo Park 15th June
The weather was perfect for racing, dry, sunny and mild.
Eight cars took to the track for qualifying. It was great to see Murray Charnley out in his Lotus 23 and Bruce Mitchell joining us for his first run this year in his Reynard FF2000. Bill Norman had experienced some issues at Friday’s tuning day and was still working on the car on Saturday morning trying to get ready for qualifying. He made it out for only two laps, an insufficient number to formally qualify and therefore had to start rear of the field for race 1. All other drivers qualified satisfactorily with Simon Alderson claim pole.
With Bill starting from the back of the pack, this break gave Simon enough of a gap to hold onto first place for a win of race 1. Bill was close on his heels for 2nd place with Lance Carwardine third across the line.
In an effort to improve the race day scheduling the WASCC introduced this year time allocations for each racing group rather than a prescribed number of racing laps. For race 2 FCR was allocated 15 minutes which translated to 13 laps for the lead cars. Several of the drivers commenting after race 2 on the noticeable increase in track time. Starting from the front row alongside Simon, Bill was able to take the lead of the race and hold it to the chequered flag. Bruce Mitchell made a good start and got up to 4th spot before an electrical gremlin sidelined at turn 6.
Race 3 was allocated 12 minutes track time, it was the usual suspects at the front of the field, Bruce starting from rear of the grid after his electrical woes were resolved only to end up spinning off and out of the event at turn 6. Murray pulled out of the final race too following a fall that resulted in some minor injuries whilst undertaking the self extraction test. Lance was pinged for a minor infringement on the assembly lap that saw him incur a 15 second penalty, this time penalty elevated Brian Searles to 3rd place in his Tiga Sports 2000.
Outright results for the meeting were;
1st Bill Norman 70 pts
2nd Simon Alderson 65 pts
3rd Lance Carwardine 53 pts
Handicap results for this round;
1st Simon Alderson 28 pts
2nd Murray Charnley 22 pts
3rd Bill Norman 16 pts
The next round of the 2024 Formula Classic season is at Collie Motorplex on one day over the weekend 17th / 18th August (whether FCR race on Saturday or Sunday is yet to be decided by the organisers).