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Peter Bartlett takes out
Winternationals Victory at Willowbank
South Coast Raceway Club Member Peter Bartlett took
out the biggest victory of his drag racing career
last Sunday June the 8th by winning the modified
Bike class at the 2008 Castrol Edge Winternationals.
The modified bike class had 52 entries with Pete
qualifying in 3rd position after the third round of
qualifying. The 2006/2007 South Coast Drag Racing
Club champion rated himself as a good chance after
checking out the elimination draw.
After making it through all the elimination Rounds
with some very close races, Peter won his way
through to the final coming up against Townsville's
Bob Shaw, a three time Australian Champion.
At 7:13pm on Sunday the 8th of June with Bartlett in
the left lane and Shaw in the right the Willowbank
crowd were treated to one of closest finals of the
night. Shaw had the start on the tree by a few
tenths, but with a good light Bartlett quickly caught
him and pushed Shaw right through to the finish.
As they crossed the line it was so close that
neither racer could be confident of who took the
win. With a better light and running super
consistent times Bartlett took the biggest victory
of his career forcing Shaw to a breakout.
In another twist to this fantastic story Pete
actually sold his bike midway through the meeting,
but after a little negotiation with the new owner he
was able to complete the remainder of the meeting and
bring home a gold A.N.D.R.A. Christmas Tree.
Well done Pete...!
2008
South Coast
Burnout King
Due to popular demand the S.C.D.R.A. have
decided to run a Burnout Competition on Saturday
July 19th at the South Coast Raceway.
This is going to be a huge event
with a stack of purpose built burnout cars travelling
Locally, from all over Victoria and interstate to
fight it out to be crowned the 2008 South Coast Burnout
King.
So far we have secured sponsorship
from Incitec Pivot, Aus Dent (Warrnambool) and will
hopefully have more on board before the weekend with
$1100 already up for grabs in CASH, TROPHIES and
PRIZES!
Aaron Mackley will be bringing VANTSY down from
Melbourne to
put on a smoke show at the South Coast Raceway on
July 19th
It was a huge attendance at this
years South Coast Drag Racing Associations
presentation night
with 90 people turning up to celebrate our 10 year
anniversary as a club, our most successful year to
date after opening the South Cost Raceway only 3
years back and to congratulate this seasons winners.
Left to Right: Neville & Koreen Dennert, Tim
Campbell, Andrew Smith, David Bunnik, Chris Farrell
Andrew Smith
Club Champion
Chris Farrell
Club Champion Runner-up
David Bunnik
Track Champion – Car
Tim Campbell
Track Champion – Bike
Neville & Koreen Dennert
Rookies of the Year
Thanks to everyone for coming
along to celebrate, have a few drinks and spin a few
yarns.
It was a fitting end to a great
season at the South Coast Raceway on Saturday with a
huge turn out of Cars and Bikes for the final race
meeting of the 2007/2008 Season. With rain in
the days up the meeting and the early morning dew it
made for a tricky first few hours in the qualifying
session. Shane Baxter Top qualifying with a
4.854 and also setting a new track mph record
with a scorching 148mph pass. Doina Day was
also impressive for the Supercharged Outlaws with an
early shut off 4.913 at 131mph.
The quick bikes where out in force
on the weekend with Tony Frost nearly beating Pete
Bartlett into top qualifying position. Frosty
put down a super quick 5.570 @ 121mph just behind
Pete's 5.526 @ 125mph
Winners for each class where:
Supercharged Outlaws:
Doina Day
Shane Baxter
Pro 16
Bill Crozier
Stephen Crook
Super Sedan
Scott Foreman
Buster McCartney
Super Street
David Bunnik
Glenn Knight
Bikes
Gavin Dohnt
Tony Frost
Check out some sample footage of
our meetings now up on the YouTube Website.
Well done to all the competitors
who made the effort to come down and make this into
a fantastic meeting especially those that travelled
long distances, some over 12 hours.
Congrats to Shane Baxter and all the other winners
in their respective brackets, Doina for breaking the
track record with a run of 4.606 @ 143mph and Paz for running a PB
4.7 in his last run of the day (only broke out by a
whole second).
Was a great day and we look forward to running it
again next year.
Top 20 Qualifiers:
3473 Doina Day -4.606 @ 143mph
178 Shane Baxter -4.842 @ 119mph
706 Wayne Cartledge -5.029 @ 135mph
3020 Simon Barlow -5.090 @ 133mph
2279 Jasmine Day -5.156 @ 130mph
1123 Mick Mahoney -5.170 @ 133mph
1897 Chris Dalton -5.203 @ 128mph
4005 Jack Danaher -5.285 @ 117mph
133 Graham Sheill -5.363 @ 125mph
3031 Peter Bartlett -5.522 @ 122mph
2307 Tim Stone -5.563 @ 122mph
403 Bernie McGrath -5.648 @ 121mph
4759 Michael Brody -5.842 @ 116mph
3479 Geoff Kelly -5.881 @ 121mph
2173 Bill Waldock -5.905 @ 115mph
999 Neil Hendry -5.942 @ 117mph
1076 Andrew Smith -6.208 @ 110mph
2115 Stephen Griffin -6.276 @ 109mph
4606 Wayne May -6.307 @ 108mph
4749 Dean Cleary -6.400 @ 107mph
Bracket Winners:
Supercharged Outlaws
Winner - Shane Baxter
Runner Up - Graham Sheill
Top 16
Winner - Dean Cleary
Runner Up - Simon Barlow
Super Street
Winner - David Bunnik
Runner Up - Michael Cleary
Bike
Winner - Tim Campbell
Runner Up - Trevor Norman
A small change has been made to
the events calendar.
The date of the 1st and 2nd of March has been moved
back one week to the 23rd and 24th of February. This
is for the inclusion of an all VW event which we
have been working on for a while now.
The event will be 2 days chock full of the quickest
VW's in the country, more information on this soon.
The biggest news to come from the
opening weekend of racing at the South Coast Raceway
would have to be our new ANDRA approved 160mph track
limit.
This is fantastic news for the
club and its members who have been working very hard
over the past 2 years to improve the facilities and
upgrade all the safety features of the track to
allow approval for the change in the track mph
restriction.
With the installation of new
safety barriers, a gravel trap, widening of the run
off area and most importantly in the erection of a
new safety catch net making this all possible.
In one of the most interesting
finals ever seen at the South Coast Raceway, local
Portlander and SCDRA club member Mathew "Whiskers"
Hoggan took home the the first prize money of $1260.
After some excellent driving from
both Craig Pritchard in his 383 Chev HT Premier and
Mathew Hoggan in his Blown Gemini Coupe to get into
the final, it was to be Hoggan's day after Pritchard
went through the traps breaking out by just .005 of
a second on his nominated handicap.
Little did Pritchard realize that
Hoggan was left stranded at the start line after
the engine broke down from getting to hot and he just cruised down the track
to take the win. Despite being guttered by
breaking out by the smallest of margins Pritchard
did not go home empty handed and picked up $500 for
his efforts.
Also congratulations to the Wendy
Cleary taking home $100 for making it though to the
semi final and Sam Sleep and Bill Waldock for making
it through to the quarter finals.
South Coast Raceway would like to
welcome on board it's latest sponsor Meguiars who
are providing product combo gift packs as support
for our best presented cars and Bikes at each of our
race meetings held over the season at the South
Coast Drag Racing Track.
The South Coast Drag Racing
Association launched its new season in the best
possible way on the weekend with record numbers of
entries and a huge crowd going along to the street
legal drags on Friday night.
It was the biggest field ever at
the Street Legal event, with 60 cars tearing down
the raceway in the clubs first event for the 2007
racing season at the South Coast Raceway, while a
further 52 cars were entered into the second round
of the Victorian 8th Mile championships on Saturday.
Kym Oberauer took out the Super
sedan class in his 406 Chevy Camira, powering down
the strip in 6.049 seconds @ 106.89mph to oust
runner up Bill Waldock and his HQ Monaro after
Waldock broke out.
The Super Street event went the
way of David Bunnik, who motored hi LH Torana 350
Chev to win in a time of 8.059 @ 85.88mph over Ray
baker who broke out in his VK Commodore.
In the bikes it was Gavin Dohnt
who made a great return back to drag racing in a few
years taking out the class against Tim Campbell in
the final.
Grab the latest copy of the
Dragster Australia Magazine
for you copy of the meeting report on South Coast
Raceway's "Dash for Cash"
Out at your local Newsagents now...
2007
Presentation Night
Thanks to all those
that attended the Presentation Night. Well
done to all the winners:
Club Champion -
Peter Bartlett
Track Champion Car - Joel Pettingill
Track champion Bike - Peter Bartlett
Rookie of the Year - Chris Farrell
Click here to view the presentation video
Well Done Boy's....
Peter Bartlett
Chris Farrell
Joel Pettingill
A Huge Thank you to everyone...
Well our last meeting of the
season was a huge success despite the late rain.
We were very surprised by the huge turnout of
competitors on the day, we had around 65 Cars and 14
Bikes enter.
We will be running the $1000 Dash for
Cash again at the start of our new racing season.
Once again thanks to all competitors, spectators and
volunteers that attended our race meetings and
supported us during the 2006/2007 season.
Also a big special thanks to our
track sponsors because without their support we
would not be able to run such a successful Drag
racing venue.
Waldock Takes
out Pro 16
Running super consistent times
Bill Waldock drove his HQ Monaro to victory in the
Final of the Pro 16 class at South Coast Raceway.
Qualifying 3rd for the weekend with a 8th Mile
personal best time of 5.872 @ 116.88mph Waldock went
into the eliminations full of confidence and came
out ahead of Andrew Greening in the Final.
Waldock was in full praise of the
South Coast Raceway staff in their track preparation
for the days racing. Going on to say that this was
the best 8th Mile track that he has ever raced on.
"Drags for
Wishes" a huge success...
The "Drags for
Wishes" weekend at the south coast raceway has been
deemed a huge success according to all involved and
those that attended on the day.
We raised more than
$2500 for the Make a Wish Foundation, and with
almost 1200 people making there way the track over
the 2 days from the Friday night street drags to
Saturdays main bracket event. It was a fantastic
weekend of motor sport and was hugely supported by
the public.
Friday night kicked
off with 45 street cars and bikes and a crowd of
around 350 people watching the street vehicles tear
up the strip. Saturday was an absolutely
fantastic day with around 800 people, 35 Cars and 14
Bikes turning up on the day.
Greg Murphy was a
huge hit with many fans particularly the younger
ones, with Murphy taking some of the make a wish
children for a drive down the strip before giving
the Drag safe Cop car a good workout by himself.
Other Highlight of
the day included Roulette Fly-over's and a
demonstration by Phil Parker on his new Nitro
Supercharged Top Bike.
We had excellent
feedback from many spectators and drivers over the
weekend on how good the meeting was and also how
well the track with the new concrete start line
worked.
Hamilton's Tim
Stone proved to be the standout driver on Saturday,
taking out the top qualifying time with a 5.59 @
122mph for the day and going on to win the Pro 16
class ahead of Naracoorte's Greg Hack.
Local Portland boy
Joel Pettingill claimed the Super Sedan Class ahead
of Alister Paulin from Warnambool.
In the Super Street
Class Steve Bellman edged out Jason Warburton in the
final.
Warrnambool's Peter
Bartlett recorded the top qualifying time in the
bikes with a time of 5.54 seconds but it was
Woolsthrope's Graeme Glascow who was victorious in
the final.
Thanks to Ebony
Garner from the Portland Observer and Ric & Marina
from "Shot
on Sight" for taking pictures of the weekend and
allowing us to use them on the web site...
February 16 & 17th 2007
WESTERN SYDNEY
INTERNATIONAL DRAGWAY
SUMMER NATIONALS
Pete Bartlett, Paz Kelly, Dean Cleary, Tony Van Ginneken
and Glenn Woosta (and their teams) headed off for the
long 1250 km haul to Sydney, for the Summer Nationals on
the Wednesday night to be ready for Scrutineering and
Registration on the Thursday. I cheated and flew up
Thursday evening (which only took 1 hour & 15 mins – gee
were the guys pissed at that when I told them) and
caught up with everyone for dinner and a few tins at the
Blacktown Workmans Bar.
The trip up started slow for Paz, with only one hour
under his belt, he was at Pombeit when the water pump in
the Fairlane shit – (bloody fords). Three hours later
they got going again.
It was an early rise for both Friday & Saturday morning
to wipe the dew off the cars and bike to be ready for
racing, with Pete first up Friday at 8.35 am and Dean
and Paz first up Saturday at 8.35 am. The guys had 2
qualifying runs on Friday, which saw them finished for
the day early in the arvo, and then had their third
qualifying run Saturday morning, with eliminations
starting early in the arvo.
Pete Bartlett – Modified Bike
On Friday, Pete’s first qualifier saw him run an 8.9 @
145 mph whilst drifting to the wall for the whole track,
but as we know Pete he wasn’t gunna back off. Pete was
not happy with his time, so he changed the sprocket as
he thought he would get more out of it. This paid off as
his second qualifier saw him run an 8.7 @ 147 mph in the
opposite lane – this was a PB for Pete. Happy with that,
Pete left the bike for his third qualifier on Saturday
morning, which saw him run an 8.9 @ 146 mph. Pete was
the 4th fastest qualifier out of 45 competitors in
Modified Bike. Congratulations Pete.
Pete dialed in an 8.75 for his first elimination run on
Saturday arvo, and with very good odds of a first round
win you wouldn’t believe it – mechanical problems –
couldn’t get the bike to start, as the nut on the
starter motor came loose when H tried to start the bike.
It was a long trip back to the caravan in the pits, with
everyone keeping out of Pete’s way for a while.
Paz Kelly – Super Sedan
Paz’s first qualifier on Friday saw him run a good
straight line for an 8.2 @ 157 mph, which was a PB for
Paz too. This was a great effort for a first run off the
trailer for the weekend. Paz thought he might be able to
get a bit more out of it and made an adjustment, but saw
him run an 8.8 @ 151 mph for his second qualifier. So it
was back to the pits to change the car back to how it
was set up for its first run, and it was then ready for
the third qualifier Saturday morning. Paz’s third
qualifier was looking good with a good strong burnout
and running a good straight line but mid track he lost
oil pressure and there was a puff of smoke, so Paz
slipped it into neutral and shut her off. Back at the
pits Paz discovered a hole in the block which the end
off the weekend for him, which was very disappointing
for him as at that stage he was the 6th fastest
qualifier out of 90 competitors in Super Sedan.
Congratulations Paz.
Dean Cleary – Super Sedan
Dean had a great weekend of racing, running consistent
times on Friday and Saturday, making it through to the
second elimination, and running a PB.
On Friday, Dean’s first qualifier saw him run a 10.57 @
126 mph followed up with a 10.54 @ 126 mph for his
second qualifier. This was a PB for Dean. Over night
Dean not only had to recharge his own battery with a few
jimmy cans but he had to put the Torri’s battery on
charge too as it was slowly dying with the heat. On
Saturday, Dean’s third qualifier saw him run a 10.64 @
126 mph, which saw him through to the eliminations later
in the arvo.
Dean dialed in a 10.5 for his first elimination and ran
a 10.57 @ 119 mph under brakes to put out the Trick &
Mansweto 1969 Ford Capri. The boys got back to their pit
area as quick as possible as they knew how much those
boys don’t like losing. Dean’s second elimination saw
him run a 10.63 @ 117 mph under brakes on a 10.5 dial
in, but he just got beat on the line. Which was very
disappointing for him as he was so consistent all
weekend. Congratulations Dean on a good weekend.
Other Local Racers
From Warrnambool, Tony Van Ginneken was racing his Ford
Mustang in Super Sedan and was running 9.8 seconds and
made it through to the first elimination, where he did a
nice wheel stand, but he was having fuel problems. Glenn
Woosta was racing in Modified Bike at 9.0 seconds and he
also made it through to the first elimination. Tony
Frost was also racing his bike in Modified Bike – but
not with his new race engine, and was running 9.25
seconds and made it through to the second elimination.
All in all it was a great weekend with all our boys
doing a great job, and the big boys putting on a great
display with plenty of fast times and spills. Keep an
eye out for photos in Dragster magazine for Kathy
Stevens in her Jack Daniels Door Slammer, Dave Brogan in
his Pro Stock Car hitting the wall and rolling at 250
km/hr, and Aaron Lynch in his B&L Steele Door Slammer
putting it up on the side and the only thing stopping it
from going over was the header pipes and then doing the
exact same thing on the other side.
Until next years trip to Sydney for the Summer
Nationals.
Jeff Fitzgerald - President
P.S. My drinking team have got a racing problem
January 6th 2007
Gary Busch
Smashes the track record !!!
Click here to check out a video of the run.....!!!
Piloting the A1 Racing
Supercharged Outlaw Funny Car, Gary Busch drove the
88 Camaro to a new track record of 4.84 @ only 121mph
!!
In it's very first
pass down the South Coast Raceway track Busch
launched the Blown 526 cubic inch Keith Black
powered funny car off the new concrete launch pad
and down the tarmac, passing the traps in 4.84
seconds @ only 121mph after correcting the car half
track and powering on through to smash the previous
track record of 5.6 @122mph set by Tim Stone.
Gary eclipsed the
first 60ft in just 1.035 seconds. The A1 racing team
were very happy with the track preparation after the
mornings rain delay and especially encouraging for
the S.C.D.R.A. volunteers was how well the new
concrete launch pad worked for all the racers during
the day.
Greg Brown's team
brought the car out again in the afternoon for a
shakedown half pass with another blistering 60ft of
1.059 and planned on turning the car
around in 30mins, but another rain shower prevented
the A1 racing team from attempting an additional
full track track pass.
November 2006
The New Concrete Launch pads have been completed ! !
!
Two concrete pads have been installed. These
extend 8m back from the start line and right out to
the 60" mark
The new burnout pad has been completed ! !
!
Entry to the burnout
comp will be free for Competitors already entered
into the racing on the day or just $30 for those
wanting to enter the burnout comp only.
Note: Any competitor who enters their street car
in the Friday night street legal drags gets free
entry into Saturdays Burnout Competition and the
chance to win prize money...
March 6th 2006
The new hot mix area on the staging lane has been
completed.
Feb 11th 2006
We have taken a lot of feedback from our opening
meeting on Feb 11th. We will keep you posted as to
what changes and updates we make.
