A successful rallysprint was recently held at the Bendigo Car Club’s property at Bagshot, north of Bendigo.
A quick Google search on Bagshot confirmed something I remembered that was lurking in the back of my mind – there is another Bagshot somewhere else.
The town of Bagshot in England has a military tank testing area nearby and as 46 HRA crews prepared to tackle three runs around the 5km course in Bagshot, Victoria, in both directions, a connection was made.
The event director, Graeme Wallis, took us all on a recce run around the course prior to the first competitive run and you could say the roads offered up all condition - lots of great corners, some good length straights and mud – yes, lots of it. Most of it started out as sheets of water, from much needed recent rain, on quite a few of the corners, but as the day and night wore on it spread, and a vehicle with tank tracks would have come in handy!
Quite a few crews got together and formed the “Bagshot Understeer Club” who met on two of the corners and as the night went on, the membership grew.
The first run around the course revealed the main players for the event. Quickest by two seconds was Matt DeVaus and Tim McGill in the very hot Nissan Silvia, from Greg Gibson and Jenny Cole in the BMW 2002. They were followed by Sean Hudgson/Blair Carney in a Datsun 1600, Rob Devenish/Sam Burrel (Datsun 260Z) and Nicola Testa, the second driver of the Nissan Silvia.
After three runs in the anti-clockwise direction, the top five remained pretty much the same but the stand-out was Matt DeVaus who, while other crews’ times were slipping, posted faster times with each run.
Unfortunately the event finished early for the Silvia with a front brake problem.
After a meal break everyone fronted up for the first of three runs in the clockwise direction.
The first run highlighted a great performance from Ross and Dale Allen in their Datsun Bluebird to be the fastest crew, followed by Sean Hudgson and David Brown.
There were some great times posted by crews over the three runs but at the end of the day, with runs in both directions taken into account, it was a great outright victory to Greg Gibson and Jenny Cole followed by Ross Allan and Dale Allen. Third were Sean Hudgson and Blair Carney, while Rob Devenish/Sam Burrel, David and Kate Officer and David Burn and Stephen Dunbar made up fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
Everyone who competed agreed that the event was a success and credit must be given to Graeme Wallis and his team of organisers as well as the members of the Bendigo Car Club who kept us fed and watered throughout the day and night.
Let’s hope that the Bagshot event becomes a regular event on the yearly HRA calendar - that gives me 12 months to fit the Celica with tank tracks!
Full results are on the HRA web-site at www.hra.org.au
Check out JOHN DOUTCH'S great photos from the event by clicking on the link below.
VIEW THE BAGSHOT RALLYSPRINT PHOTOS HERE
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