QuaRterly - March Edition

Official Publication of Queensland Raceways

The

QuaRterly issue 29

magazine

DRIFT zAMURAI COMING TO AUTUMN

DRIFT MATSURI

PRODUCTION TOURING COMES TO QLD QUEENSLAND RACEWAYS MORE THAN RACING

The

QuaRterly magazine

Issue 29, 2017

QUEENSLAND RACEWAY

PAGE 04 THE DRIFT ZAMURAI AT AUTUMN DRIFT MATSURI

MARCH

APRIL

PAGE 05 QUEENSLAND TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP - A SUCCESS

11 - ROLL RACING

1 - ROLL RACING

STORY

18-19 AUTUMN MATSURI

5 - MID-WEEK SPRINT

26 - QR-FX CLUB RACE

9 - OPEN SPRINT

31 - FRIDAY NIGHT DRIFT

14 - FRIDAY NIGHT DRIFT 22-23 JAPANESE NATIONALS 28 - FRIDAY NIGHT DRIFT 29 - STREET SPRINT

LAKESIDE PARK RACEWAY MARCH

APRIL

5 - ALL AUSSIE DAY

1-2 QRDC ROUND 1

17-19 LAKESIDE TRIBUTE

8 - OPEN SPRINT

25 - NOTTA GRAND PRIX

20 - CLASSIC BIKE

26 - STREET SPRINT

23 - EURO DAY

PAGE 07 VALE CLEM SMITH PAGE 08 PRODUCTION TOURING COME TO QUEENSLAND PAGE 12 BROCK FESTIVITIES AT THE LAKESIDE TRIBUTE!

26 - MID WEEK SPRINT 30 - OFF STREET DRAGS

full calendar at calendar.qldraceways.com.au

qldraceways.com.au

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DRIFT zAMURAI magazine

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etting sideways is an art, it’s controllable chaos, contained panic and a whole lot of tyre smoke. Australia’s premier Drift Matsuri event in March is big; it’s so big that it breaks the internet - Kardashian big. Well, usually, this year everything went according to plan and as a flood of 200 entries all came in at 9:00 am, all of the hosting and payment services were able to keep up. The Autumn Matsuri event in March is a sister to the Spring Matsuri event in October, and both are equally as impressively big. With spectators and competitors camping out at Queensland Raceways for two days of sideways action around the main track and driver training area. It’s you’ve guessed it - big.

With competitors crazy enough to unleash their awe-inspiring machine around the track at over 150k/ ph - sideways, in control and leaving tyre smoke in their wake, the sport of drifting is like no other. Queensland Raceways’ Matsuris are an impressive showcase of everything drifting, and it’s all a bit sideways at QR on a Matsuri weekend.

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This March, however, the Autumn Matsuri has invited Japanese international drifter ‘The Drift Zamurai’ to the event, to show off his spectacular skill and enthusiasm for drifting. Described as having a ‘Samurai’ style of drifting, Takahiro Imamura is all about keeping the drifting fun.

The Drift Zamurai is a preacher of the ‘Spirit of Drift’ - the giving and nurturing nature of drift competitors that set them apart from other motorsport fraternities. The Zamurai keeps his mission close to his heart to keep the younger generation involved in drifting and instil in them this spirit.

The Drift Zamurai will be here in Australia on the 18th-19th of March, though, and will be doing his best to instil some of the key values of the drifting spirit into all those attending the Autumn Drift Matsuri at Queensland Raceway. It certainly is a big weekend.

PHOTOS BY MATTHEW PAUL

queensland touring car championship

QTCC

A QUEENSLAND SUCCESS STORY

T

he Queensland Touring Car Championship has been a staple category at races at Queensland Raceways and Lakeside Park since it’s creation in 2012. The championship is tightly fought over the year and brings entertainment and hard racing to any round they enter. Split into two groups - A and B, the category runs together at QR but due to the sheer size of the grids and Lakeside’s limited capacity, they’re split at the historic circuit. Providing double the dose of QTCC racing action.

The QTCC stems originally from the QV8SC and in 2012 the category debuted in its current form. There have been names throughout the years that have made themselves synonymous with the category, Kent and Hay and Anger and Walker, have all cemented themselves with glory in their respective groups.

While the QTCC offers club level racing and is run by and for the benefit of their club members, it is also a viewing spectacular with plenty to offer racing fans. The championship contenders from across the year are fighting to the wire to decide who walks away with the qldraceways.com.au

crown - often in both groups. The QTCC grid has grown over time and during 2016 covering both groups there were 49 points scorers.

In 2016, the championship battle in Group A came down to the final race of the final round at the Ipswich Classic with just 33 points Separating Justin Anthony and Steve Hay coming into the round. It was a fierce battle between the two. Anthony qualified 11th, while Hay would be on the second row for their first race, Hay had been behind in the points, and it was a crucial session to claw his way into the championship lead. Progressively over their first three races, Anthony was able to climb to 7th, but Hay also made his way into first, and Anthony’s chances at the championship were dashed when he DNF’d in their last race.Hay’s championship win also marked the first time in 2016 he led in the points, proving that nothing is given in QTCC. QTCC is a fan favourite category, and with an edge of your seat championship battles, it’s easy to understand why this category continues to grow in popularity with viewers and competitors.

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Q

Vale Clem Smith

ueensland Raceways wishes to acknowledge the life of Clement (Clem) Smith. A man who dedicated his life to the betterment of South Australian Motorsport through his beloved Mallala race circuit. Clem passed away the week after his 90th Birthday.

Clem purchased the Mallala circuit in 1971 off property developer Keith Williams and fought Williams in a court battle to lift a caveat on the circuit title that meant it could not be used for motor racing as Williams had just built Adelaide International Raceway.

He continued with Mallala after it had the V8 Supercars taken off it and replaced with the Clipsal 500 despite the major economic loss at the time.

Glen Dix, a close family friend spoke at the funeral about Clem’s and his first ever race.

“I saw Clem run his first car (Terraplane single-seater) down at Sellicks Beach in the early 1950’s and I was at Port Wakefield for his next race when the car had its mudguards removed,” “I, along with many other people, realise and appreciate just how much Clem has done for motorsport in this state.”

Clem was also an accomplished racing driver. He competed many times in the Australian Touring car Championship through the fifties and sixties.

In 1969 Clem drove in one of the first long distance races for Touring cars at Sandown. He drove for the Melbourne Chrysler dealer at the time. In the Seventies, he became a stalwart of the Sports Sedan racing scene and later was honoured with the annual Clem Smith Cup at Mallala for Sports Sedans with a $10,000 prize purse on the line.

He raced among the greats of Australian Motorsport and mixed it up, names like Jane, Beachey, Brock and Richards all were fierce competitors on the track.

Queensland Raceways CEO John Tetley and Competition Manager Matthew Ronke travelled to Adelaide for the funeral to pay their respects.

Clem also held a holiday home a Noosa and was a regular visitor to Lakeside he lasted visited Lakeside in August 2015.

On Behalf of the whole Queensland Raceways Family, we extended our condolences to Heide and Clem’s Family.

Clem was awarded the OAM (Order of Australian Medal) for his services to South Australian Motorsport. qldraceways.com.au

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t’s been a tried and true formula in New South Wales for many seasons now, and in 2017, Queensland will launch its very own version of the Production Touring Car Championship.

The launch of a Queensland series has been spear-headed by Gerry Murphy.

Murphy, who now resides in Queensland, is the former president of the NSWPTC committee. In his five years overseeing the operation of that series, it’s grown from strengthto-strength, with season 2016 bringing record numbers to grids at Wakefield Park and Sydney Motorsport Park.

That growth, success and interest led Murphy to believe that this formula would work in the Queensland Motorsport landscape, and it wasn’t too long before he was talking to John Tetley, and the ball was rolling for a series launch in 2017.

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The premise of the Queensland series will be the same as its New South Wales counterpart - to give competitors a cost effective, sustainable category race in, where the track time is very good value for dollar.

Queensland Raceways will host all three rounds in the inaugural season, with the iconic Lakeside Raceway playing host to the opening two rounds, in April and June, before Queensland Raceway plays host to a two-race third and final round, at the Ipswich Classic, in October.

The NSW series boasts three different championships, across CAMS and AASA sanctioned events, with a good mix of sprint and endurance racing, but the first season of the Queensland series will be for the endurance experts, with all four races to be 1-hour in length.

The endurance format has proven to be very popular, with drivers enjoying the longer races for that extend-

ed time behind the wheel, that you don’t get in other categories.

The one-hour races also give the competitors options in relation to strategy, or whether to run the race solo, or bring in a co-driver.

The same choices await those who’ll line up for the inaugural QLDPTC season.

All races will, like the NSW Championship, include a compulsory pit-stop in the second third of the race.

The Queensland series commences on April 1 at Lakeside, and the final two events of the season will count towards the NSW Championship as well, with the races counting towards the Club points and the MoComm Endurance Cup.

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PHOTOS PROVIDED BY PRODUCTION TOURING

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Round 2 will be contested at Lakeside, again, this time on the 3rd and 4th of June, before a four-month wait for the double-header at Queensland Raceway, including a Saturday NIGHT affair, on October 28 and 29.

There’s already plenty of interest in the series, with Queensland drivers embracing the opportunity to race in a new category, and that interest has slowly increased as we edge closer to the series launch on the first Saturday in April.

What makes this series so appealing, is the wide variety of cars makes and models we see on the grid. In the New South Wales series alone in 2016, there were no less than eight different manufacturers across the eight classes - everything from Renault to Subaru, Holden qldraceways.com.au

to Toyota, Mitsubishi to Honda, and Mazda to BMW, with Josh Muggleton set to run a Volkswagen in 2017 - taking the count to nine.

The other major appeal to competitors, is that this is CLASS racing. While the race to the chequered flag is predominantly won by those aboard a Class A1 entry, any class can win the outright championship - you just need two key components, class numbers and consistent results.

Last year’s State Championship went down to the wire, with three cars from three different class separated by just 6 points going into the final round at Sydney Motorsport Park. We saw a Holden Commodore (Matthew Holt - Class A2) going head-to-head with a Holden Astra (Blake Aubin - Class C) and a Toyota 86 (Chris Reeves -

Class D) for the title.

While Holt may have won the title, outright success for the bigger cars isn’t common. In 2014 and 2015, mid-field runner, Chris Reeves claimed the championship at the final hurdle, taking the Class D Toyota 86 to victory lane, and while the defending two-time champion couldn’t complete the hat-trick, he still finished in the outright top three, reminding everybody that the car (and driver) remains a threat in 2017.

The reason the likes of Reeves and Aubin were in championship contention was, not only consistency, but also, class numbers - the points structure rewards classes with higher numbers of entries, something which did affect Blake Aubin, in Class C, during the final round at Sydney Motorsport Park.

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mum points, and you can score consistent results across the weekend, you’re going to find yourself in a good outright position at the end of the round. The trick is stringing those results together across every round of the season, because one retirement will certainly cripple your chances of outright supremacy, and will hamper your ambitions of a Class Championship victory as well, for you get zero points for a retirement in this series.There are 8 classes - A1, A2, B1, B2, C, D, E and S, with A2, D and A1 proving to be the most popular in recent times.

From the Evo’s of Class A1,to the ever growing field of Toyota 86’s in Class D and the famous Australian Commodores in Class B2, there’s something for everyone.

The move into Queensland has triggered interest from those south of the Tweed as well, with many keen to contest both the New South Wales and Queensland championship - however, the 2017 NSW Championship commences on the same weekend as the Queensland series, and that means the first round of the all new QLDPTC will be strictly a Queensland affair.

Following such positive feedback to the announce10 | The QuaRterly magazine

CLASSES Class A1

Extreme Performance Forced Induction Cars

Class A2

Extreme Performance Naturally Aspirated Cars

Class B1

High Performance Forced Induction Cars

Class B2

High Performance Naturally Aspirated Cars

Class C

Performance Cars

Class D

Four-Cylinder Production Cars

Class E

Compact Cars

Class S

Saloon Cars

ment that the second round at Lakeside (June 2-4) would count towards both championships, the NSW committee furthered their presence in Queensland for 2017, by announcing that the final Queensland round at ‘The Paperclip’ would be added to the New South Wales schedule, as the final round of the year.

Queensland’s Series President, Gerry Murphy, has wasted no time in establishing a committee to get the series off the ground in the Sunshine State, with the intention of seeing it grow, build and expand in the way the NSW series has done in recent times.

Karl Begg and Mike O’Dea were the first two committee members to join the series, with Mike O’Dea to take on the role of technical director.

This series will grow further, on and off the circuit, before we get to Lakeside on April 1 - we can hardly wait to see Production Touring launch in Queensland, adding to the already vast Queensland motorsport landscape.

For more information: www.productiontouringcars.com. au | ‘LIKE’ Production Touring Cars on Facebook, or join the QLD Production Touring Cars group page.

qldraceways.com.au

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IT’S ALL ABOUT BROCK AT THE

he 18th and 19th of March at Lakeside Park is going to be an absolutely jampacked weekend of racing action - with eight categories on track and over 150 cars running across the two days. The on track stuff ’s going to be exciting but what’s happening off track is just as good. Over the weekend a host of activities, showcases and parade laps will pay tribute to Peter Brock , with Phil Brock in attendance as the patron of the Lakeside Tribute.

LAKESIDE TRIBUTE!

Commodores and Toranas that we can fit in the place. At lunch, there will be parade laps from the Brock cars, followed by free cruises for any Torona or Commodore that’s come through the gate. A show ‘n’ shine for all cars parked in the infield will be run on Sunday as well!

In the museum across the weekend will be a showcase of On Saturday and Sunday, the infield Brock race cars, for everyone to will be packed with as many Brock come and enjoy! race and road cars, Holden Clubs,

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Saturday night will host the Weekend at Brock’s dinner, with Phil Brock giving fans a real insight into one of the greatest legends in Australian motorsport.

The dinner will be an opportunity to get up close and personal with Phil Brock, get photos, and ask questions!

There’s plenty to do and see at Lakeside for the Tribute!