As the title says. The final round of the NSW Hillclimb Championship and Tri Club Series is being held at Newcastle's King Edward Park this long weekend.

Sunday 4th October 09 is the NSW hillclimb championship. Starting time 9:00am

Monday 5th October 09 is the Tri Club Challenge. Start time 9:00am.

This is one of the best hillclimbs in the championship. Its got a bit of it for everyone. MG car club run a fantastic event. Great view, great park, play facilities for the kids, car show, food and a bit of motorsport action. And when the actions all finished, walked a couple of 100 mtrs down the road and play at the beach or have a cold beer at the pub.

There are Beetles entered and running both days so if you go, pop up to the pit area and say hi. I will be with Glen Torrens in his wrecking racer and Greg Wards blue bug. Hope to see you there

I,m of to Warwick this weekend but good luck to Glen and Greg, have fun and play hard.

Cheers Col

Nathan, Nice promo for a great event

The Durie beetle and Cook open wheeler are competing in both days, Christine and myself are only competing in the Sunday state round. I would imagine this is the same for Glen and Greg as like us haven't competed in any Tri Challenge Events this year

Col, when are you going to have a run around a few corners?

Heath

Congrats on your Win Heath

At least some are not to scared to have a go unlike some pussies I know

I'm surprised that this hillclimb is still running, with all the ' fun-police' about, and the venues that are closing down. What a great track it is - I still have vivid memories of belting up the 'footpath', late in the day, with salt-spray on the (perspex) windscreen, sun in my eyes, and not being able to see where the left-hander at the top was! This was about 30 years ago, in my Beetle sports-sedan.

Cheers, Greg,

I would have to agree from my 2 years of living in Newcastle that this is one of the best hillclimbs in Australia (that I have seen so far). Have a great weekend. Look forward to hearing some results and some pics.

This event, believe it or not is very well supported by Newcastle City Council and local police. It has always been part of the Mattara Festival which use to be a big festival a decade or so ago. The hillclimb itself has been a part of Newcastle for over 52 years. The local residents are the killer though. Every year it appears to get more restrictive. You have to park your car with the exhaust facing the sea so its not to loud for the local residents. Dumb things like that. I just hope they open it up from right down the bottom like it use to run.

Happy Daze, if you ran here 30 years ago. That would have to have been around the time MGCC ran the Australian hillclimb championship at King Eddie in I think 1978?

I think it was 1979 - a NSW championship round - that I ran there. We started right down the bottom then, hence the salt-spray on the windscreen. Here's hoping that 'King Eddie' as you called it can keep going - I would like to have another run there, next year perhaps?

Cheers, Greg

starting from down near the beach was the best........then coming into the spectators view at full song in third, then nicely sideways onto the straight, with an entry speed of over 124kph into the "footpath funnel"...I LOVE IT

And even more fun in the wet

Saurdays racing was a blast. Now that the event has already been run I suppose its alright now to tell Greg Ward I used his car....lol.
Greg got delayed in India with work and so very kindly offered me his car to drive. Due to Greg being over seas all year, I have been organising his car and entries for him, so this was Gregs way of saying thankyou.

I must say having not driven a race car in 12 months, I was a little apprehensive and given that it was someone elses car that I had never driven before either. That aside, the W/E's driving has just made me that little more motivated to get mine finished. It is not every day some one lets you race their pride and joy around a race track, so thanks Greg. Having now dirven Gregs car, I have to congratulate the man. It is one very nice street car. It is a beautiful thing to drive on the road. the very fact the lunatic drives it to the event and then races it is just confidence. There were some difference with my old car. My old car was built for the race track and Gregs is a purpose built road car, so the difference between the two is chalk and cheese. The very fact I had to remember to turn off the radio when I started the run was somethign I was not use to. Otherwise the ACDC playing would have given me a little toooooo much enthusiam. Man I had some FUN!

It was great days racing. The Durie Beetle and the Campbells beetles were flying. Geez they have got their cars cranking and they all drove very very well. I better start getting some driving lessons. All three drivers (cook, campbell and durie) went under the existing Imp Pro record, getting their cars in the 39 sec bracked. Im not to sure who ended up winning the class but Heath was in front of Ben by a bees dick before the last run. Christine was cranking to, although she smacked a gutter on one of her runs and bent a rim. Im not to sure where she ended up. I got gregs road car down to the 41's. I think the biggest supprise for me was Glen Torrens in his wrecking racer and Cookies daughters driving their open wheeler. Glen did a flat 45 which is outstanding considering it has no diff, standard box and $hit 6 years old 70 series road tyres. The mans a lunatic and the girls were mixing it with the outright boys in their vw powered open wheeler. Outstanding effort

Congratulations to every one on a great day of motorsport.

Heath,
2010, can,t come quick enough.

Cheers Col

What an excellent day of motorsport

Ben and I were split by 0.01sec on the first run, just 0.4 off the old record. This went on all day till I finally managed to bet him by 0.02sec on the last run, shaving 0.7 of a second off the record with a time of 39.72. I think it was a day of personel bests, Christine equalled the old record and came away with a third, Cooky got a high 40 second run and correct me if i'm wrong Nathan but isn't that mid 41of yours also a Personel Best. Glen had a grin from ear to ear that I'm sure he hasn't been able to wipe off yet. His car sounded much sweeter than the last time I saw it.

Cooky has put a lot of work into the open wheeler, including a eye catching black and pink paint job. The engine has had a couple of refinements but the big gains have been made in the suspension. Amy says for the first time ends up where you point it not where it feels like going. Both girls being an ex go cart racers, are used to something thats very presise in it's handling. On that basis i can't understand why racing a beetle frustrates the crap out of them I'm not sure of Amy or Tracy's times but I do know Amy won the class.

Col
Are you going to compete in the state series next year? I was planning on completing in all or at least the majority of state rounds next year.

Congrats to Greg Ward who is the new NSW U2 Improved Production State Champion. Is this the first time Greg has won it?????

Heath

Quote:

Originally posted by Craig Torrens Congrats on your Win Heath

yeah it was great fun event. Wow, running up The Pinch for the first time ever is an eye-opener!! Heath, congrats on the day and thanks for the compliment, a few weeks ago I installed a 'proper' engine in my car, it's the Pobjoy-built 'base' Kadron-fed 1916cc engine from my blue Oval Cal-looker, not the $100 junka engine I had before!

Heath,
You bet i am can,t wait.
Look forward to great racing and even better tall stories around a camp fire or with a beer.

Cheers Col

Heath it sounds like I'll have to drag the escort down and crank on the rear camber and have a go if you guys have cracked the 39's!

Hey who's going to the AHCC in a couple of weeks?
Someone from victoria has been trying to get my diff ruled illegal, funny thing CAMS told him to go and read his rule book


Danny

any pics or video???

Quote:

Originally posted by bat69 Quote: Originally posted by hellbugged Quote: Originally posted by bat69 No he has done it before. I believe there a couple of times. One time in and around the ninties when Jeff Unwin was still running his weapon No not while the hellbug was still running Hi Damo, I may be wrong about the beating Jeff thing. No malice intended. Maybe if Greg was in the country long enough I could ask him. I just remember reading an article in MGCC 50th Mattara Hillclimb Event booklet which wrote about every event at KEP over the last 50 years and reading about Greg beating Jeff to the group 2E club car class in a particular year (I don’t know the year off the to top my head). I thought it was for the championship but it could have been just for that event. I will have to dig up the booklet. I do know for sure Greg did win the championship back in 2001. Damo when are we going to see a Jesus type resurrection of the hell bug? Or even the notch back at a few event. The more of the peoples car VWs sticking to 4wd and big $ late model cars the better

I've got a few pics on my website if anyone is interested.


http://www.turonphotography.com 

Some cools shots. Thanks