September 2024 Competition Report
There is a right way…..
There is a right way and a wrong way to do just about everything in life…..including the sport of hill climbing! Team Geelong visited the Bryant Park Hill Climb in Gippsland on the last weekend in September, to tackle the fearsome anti clockwise figure eight course, not attempted since 2015. Something akin to climbing the north face of the Eiger. No, not really.
Saturday was practice day held in glorious sunshine and balmy breezes. A driver's briefing alerted us to the direction of travel, the pitfalls for unwary competitors and to the layout of the course, (to which some people actually paid attention). What could possibly go wrong? Well, as it turned out, plenty.
Our Competition Director ventured out for his first run and part way around the course, inexplicably (and most uncharacteristically) took a wrong turn and was forced to engage reverse gear and retrace his steps, in the process may have earned himself the sobriquet "Wrong Way Ruby". Not to be out done Steve Duniam, shortly thereafter, made exactly the same mistake, only in his case he carried on regardless with all of the panache of a British sporting gentlemen before executing a grand sweeping U turn. He retraced his steps, completed an additional (and totally unrequired) loop around the back of the track, before finally crossing the finish line and earning himself a summons to the control tower for a well-deserved tongue lashing, which included the question: "Are you sure you know which way to go now?". More on that later
The rest of us were rather tame by comparison other than perhaps, Chris Freeman who comprehensively out braked himself at a critical point on the circuit and disappeared at speed off the track backwards into the shrubbery. Fortunately, no harm done.
With lesson's hopefully learned, we retired to our accommodation in the nearby town of Churchill for the evening only to discover that the local pub and the town's pizza shop were both closed on Grand Final day. Undeterred we elected Peter Thomson to drive 800 metres to the fish and chip shop with Chris Freeman as his "navigator". An hour and half later we declared them lost and engaged the services of a passing security guard who declared that she had seen them wandering aimlessly "over near the golf course" and volunteered to go and retrieve them, which she promptly did. Apparently, it was Siri's fault. Siri has a lot to answer for.
Sunday was race day, and the weather looked ominous. We got two dry runs before the weather closed in. To the astonishment and dare I say general amusement of all present both the Competition Director and the aforesaid Duniam, managed to repeat the same wrong direction error as the previous day. The gift that keeps on giving.
Thommo on one of his runs managed to get his car jammed in gear and found himself stranded stationary just past the finish line and had to be pushed up hill to the cark park. Thankfully, the problem appears to have rectified itself and he was soon back in action.
Craig Ballinger set an early benchmark of 72 seconds before lowering it further to 70.22 seconds which turned out to be the fastest time of the day for the 25 or so MG's present. Well done Craig! Graeme Ruby despite his navigational difficulties produced a time of 74.88 there followed in close order by Nick Wood, your correspondent, Peter Thomson, Chris Freeman and Steve Duniam who compensated for his slight lack of pace with an excess of style.
