Mt Tarrengower Hillclimb, Competition Report by Peter Thomson

Competition Report By Peter Thomson

Mt Tarrengower Hillclimb Saturday/Sunday October 18th/19th

The week leading up to Tarrengower was pretty hectic for me as I had to straighten a bumper, replace a tail light, drill a few holes in the rear wing, work it with a slide hammer, then spend hours with a hammer and dolly to metal finish, put on a fine filler, then spend hours painting and wet rubbing to return the little B to normality after kissing the concrete wall at Calder. The final coat wasn't dry enough to wet rub or cut and polish, so it was unfinished when heading off to Mt Tarrengower on Thursday afternoon. I met up with Steve and Pete in front of the railway station at Daylesford, then we went straight through to the camping/parking area at the base of the mount. Space is really limited in this bush reserve so you have to be early. Most of the campsites were already taken Thursday night! After setting up tents and the marquee, it was time for a BBQ and a few drinks, thankfully under cover as it had started raining. Just what you don't need, a wet track! We'd been lucky with dry tracks for the last two events, so hopefully third time lucky.

Next morning was sunny so we went into Castlemaine to get some forgotten supplies, have a coffee, and go to the awesome bookshop there. All the others arrived over the course of the afternoon, dropped their cars around our site and then parked their trailers in the allotted areas away from the camps. After another BBQ I packed up my gear then left with Brendan and Chris to go over to the 'rustic' house the three of us were sharing for the next two nights.

Next morning it was the usual early rush to check in, get your car through scrutiny, and get to the drivers briefing on time. As we were back a bit in the run order it gave each of us time to kick back or do the last minute fidgety things like I do. Saturday is only a practise day, so you only get two runs for the day and the times don't count for the final result. This track is pretty intimidating, so it wasn't surprising to see times in the mid to high fifty seconds, for our first runs. There's a couple of spots where your head is screaming at you to back off, and for the first runs you do. As the number of runs progresses, the amount of backing off eases, until you remain on the gas all the way through; overcoming your head with a big dose of adrenalin that does a big yelling into your helmet release session when you stop up top. Well, that's me anyway. I only had two full on runs out of the five runs. I'm not sure how the others faired, but I would imagine they went through similar emotions. We all got our two runs in, thankfully on a dry track. Cars that were staying were organised for the night, then it was back to the house, clean up then off to the pub for dinner. We were a rather large, animated and somewhat noisy group that stayed until near closing time, whereby the looks from the staff packing up around us prompted us to leave.

Next day, thankfully dry again, saw us get three runs for the day. Normally you would get four, but I think the sheer numbers of cars and bikes precluded this. It's a very well run event and generally it's a steady flow of competitors with minimal delays. The only downside is the amount of dust, making it impossible to keep your car clean, and making you appreciate the big K & N filter keeping it out of your engine. It's an event like the Eddington sprints that brings out a lot of interesting vehicles and vintage bikes. Within 0.2 seconds of my best time was a 1932 Ford roadster highboy hot rod with a stink hot flathead V8, running on tall skinny tyres and beam axles. I reckon it would have been terrifying! Also running the same time as Dan in his midget was a GTO Pontiac with a thumping great V8. It never ceases to amaze me how our little cars go so well. My little B was only 0.5 seconds behind a 911 Porsche, faster than all the Jags bar one, including two replica D types, TR7 V8's (4.4l), a big Healey, Alpine A110, BMW's, Elfin streamliner, V8 Holden and yank tanks, an XU1 Torana, Rover and a Chevy Corvette. It came 15th out of 90 cars. It also gave me the Group Sb class win, which I was quite pleased with. When Brendan told Steve my time his comment was, "I'm quite happy with that", the reason being that the last time we were here, he did a 49.6 second run in his Jag powered MGA beast. He was 0.1 of a second faster than me, so he still holds the crown! We all did our runs without incident. Dan and Steve didn't do their last runs, Dan being a bit worried about a leaky head gasket, and Steve citing that your last run is usually always slower. He was right for all of us.

Steve and Pete were staying the Sunday night so I decided to camp another night with them and travel home fresh in the morning. Everyone else headed home that evening. It was a great extended weekend that I think we all enjoyed immensely. Actually it would be hard not to have a great time with anyone from the competition group, they're such a great bunch!

Who would have thought, after it was all over, it rained!

Results:

Peter Thomson MGB Roadster 49.7s Group Sb class win

Dan Hall MG Midget 50.9s

Peter Castelow TVR 2500M 55.0s

Chris Freeman MG MGBGT 55.7s

Brendon Hall MGB Roadster 55.7s

Brendan Sullivan MGA 55.8s

Stephen Duniam Triumph TR3A 64.3s