At the AGM on Tuesday 15th July all committee positions were spilled, as usual, and new members elected. The following is the new committee
| President | David Cavanagh | continuing role |
| Vice-President | Michael Garafilis | continuing role |
| Treasurer | Alby Sommer | new member |
| Secretary | Joe Cumbo | new member |
| Membership Secretary | Jan Garafilis | continuing role |
| General member | Grant Domrow | continuing role |
| General member | Barrie Fisher | new role |
| General member | Drew Valentine | new member |
Guess what? It’s on again – our very own Renault Round-Up!
You don’t want to miss this. Open to anyone with a Renault or Renault-powered vehicle / thing, not just RCCV members.
For those who don’t know, Como Park is in South Yarra, Melbourne
At least in our eyes!
Here’s a few shots of Paul’s and Brad’s preparation of their vehicle, Pepe le Pew Jo.
What’s this all about do I hear you say? Well, check out this post RCCV member in Shitbox Rally supporting Cancer Council to find out
This very rare 1927 BugattiType 44 along with its owner, former president of the Bugatti Club Australia Roger Cameron, will be a very special guest at this year’s All French Car Day in Melbourne this Sunday (27 October).
Be there at 12pm to hear an interview with Roger. Asking the questions will be Alistair McArthur, the owner of an even older vehicle, a 1921 French sports car.
Be there!
You bring the picnic. We’ve got the picnic rug for you!
Here’s a sneak peek at the entrant’s showbag for next Sunday’s (27/10) All French Car Day in Melbourne.
Bring your French pride and joy and join in the fun from 9am at beautiful Woodlands Park – home of the ‘Living Legends’ equestrian heroes. There will be horsepower of every kind! Living legends website
The RCCV contingent doing battle in Round 3 of the Rob Roy Hillclimb Interclub Challenge was well down on our usual numbers with several regulars overseas or suffering injuries sufficient to put them out of contention.
Our reduced numbers reflected the overall attendance with around 65 entries making the spritely procession up the hill and down some 314 times. Yes, that is indeed six runs each for the day, with the usual slew of vehicles that didn’t make it all the all the way through the day.
The day started well when the officials announced we’d be doing the ‘short course’ for a change instead of the long one with the recently introduced and universally unpopular chicane. The track configuration sans-chicane was nice for a change and kept things moving well. There was little need for the recovery vehicle and while the recovery crew did get to go up the track a couple of times they didn’t need to bring any vehicles back. That contributed to the excellent running of the day.
Our four attendees did well; batted above our average with a first in class, a second in class and a third in class. Everyone started with a pleasing time then kept chipping a half-second and occasional whole second off their time. All four of us gained several PBs over the day with that last sixth run giving three of us our best time not only for the day but for ever at this track.
Michelle moved up from fifth to fourth place to have a several run tussle with the third-placed competitor. She took third place with a couple of runs to go and held her ground from then on. She was hoping for a 27-something but squeezed out a 26.93 on the last run to well beat her aspirations.
Leon steadily chipped away at the leader in the class but couldn’t quite get the last 0.17 seconds he needed to take him. He missed his hope of a 25 something time by 0.02 – so close!
David’s diesel Megane behaved itself and didn’t want to stop mid-run to burn off its particle filter. He kept on returning to the pits with a big grin as he knocked 1/3 second of successive runs apart from the one where he took a whole second off.
I myself was pretty stoked with my first run in the cool and damp of the morning, getting close to my PB. It’s usual for my first run of the day to be my best but that wasn’t the pattern for this day. After several runs of getting most of the various aspects right on the mark I finally managed one where I got them all right to get below 44 seconds.
Didn’t think I could do better and thought I’d gotten everything the car – and the driver – had to give. I felt I had a solid benchmark of the engine; a baseline for the forthcoming rebuild. Two runs later, another half second off for a low 44.34! Obviously got it even righter that time!
There were a few cars getting 21s, 22s and 23s – class E, of course – but the time of the day was a shockingly fast 19.57. And that after a couple of scorching 20.2x runs. Blink and you missed it. To put that in context, the course record is 17.30 seconds set in February 2009.
Rob Roy moves with the times and there were a couple of EVs there for ‘demonstration’ runs. One was a big Audi that just looked like it was a fast car but also looked heavy; the other an MG SUV style thing. The debate before they ran was whether the presumed power advantage of the Audi would offset its, also presumed, greater difficulty getting its mass around the chicane.
They were doing the long course (with chicane) and were doing 30-36 second runs initially. Which is not particularly spectacular for that course, about average, but they might have been novices to the track. Later the Audi got into the 29 second bracket and the MG was about our group’s best times for the short course. Of note however was that their final speeds were heading towards the 150kph mark even so. That big Audi clearly had little difficulty dancing around the chicane, whatever its mass was.
While it was a strong per-capita showing, our numbers weren’t sufficient for the club to have a serious chance of challenging the Interclub leaders. Ah well, there’s always next year.
One of our members, Paul Stewart and his son Brad Stewart are doing the Shitbox rally next year.
For those who don’t know what it’s about read on.
The Shitbox rally is a fundraiser for cancer, rules are simple, purchase price of the car must not be any more than $1,500 hence the term shit box. Paul and Brad are using a pair of Peugeot 406 diesels.
It starts in Canberra and finishes in Townsville, a long way on rugged back roads in old cars that were destined for the scrap yard.
100% of the money raised goes to the Cancer Council, none of the entrants or officials get 1 cent, Paul and Brad are financing this on their own so don’t think your donation is funding their drive holiday across the country because it isn’t.
Donations are a little slow coming in and we are asking members go get behind this worthwhile cause, every one of us has been touched by cancer and we must never give up the fight to cure this awful disease. We know people are doing it tough at the moment so we are asking for any help at all, what ever you can spare. Remember no matter how tough you’re doing it’s not as tough as the people fighting the disease.
To get things moving at the General meeting on Tuesday 17th the members decided the club would donate $1000 but we need more.
Log on to Paul’s Pepe Le Pew Jo site to donate and you can look it up at autumn2025.shitboxrally.com.au/pepe-le-pew-jo
For general info on the event click here
Thanks everyone,
David Cavanagh
President RCCV
One of our members is doing the Shitbox rally in a couple of old Peugeots and is looking for donations. All money raised goes to the Cancer Council of Australia. Help Paul by donating whatever you can spare for this great cause.
We are really pleased to announce that we’re taking part in Shitbox Rally 2025 – Autumn! This year, all the teams are driving their shitboxes from Canberra to Townsville.
Shitbox Rally is the largest community lead fundraiser for Cancer Council in Australia and is now in its 15th year. Part of the participation is that all teams have to raise a minimum of $5,000 but most teams raise well above this amount as you can see with the Autumn 2025 rally target set at $2,000,000 plus.
These funds go to Cancer Council and we are extremely proud to be doing our part to support such a worthy charity. The fundraising is the hard part, so any donation you can give is greatly appreciated.
Please click the link below to donate to this great cause.
Pepe Le Pew Jo (shitboxrally.com.au)
Thank you,
Paul Stewart and Brad Stewart.