This year we have more than doubled the number of active sporting members with 28 representing the Renault Car Club of Victoria in at least one CAMS event over the year.

The very worthy winner of the Les Park Sporting trophy for 2017 is again John Elliott who continues to consistently represented RCCV in his chosen sport of Hillclimbing.

 

John Elliott		27 Points	(9 events)
Graeme Edwards		21 Points	(9 events)
David Bertuch		12 Points	(5 events)
Colin Stark		9 Points	(3 events)
Geoff Rasmussen		8 Points	(5 events)
Paul Stewart		6 Points	(3 events)
Angelo Simonetto		4 Points	(2 events)
Glenn Armstrong		4 Points	(4 events)
Rui DeLemis		4 Points	(4 events)
Peter Stathis		4 Points	(4 events)
David Kirsa		3 Points	(3 events)
Wes Gleeson		3 Points	(3 events)
John Hardy		2 Points	(1 event)
Rob Belcourt		2 Points	(2 events)
Mikee Elliott		2 Points	(2 events)
James Moffatt		2 Points	(2 events)
Sanjay Singh		2 Points	(2 events)
James Thomas		2 Points	(2 events)
Ian Thomson		2 Points	(2 events)
Adam Turner		2 Points	(2 events)
Daniel Groszek		1 Point	(1 event)
Jason Hopkins		1 Point	(1 event)
Simon Hopkins		1 Point	(1 event)
Mike Neil		1 Point	(1 event)
Reg Polson		1 Point	(1 event)
Dev Raj		1 Point	(1 event)
Greg Testolin		1 Point	(1 event)
Ashley Thomas		1 Point	(1 event)

To ensure inclusion in the sporting award, members need to email details of events entered, including results to the Sporting Coordinator, Graeme Edwards at 

Details about the Club Championship are here

One of the highlights of our day at Round 2 of the Rob Roy Interclub challenge was Graeme Edwards cracking a PB of 25.42 on his last run for the day after edging closer and closer all day.  With a grin from ear to ear he made the point that that was the fastest a Clio has ever gone up Rob Roy.  He’s also decided that the money he spent on new tyres was well spent – up till now he was thinking they were a bit pricey!  Given that Graeme has been a serious hillclimb competition driver for years, to get a PB is quite a bonus for his day out.  That PB also earned him a 1st in class.

Another highlight – David Bertuch’s tussle with a seriously kitted out Ford Focus. Fractions of seconds separated them for most of the day with the pair alternating best times as they both steadily improved their times.  David’s scorching 24.90 in the last run sealed victory over the Focus for him, and 1st in class too. And David was second fastest on the day, beaten for that by a full on post-1960 racing car.

Not to take away from the skill, and courage, of Graeme and David but I suspect the magnificent weather (for this time of year) helped by keeping a little warmth in the track to the end, though it was starting to cool down quickly. Let that be a lesson to us – get the the start grid early in the later run as your competitors after you will get a cooler conditions, and go out at the end of the class in the first runs for the same reason. When there’s fractions of seconds separating cars every little bit helps.

The RCCV crew contesting Round 2 of the Rob Roy Interclub included a few new players for the club. With the exception of Ian giving his R12 a taste of competition, they all fielded Clios of one kind of another. Rui did the Come and Try at Rob Roy last September then took the first opportunity to compete whereas James T skipped the Come and Try option leaping straight into competition – either way both are new members of the club getting into motor sport right up front. Our other new Interclub contributors, James M, Wes G and Adam T, come from a familiarity with track days. Also there on the day, enjoying the Come and Try was new member Joel Joseph. So that’s seven members that Rob Roy hasn’t seen before.

All of the new drivers showed big improvements in times over the day, slicing 2 or 3, even 4 seconds off each run. Naturally, that made them feel good and they were all having a ball.

John turned in his usual enviable performance, maybe that’s just me envying his Alpine!  It’s a tough  class for the 3000cc and over and that might have kept him out of the points. It was good to see Glenn getting his times back up again in his Megane, at least as far as it seems his tyres will let him.  Peter, also in a Megane, was getting similar times to Glenn.

The introduction of the under 1000cc class this round gave me, I thought, the best opportunity I was ever going to get of winning a class. Various circumstances had conspired to keep other potential candidates from our club from entering this round. But, would you believe it, a VW Up entered – 999cc of sophisticated modern engine up against my 50yr old 845cc design engine.  I wasn’t so much disappointed by not having a chance at getting first in class as I was at not being able to claim I was ‘in a class of my own’ and pointing out that a first in class was also the slowest car up the hill!

More pictures are available from our friend David Branch.

It was a busy day with 80 competitors plus the come and try class. A usual it was slickly run by the MGCC – our thanks to them – and only one incident requiring the recovery vehicle, with no real damage to the driver, to mar the smooth running.

After Round 1, we were tied with the MGCC and we hoped to take a bit of a lead in Round 2.  While the results are not out yet, from our informal count it looks like the MGCC have done somewhat better than us.

There were four classes in which we didn’t have anybody and the MGCC did well in each of those. Three of the classes – Clubman and pre & post 160 racing – we aren’t ever going to have a candidate in and as they are all small classes (3, 4 entrants) whichever club is in them gets easy points. Which is just an added challenge for us.

full scores are available from the Rob Roy website here

The third and final round is on October 1st – put it in your calendar, and I’ll see you there.

by Geoff Rasmussen