Piddling Phillip Island State Round
Sept 29-30
Report by N. Soft & A. N. Other. Pics by Phil Wisewould
Not wishing to be too negative but the dismal weather was matched by the dismal entries for the historic touring cars. A scant eight cars was reduced by one before qualifying after the McNiven Torana packed up and went home on the Friday. Of the remaining seven four were V8s – three Mustangs and a Falcon, one Torana and two Cortinas, one of which was using the meeting to do a bit of sorting.
Darryl Hansen in the 68 Trans Am Mustang boosted his championship chances by getting a bag of points, setting pole at 1.50.6. Eight tenths behind was Michael Miceli’s 69 Fastback, 2.3 seconds behind him was Neil Crowe in a similar car with Colin Larsen’s Falcon seven seconds behind that. The lone Torana of Stephen Pillekers was uncharacteristically way back on 2.07, with Simon Browning at 2.10 and Mick Stupka on 2.13 in the Cortinas. At least there looked the chance of a decent punch up at the front…
Race 1
And that proved to be the case with Hansen taking the win a mere .6 sec ahead of Michael Miceli, who posted a ripping 1.49.6, the fastest lap for the weekend. With the Crowe Mustang not starting and the Larsen Falcon retiring with a suspected distributor shaft breakage, Stephen Pillekers took third almost a minute in arrears but back to his usual pace of around 1.55 secs; among the Cortinas Simon Browning had around 45secs over Mick Stupka, testing away. The field was now down to five cars…
Race 2
Sunday morning saw the same 1-2 result with Hansen getting under the 1.50 mark and stretching the distance at the flag over Miceli with Pillekers, Browning and Stupka finishing as they had the previous afternoon.
Race 3
Sunday afternoon: the mighty four-car grid soon became a three car field with the retirement of Hansen with a broken gearshift. No doubt struggling to stay awake even with more than half-a-thousand horsepower under his foot, Miceli ambled to a win ahead of Pillekers with Simon Browning no doubt having a quiet larf under his helmet, on the irony of being on the podium in a three car race.