Escort Car Club Dual Sprint Day - Taupo

15 March

Saturday morning in Auckland couldn’t have started much worse with heavy rain hampering the last minute preparation of Ade & Steve’s race car. The finishing touches were going on the extensive braking system overhaul which proved necessary after previous track days.

With the help of New Lynn Automotive Dismantlers (this guy has eight MR2’s in stock, ph 09-827 3966) who supplied an elusive master cylinder spacer plate, Ade, Steve and I headed off for Taupo with Twitchy (SC race car) and Tinney (Steve’s Turbo) as the support car. After a couple of stops to catch up with friends we cruised into Taupo without a significant improvement in the weather and the forecast for Sunday wasn’t looking any better.

Race-day soon arrived despite a 1hr delay for the end of day-light saving. We met Donel and his SC road car (but edging ever closer to being a race car) at scrutineering and were later joined by a pair of red Mk1s from Palmerston North driven by Tony and Ashley and friends. After a quick drivers briefing, a group of hand picked specially trained flag marshals (mostly MR2 club members... thanks guys) were dispatched to all the danger zones.

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Tony and Ashley’s cars. These guys and their friends came up from Palmerston to watch and help out - many thanks for the help guys!

The track had remained dry for scrutineering but as soon as practise started the heavens opened up. Ade & Steve were old pro’s at the Taupo track so I drove the familiarisation laps required for a novice, this was fine by me as it was a good way to keep dry. I think three drivers in the one car stretched the event organisation to the limits and gave the time keepers something to concentrate on but it all went smoothly.

The field had conveniently been divided into three groups for both practice and racing (3 lap dual sprints) which meant our car was scheduled to remain on the circuit for the entire day! Our competition was made up of, oddly enough, a few Escorts, an MX-5 Turbo, an expertly driven Corolla Sprinter (2T-G vintage), an EVO- 1 Lancer and a couple of Datsun 1600s, one of which was a race prepared SS2000 car on slick tyres... in the rain!

The weather continued to be changeable for most of the day but thankfully the rain didn’t hang around long enough for things to get miserable. It did however keep the drivers on their toes. The aforementioned Datsun and both the competing MR2s left their marks off the track but no damage was done. Due to this small altercation with a sand/mud trap (driver will remain nameless) and a minor CV-joint problem late in the day, Twitchy didn’t quite complete every lap of the event but by my calculations our combined lap count was around 160 laps (220km)... then we drove it 300km back to Auckland. A pretty impressive performance for such a new car.

For the record Steve’s fastest time was just under 50 seconds, Ade and I were around the 52 second mark and Donel was only a further second back. By the end of the day the weather had fined up and we all wound down with a fun session (as though the racing was serious) where we could circulate for a bit longer than a 3 lap sprint. I took the opportunity to get in some practice for endurance racing and stayed on the track a bit longer than was expected... sorry guys, but you don’t have a clock in your car.

The event was superbly run by the Escort Car Club and they’re doing it all again at Pukekohe on the 3rd of May.

Thanks to the guys from Palmy who helped out, the Escort club really appreciated it. A super big mega thanks to Ade & Steve for a blast in their car. I highly recommend it to anyone who gets an invite... but you’ll have to get me out of the seat first.

Malcolm Cambridge.