Sean Ryan from Forum Battle said the event was going ahead rain, hail or shine… Well Melbourne put on enough Rain & Shine for everyone, thankfully no hail!
Feel free to chat here and post pictures you took of the event
Saturday – Motorsport
Even before the event started, Team SAU was off to a rocky start with a number of last min cancellations due to various reasons, so this was going to be a solid test of the group.
The day was easily summed up with 3 letters: WET
Everyone arrived early around 7am to damp conditions, but no rain… By 9.30am when driving briefing was to begin the weather was turning sour with rain coming down steadily. Events required alteration and until 12pm, the short course Lap Dash was going to run.
We took an initial tour of the course, there was a little standing water in some sections however overall the track was good, straights were grippy & corners being quite slippery, a challenging combination. It was set to be a good 2 hour session…
Unfortunately a Red EVO (2nd car) flew off the track and punted a wall on the warm-up lap… That took around 30-40mins to be fished out by the recovery crew. This effectively more than halved what was in the end, our only track session for the day. Whilst waiting the RX7 boys decided the track was too dangerous for them & turned around and went back to the pits, on trailers, and went back to NSW!
Everyone else however stuck it out and there was around 20 cars left to challenge one another for points. SAU took out the top end of Pro Class and Street AWD. There was actually plenty of grip out there and I saw over 160km/h on the back straight.
Later in the afternoon the Gymkhana still went on. By this stage only 10 cars completed and SAU took 2nd place in this event with Reece McIntosh showing his brilliant car control in trying conditions in what was essentially a stock R32 GTS-t, stellar effort there mate!
Summary of SAU Results
Lap Dash
Pro Class
1st – Chris Thomson – R33 GT-R on Yokohama A050
2nd – Adam Newton – “BIG RED” R32 GTS-t on Yokohama A050
Street Class – AWD/Outright
1st – Ash Cosgriff – R33 GT-R on Yokohama AD08
Gymkhana
Outright
2nd Reece McIntosh – R32 GTS-t on Federal RS
Team SAU placed in all events giving us the outright win for Motorsport on cumulative points
The Drags were cancelled as there was literally a river of water across the track by late afternoon. No results there, unfortunate for Brian in his R35. He was ready to dominate as well with a fresh 400rwkw tune!
Sunday – Show’n’Shine
Good start to the morning with only patchy skies and by 10.30am the sun was out with almost clear skies. Was a great say with lots of clubs on display from MelbS15, gripshiftslide.com, SAU, VicDrift, Mightycarmods.com & many others.
SAUs display has some great depth of cars and models. If by some work of magic, there were more R34 GT-R’s (4) than R33 GTS-t’s (0) in fact – bit of a surprise given the quality around the community. Gerry’s C110 & Team R34 GT-R pulled big crowds all day, with John & Scott’s Winfield GT-R Replica getting the most questions without a doubt from the intrigued public.
The other car club displays were great for making it quite diverse with everything from AE86s to S15s and even a worked Falcon! There was even some RC drift car action going on around the place, a solid show indeed given the previous days weather.
Show’n’Shine awards as follows:
Gerry C110 – Best Presented
Daniel R34 GT-R – Best JDM
Anthony R34 GT-R – Best Street Car
Scott/John Winfield R32 GT-R Replica - TBC (unsure of the exact award name)
Overall SAU took out Forum Battle honours.
Huge thanks to Scott Pedder for including Online Forums in the ARC Rally round (All ARC staff for that matter), talking to Scott for about 10-15mins in the afternoon, I left with the distinct impression this will occur next year so watch out for that!
Sean, Rob, Tate, Jon & Co. from Matespace, the men behind Forum Battle organisation. Lot of credit to you guys, thanks for putting up with my constant emails & phone calls
Simon Jreige & Team from Just Car Insurance. It’s great to see Just Car getting behind the grass roots car community the past 18 months and hopefully in years to come.
Also thanks to all other sponsors including Yokohama, Odyssey, Mothers, Zen Garage & many more.
Most importantly thank you to all SAU - who kicked in half the entry fee's for everyone.
Also every entrants who came along to represent SAU's finest. Lastly, all who braved the weather to come out and support/say a g’day & have helped get Team SAU there over the past 4-5 weeks. Lots of people put in some major efforts.
Team SAU will be back next Forum Battle
