Rotary Hillclimb Racing

The Leyburn Sprints have been running now for the last 15 years, the event celebrates the running of the first Grand Prix in Queensland some 61 years ago.

This year was one of the best events to date and with one of the largest recorded spectator crowds and the largest entry list of 211 cars.

The organizers and officials must be congratulated and should be proud of the event, with proceeds going back into the next event to make it even better. The other beneficiaries of the proceeds are the local Leyburn community projects like the Rural Fire Brigade, the Leyburn State School P &C and the Leyburn RSL just to name a few.

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Supporting the 2010 Gold Coast Show in the rotary hillclimb racing car.

We had a phone call from the Gold Coast Show organizers a few weeks ago, asking if we would like to have our Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car on display.

Each year at the show there is an exhibition of all forms of motorsport, the idea behind the exhibition is to promote road safety by showing people all different forms of motorsport, and how easy it is to compete in motorsport. This hopefully will make people join car clubs and take illegal street racing off the roads and onto race tracks where it belongs.

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TIGHE CAMS HILLCLIMB, ROUND 3, 7th & 8th August 2010.

The third round of the Tighe Cams series for 2010 was another 2 day event. The 99 entered competitors were able to get three runs in from 12 o’clock on Saturday afternoon and another four runs on Sunday plus the top six shootout. Saturday and Sunday were ideal winter days just perfect for hill climbing with the majority of the cars keeping on the track with no major problems.

There were a few records broken over the weekend, one of them was Michael Collins in his Subaru WRX. Michael’s time was 42.35 sec this is the fastest sedan ever to run around the Mt Cotton track, well done Michael how much quicker can you go!

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Noosa Hillclimb 17th & 18th July 2010.

This Hillclimb was organised by the MG Car Club of Queensland and the Noosa Beach Classic Car Club’s. It was sponsored by the autObarn stores at Gympie and Nambour. So thanks go to the two car clubs and autObarn for a very well organised event and well promoted.

The hillclimb was a 2 day event with 116 cars entered, due to the well run event and great timing the competitors were able to get three runs on Saturday afternoon and another four on Sunday. Saturday was ideal for hillclimbing and the majority of the cars stayed on the track. Sunday was also ideal for hillclimbing a number of competitors had “offs’” including Warwick in the rotary hillclimb racing car, but not too much damage was sustained.

There were only 3 Rotary Hillclimb Racing Cars entered in this Hillclimb and they all did extremely well with the 2 Mazda Rx7’s of Scott Trenoweth and Ken Luxton running in the improved production 2001 & over Class and Warwick Hutchinson in the open wheeler special running in Formula Libre 1301 & over Class.

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Making Wet weather Tyres out of old Slicks.

After running this new car for over 1 year and running a hillclimbs in the wet with full slicks, I thought that I would try to reduce the risk of rain at up-coming Hillclimbs by making a full set of wet weather grooved slicks. Hopefully just like when ironically after you have washed your car that it rains, I hope that when I actually have wet tyres that it will reduce the possibility of rain.

To do this I looked at different designs of the grooved wet weather tyres that are currently being used in motorsport. After much consideration I designed my own profile to cut grooves.

Firstly I marked-out the design that it wanted onto the front tyres with white marker pen. Read the rest of this entry »

QHC HILLCLIMB Results 5th & 6th June 2010.

Once again the Queensland Hillclimb Championships were blessed with the best winter weather that Queensland has to offer.

With 75 people entered and ready for a great weekend of hillclimbing. Saturday’s practice had a few highlights and just a many lowlights one of which was the crash of Douglas Barry’s Lola as he went through the finish line, the result of this crash had 3 wheels torn off the chassis and the car was damaged and unable to be repaired to get it ready for Sundays official runs, but I am sure that Douglas will get the car fixed soon. One of the other mishaps that occurred on the Saturday was the Mazda MX5 of Desley Collins who rolled as she came out of the 2nd loop, up the bank then over on to the roof. Desley was Ok but the car was badly damaged.

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Mt Cootha Classic Hillclimb Results 29th & 30th May 2010

This was the 2nd annual Mt Cootha Classic and a total of 143 cars ready to attack the Mt Cootha track. On Saturday the competitors were ready and willing but the weather had other ideas as clouds rolled in the rain started and rain fell on and off all day. The runs on Saturday were very wet with just a few cars having some moments but most made it without any major problems.

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