Mt Cootha Hillclimb, Saturday & Sunday, 30th & 31st May, 2009
This Hillclimb was held in association with the 150 year celebrations for Queensland. There were hillclimbs held on this track back in the 1920’s. We have been advised if everything ran smoothly with the Brisbane City Council, Qld Police Force and the locals this hillclimb will be gazette once a year for the next 5 years. So fingers crossed!! To show Queenslanders what type of Motorsport that is held in Qld the Historic Racing Car Club has featured different forms of motorsport. There were some racing and there were some demonstrations of vehicles ie Speedway cars and Historic Motorcycles.
RPV02 at start line Mt Cootha
Future Rotary Hillclimb Racing Driver - Mitchell
There were large crowds of spectators on both days that attended the Cootha Classic and were able to see some exciting racing of all type of vehicles a total of 223 cars competing. The fastest time of the day was Bill Norman in his 2007 G.E.K with a time of 47.39 sec, in second place was Alan McConnell in his 1987 Van Diemen with a time of 48.06 sec
It was Warwick’s second event for the new Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car RPV02. After Warwick’s debut at Mt Cotton on the 17th May he was quietly confident that the new Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car will do well. We went out to the track on Friday afternoon to unload the car and get the car scrutineered and all paperwork done before Saturday’s racing. Saturday we had 2 runs one was an untimed run so everyone could see where all the chicane and braking points were. The second run was a timed run and the RPV02 did a time of 51.07 sec, which was the fastest time for the day. So the expectations for the times on Sunday were hopefully going to be even faster than Saturday.
Damage to front wing mounts
Sundays first run for the day in the RPV02, Warwick took off from the start line and through the 1st lot of chicanes and as he entered the first corner sweeper the front wing fell off the car. The wing hung on by a few bolts all the way to the end of the track. When we got back to the pits Warwick took off the wing and found that the rivets holding the brackets for the wing had sheared off. The original Van Diemen cars don’t usually have wings on the front and with the redesign the wings on the front created huge down force which caused the rivets to shear off. The only damage to the wing was the brackets on the bottom where it had ground down due to being dragged on the road. Warwick replaced the rivets with small bolts and the wing was reattached to the chassis and we were ready for the next run.
Mounting front nose back on to RPV02
The second run Warwick was wanting to make up time after not recording as time due to the wing falling off. This run was going really well until he reached the hairpin, as he was going just a little to fast to turn into the hairpin Warwick locked the front brakes and the wheels locked up and crashed into the wall and tyre barrier. Luckily there was very little damaged to the front wing and the wing mounts that Warwick had repaired from the 1st run need to be replaced again. He fixed the damage and was able to run in the top 20 shoot out as he recorded a time from Saturday.
Repairing front wing mount on chassis
Repaired front wing after crash
The Rotary Hillclimb Racing Cars competing at this event and their best runs were
Warwick Hutchinson (RF92-RPV02 13B Turbo) 51.07
Darren Duffield (RPV01 13B Turbo) 49.46
Sean Sorrenson (Ford Anglia 13B Turbo) 53.70
Scott Trenoweth (Mazda RX7 13B) 57.96
Gary Neut (Mazda RX7 13B)
Top Six Results were
Alan McConnell 47.26 (Van Diemen RF87)
Warwick Hutchinson 48.50 (RF92-RPV02 Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car)
Darren Duffeild 48.87 (RPV01 – Rotary Hillclimb Racking Car)
Ray Vandersee 49.10 (Skelta XTS8)
Jim Richards 49.28 (Porsche 944T)
Neville Scott 49.31 (Subaru WRX)
Click on below links to view incar footage of RPV02 crash & top 20 shoot out run.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW CRASH INCAR FOOTAGE
CLICK HERE TO VIEW INCAR FOOTAGE OF TOP 20 SHOOT OUT RUN
CLICK HERE TO VIEW RPVO1 FOOTAGE MT COOTHA
The next hillclimb event is at Mt Cotton Qld Championships on 13th & 14th June 2009