HIGHS & LOWS
GLENN TORRENS BLENDS WORK AND PLAY – AND PLEASURE WITH PAIN – DURING A VICTORIAN TWO-TRACK TREK
SOMETIMES, THE planets line up nicely. And so t hey did for me late last year when the lads at Street
Machine magazine inv ited me to Victoria to assist wit h Drag Challenge. This event involves more than 100 of t he countr y’s quickest street cars competing at f ive drag st rips in f ive days, driv ing to each track. If you’re into quick street machines, t his event is capita l-A Awesome!
I decided to combine work wit h play: tow my litt le yellow hill-climb Bug from NSW to Melbourne, work at Drag Challenge, compete at t he Austra lian Hill Climb Championships immediately after DC, leave my tow Hilux and my race V W (on its tra iler) in Melbourne for a few weeks and then participate at t he Geelong Rev iva l.
Yet again Morley was involved. With yet another beer y bribe, he agreed to store my trio of vehicles for t he duration. Also helping me out was StreetMachine’s Simon Telford, who not only allowed me to dump my junk on his driveway during Drag Challenge, but a llowed me to wag DC’s last day so I could attend t he Austra lian Hill Climb Championship. Thanks, blokes !
The Austra lian Hill Climb Championship was held at Br yant Park, near Morwell a couple of hours’ drive from Melbourne. I have competed there before and thanks to its layout, out look and faci lit ies, t his dedicated motorsport facilit y ra nks high on t he ‘great Aussie race t racks’ list. However, in 2011, t he Austra lian Hill Climbs were run reverse-pattern, so there was no advantage for t he loca ls. This year, it was run the regular way (so my
set-up notes from t he 2011 event were la rgely irreleva nt) and apart from one slow look-around run on Friday evening, I missed the t wo days of practice ! Then… I ran out of f uel on my f irst competition run! D’Oh!
It was litt le surprise I was beaten in my class as I simply didn’t get t he car setup right. Excuses, excuses… However, I reckon my closerun 2nd place (by 0.17sec,
I t hink!) was a prett y good ef fort, especia lly on hard old t y res !
Three weeks later, I f lew back to Melbourne and after doing some maintenance on my race car at Morley’s, I arrived in Geelong for t he Geelong Rev iva l event. For t he f irst t ime, t his included a hill-climb. Being a new track, we competitors were a llowed a slow drive-around (in convoy) to witness t he track before we were let of f t he chain in competition.
But even wit h t he benefit of t he fa miliarisation r un, wit h cold t y res and a hot attitude, I ran wide on t he f irst corner of my f irst r un – but worse was yet to come! After crossing t he f inish line, I was waved off t he track by a fra ntic of f icia l who explained t hat I’d dropped oil t he complete leng t h of t he t rack.
Oh shit.
Inspection revea led I’d dislodged a fragile cork gasket during my prerace spanner check of the cylinder heads while on Morley’s hoist. The low–rev, low-speed track inspection (and wit h t he pit area being on grass) hadn’t caused a noticeable lea k… but the 8000rpm of competition had pumped plent y of oil past the damaged gasket. It took the good-hearted track crew about half an hour to clean the mess… Sorr y folks.
Thankfully there was no engine damage and with the help of my mate Damo, we had the gasket replaced promptly so I could collect class wins both days… But how embarrassing!