30th Phililip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport

***wombat666*** · March 8th, 2019, 03:37

Day 1: Most of the people were just like me, old school racing enthusiasts and counting heads to see who was still alive!
Not all cars present but most were well prepared and showing plenty of speed.
The highway was quite busy on my return journey with cars either driven or on trailers, a 1920 something 3 litre Bentley in traffic is not going off to the Surf Coast!
Over 500 cars entered.
Usual aggravating problems with photography, almost impossible to get decent shots of the pair of 1986 Ferrari's and the Lola-Hart as well as a trio of 956/962 Porsche's!
My favorite car of the day was the Cooper Monaco fitted with a 4.5 Maserati V8, looked authentic and sounded superb, quite rapid as well.

I imagine there were a lot of strengthening brackets and stuff welded in place to absorb the Maserati grunt!
Almost midnight here and an early start for Day 2 so I'm off.
Driving myself the 140K run to PI in the 934 for Saturday, might as well make an entrance.

***wombat666*** · March 8th, 2019, 12:31

Can Am power! Sounded epic. Chassis is an Elfin ME 400, one of the very successful indigenous designs from Adelaide.

***wombat666*** · March 9th, 2019, 05:38

Day 2.

About double the number of cars today, pretty much the full entry!

First up, the one off Brabham BT31 Single cam Repco, actually a test mule that ran in one Tasman Cup round in 1967 and only appeared again in a Gold Star round at Bathurst, where J.B. knocked 4+ seconds off the outright lap record!
This while experimenting with wings. Something odd about this shot, might be the UV filter?

Another local build, the Elfin 400 Globe Quad Cam Ford 289.
Completely rebuilt to the original mid 1960's specification even down to the colour, a great example of restoring an overlooked car, as the rest of the build run were powered by Traco Olds, Repco SOHC, small block Chevrolets and eventually Repco Holden F5000 units.
FTR Globe were the largest alloy wheel manufacturers in Australia at the time and designed and built very special 4 cam heads to fit the 289 Ford Cobra block, just for this first Elfin Gr.7 thumper.

Not my best image but it features many of our Gr.A touring cars, now regarded by many of us old farts as the best touring car series in Oz.

The original GMH giant killer, a Holden LJ202 XU-1 Torana, only six cylinders but a Bathurst 1000 winner and often blowing the much vaunted Ford GT-HO Phase 3 into the weeds. I (of course) owned one and I'd really like to own one again!
Straight off the showroom floor in full street legal trim a good 202 XU-1 could easily reach 150MPH +/- loose change.
One of my fondest memories was watching the lead Ford Team GTO HO being passed at the original Surfers Paradise circuit by the GM Factory/HDT XU-1 on the front straight..........a 202 Straight 6 blowing right by a 351 V8!!!