Sun, 16th August, 2015 Anchor Belle Van Park, Phillip Island

1 year on the road. It has been a ball and we are looking forward to the next few years. Also looking forward though to going home on the 20^th to see our boys, parents and friends.

Early start as Malcolm has a race just after 9am. They start reverse order so he was in 6^th as he finished yesterdays in 4^th (10 in the race).

He was going so well and got up to 3^rd position.  He zoomed past us on pit straight to overtake 2^nd but then he didn’t appear with the others down near the ocean. Another car was missing too. Eventually the other one drove back then Malcolm limped back to the pits. He had spun in oil. After the boys checked it over they realised it was his oil. The bracket holding the oil dipstick broke which allowed the dipstick to pop out spraying oil down the right hand side of the car and over his tyre causing the spin. Luckily no damage except fishing out the kitty litter and fixing the bracket. Everyone got to work and fixed and cleaned the car so it was ready for the next race.

I wandered down to check out the Corvette. Steve saw the name and thought it was a driver from the old days of Touring Cars. When we asked, he was correct – Murray Carter was 84 years old and has been racing since 1948.

Ready for Race 3.

Unfortunately when he got up to form up the engine started to misfire and was down on power so he pulled off before the start of the race. When they checked there was no fuel being injected into No. 1 cylinder so maybe the oil upset things.  He joined us on the roof to watch the others. The front three guys were doing really well then as they came onto pit straight one drifted wide and caught the edge of the dirt and spun. He clipped another one then he hit the next one and they were all spinning around on the track and grass. Luckily no one was hurt through the wallets will be after the repairs are done.

There was another bad crash in the Superkarts – one guy flipped and was thrown from his kart. The ambulance attended so hopefully he will be ok. They stopped the race and the drivers were parked outside Malcolm’s pit area and they were all very concerned.

Packed up the car onto Malcolm’s ute – this way is so much cheaper on Spirit of Tasmania.

Certainly looks cute compared to the big rig beside him.

Headed back to the van for a bit then back to meet the others for dinner at the pub.  Peter (Mr PRB) and Renatta joined us for dinner which was lovely. Peter told us how he got started making the cars. He is electrician by trade. Very interesting story.

Said bye to Jeff and Anne, Malcolm’s parents – they are driving the ute back to Tassie on Tuesday night. Will see the others in the morning as we gave them our electric heaters to use as the unit’s heaters weren’t working properly and they even said it was too cold!!