President Col Pogson clpogson@bigpond.com 0416 053 037

Vice President Dave Anderson 0409 246 689

Secretary Sue Humbles secretary@wac.org.au 0423 170 259

Treasurer John Williamson 02 49515984

Kylie Inskip

David Grant

Graeme Humbles

Warren Roach

The last stage 2 rallysprint of the 2012 season was run on 1 Sept in fitting conditions, as it has been a season of more damp events than any other in my experience. In almost 20 years of running around Awabawac Park I have never seen so many wet events run and it is great to have such an awesome surface that, under Col’s loving care, seems to hold up so well. For comparison, we also compete in the ACT rally series and the third round (of six) is scheduled for 27 Oct – in the same timeframe we have run 4 rallysprints and 6 khanacrosses at Awaba!! The Westlakes Automobile is very lucky indeed. Now back to the last rallysprint of the year… To set the scene, Dylan Grant/Tara Mowett and the Vales had been swapping times all year and Dylan had a handful of points up on me in both the NAMS and WAC point scores going into the last round but it was very unlikely we could pull them back. But we were going to try anyway, so we brought two new Hankook rally tyres for the front and I had my old navigator from ten years ago, Matt Grudnoff, onboard. Would it be enough? The three runs in the first direction were probably the driest of the year and I must admit being a little caught out by how fast the track is when it is dry. At the half way point Dylan and Tara had us by three seconds and my spy in the spectator area told me they were looking unbeatable. Both smooth and quick.

The first run of the second direction was largely dry and maybe the Hankooks are better with the edges knocked off them (??) because the car seemed to be more predictable. Whatever it was, we pulled a second back on Dyl and started to think the gap was possible to close but we would still be struggling. Then it happened, the heavens opened, and after the first two corners of the second run we thought that we might have a real go and see what happens. I’m not sure why but the car was so awesome in the wet but it allowed us to pull back the time. Maybe I just like playing in the mud? So in the end we beat Dyl on the day but it wasn’t enough to get him in the NAMS or WAC point scores – he was simply too good! Congrats mate, you deserve it. To be so consistently fast at your age is something very rare indeed. Important note: I should add that both Dylan and I were completely trounced by the super quick buggy of Cyril Croker for NAMS first place. Congratulations Cyril!

Saas Race Seats Black in colour Good for Khanacross & Motorkhana Excellent Condition $400.00 (for the pair) Ph: 02 4997 5703, Mob: 0408 632 061

Classic Rally Car 1975 L B Lancer Coupe 2 Litre 5 Speed with Webbers Intercom Hydraulic Handbrake CAMS Log Book Rollcage $5,500.00 ono Ph: 02 4997 5703, Mob: 0408 632 061

Sunday the 23rd of September was the day for round 3 of the NSW State Motorkhana Championship combined with round 4 of the NAMS Motorkhana Championship and the morning sun was a terrific lead in for what was to be a great day both weather wise and competition wise. The sun was shining, there were no clouds in the sky with a light breeze to blow away the numerous tonnes of Awabawac Park surface that were to find themselves tossed into the atmosphere by the 51 competitors. The Westlake's volunteers had prepared 3 tests to start the day (thank you to those volunteers, you know who you are and we all appreciate your tireless efforts) including some tests we had not seen for a while. A total of 6 tests were used for the whole event including the dreaded reversing event number 2,” Waltz Clover”. After an uneventful driver’s briefing (my wife was there so I had to behave) racing commenced and the dust began to fly instantly. Because of the open nature of Awabawac Park, the tests can be quite spread out allowing the driver’s to use full revs and the slippery rock hard clay always provides plenty of sideways action. Waltz, boogie,

foxtrot, break dance, you name the step, I am sure you would have seen all competitor cars dancing at some stage throughout the day. The “Waltz Clover” event 2 provided many drivers with some deep thought owing to the reverse portion of the test. My own car has a radiator directly behind the driver so doing a reverse test in my car is like Stevie Wonder reverse parking. You just hope for the best. Four of the six events were large and many drivers really “gave it the beans” on these courses and found themselves wallowing in their own dust. Consequently, there were many frightened flag poles and timekeepers looking like they had spray tans at the end of the day. Warwick Butt ultimately won the day in his Mini special, I think his middle name is “Kicks”, 2nd place to Brad Clarke in the Vee Dat and 3rd place to David Masing who really excelled in his “Excel”. Congratulations guys!

The other big winners for the day were the juniors who are out having a go, gaining valuable experience but also learning life saving skills and keeping our sport alive. It’s great to see so many juniors enjoying themselves and doing something that not everybody would even know exists and learning car control years in advance of obtaining a road licence. You juniors are the future champions of our sport.

I would also like to welcome Ben Semple back to competitive driving, and good to see you at the top end of the score sheet Ben in your Subaru. You have not lost any of your touch. A special mention to our club president Col Pogson, who despite recently injuring himself, will not take it easy and is always there to see the smiles on all the faces. Thanks Col. Thank you to all the officials, time keepers and those who help pack up the events at the end of the day. Also thanks to the canteen staff for feeding the hungry mob. Did you ask anybody if they would like their meal with dust or without? Another top class Westlake's Auto Club event completed and I hope to see you all at the next event, which is the day/night Khanacross and final NAMS round for the year on Saturday the 29th of September. See you there. Regards

Evan van Leeuwen

Some of our volunteers Rob Clarke, Narelle van Leeuwen, Paul Allan & Col Pogson sitting in the heat timing us.

Dannenberg Civil Pty Ltd

56 Sandringham Ave Thornton NSW 2322

02 49664449

www.dannenbergcivil.com.au

Gadget Repairs See Tony Evans for all your Repairs and servicing of machinery or welding needs 0412 692 778

Thank you for your Support & Members

Mintie Moment

Photo Courtesy To Graham Clarke

Evan Van Leeuwen

From the Orange City Council Rally with a field of 52 Competitors The Orange Rally was made up of 5 stages, where every stage but 1 was over 30kms in length. STAGE 1: Started at the top of Mt Canobolis with a great view, working its way down hill with some great flowing corners, long open sections and into tight and twisty sections. Mowett/Mowett; We had to use the road book like pace notes after our terratrip stopped working. We did a reasonable time matching the 180SX in front of us. Grant /Mowett; 4 km from the end our eventful day began. Firstly we encountered a rubber burning smell which we thought was the engine overheating. We continued driving to the end of the stage where we could safely pull over and check. We found that the bonnet had knocked the radiator cap off, luckily it was tied in and still there. After putting water in, we then found coolant had splashed into the fuse box, buggered the starter fuse and then had to clutch start the car. STAGE 2: This stage had some really fast sections, tight twisty parts and uphill. Mowett/Mowett; Myself and Bud where feeling a bit more confident with no trip metre and gave this stage a bit of a go. We overshot a tight hard to see corner, but by the wheel tracks we weren’t the only ones to do so. We were pretty happy that the more powerful 180SX did not put a big time gap on us especially with the uphill stuff, the Bluebird struggled a bit but still a great stage. Back into service to have a look at the terratrip where we then noticed a bad oil leak. We found the dipstick had popped out, cable tied it back in, topped up the oil and fuel and set off for stage 3. Grant/Mowett; We had the Civic going and did stage 2 with no issues. Making it back into service, we found Dave worrying about us making it to the end. Mum was there telling him not to stress.

STAGE 3: A rough and rocky end of stage with carnage. Mowett /Mowett; The first couple of km’s we thought it was great. Still with no trip metre we turned it off and drove to the road book and what we could see. The road turned really rough and rocky with a number of single, double and triple cautions. It was a stage Bud and I really enjoyed even having to go back to 1st gear to crawl through the creek crossing due to the size of the rocks. At the end of stage we had moved up the order with a lot of carnage. Back into service for a general check over, refuel and lunch. Grant /Mowett; 4km’s from the end we blew a tyre, there was no where to change it and we continued to the end of the stage. We made it out to the road

the end of the stage. We made it out to the road where we changed the tyre but not before the car decided to roll off the jack. Luckily Dylan had the tyre partially on to stop the disk from hitting the ground. We made it back to service placed another tyre on and went out to stage 4. STAGE 4: Great stage that was a little dusty. Mowett/Mowett; After talking to John Paine it was between us to take out the class win. We started out pretty average with a overshoot and then I stalled it trying to hard. We settled back into it enjoying the stage and luckily not loosing too much time. We found out that John had done the same thing as us. We finished the stage a lot faster than we would start the next stage, telling each other just to enjoy it and finish. Grant/Mowett; The fuel gauge dropped from nearly full to half, yes you guessed it nearly 4 km’s from the end. We didn’t think anything of it until we arrived at the control. The officials gave us a drink and then we noticed a good leak from the fuel tank. We went straight into service where Dave plugged it with soap and tape filled us back up again. We were able to rejoin the Rally to do stage 5 while still worrying the soap wasn’t going to hold.

Above: Darren Mowett / Aaron Mowett

STAGE 5: There was a big delay waiting to start as the recovery people did a great job clearing the carnage. The stage was also extremely Dusty, 30 km’s away from service and 32 km’s competitive. Mowett/Mowett; We started the stage really well. 2/3 of the way through we were catching Painey until the creek triple caution. I came into it way too fast, hit a big rock, smashed the exhaust, then coming up the hill cut a rear tyre. With only having a couple of km’s to go we stayed on it to the end. We were heaps faster than previously on stage 3. Grant/Mowett; We caught our first car on stage which was great, even through the dust! We also had 32 missed phone calls, we rang Dave and mum to say we were finished and were coming in.

OVERALL Mowett/Mowett; We had lost too much time but still had a good day for the under powered Bluebird. We finished 13th Outright and 2nd in class. I have to give a big thanks to Bud (Aaron), he did a great job in the car and let me know when I was over driving. Thank you to our Service Crew Pauline, Dave Grant and Dave Anderson for trying to get the terratrip working and servicing. A great Rally, no pressures and good fun!

Grant/Mowett; After a very eventful event we finished 27th Outright out of 52 starters and 2nd in open FWD. Overall we had a great day, Dylan drove great and a big thanks to Dave for all the stress we put him through at his 1st ever Rally. Thank you mum for keeping him calm Regards

Darren and Tara Mowett Mowett/Mowett finished their highest ever result in the Bluebird on a Rally, Congratulations! Grant/Mowett finished their 1st ever Rally together and 1st Rally for Dylan, Congratulations! Thank you Dusty Photography for all of the photos in this article.

Above: Dylan Grant / Tara Mowett

a. John Black, 1904

c. Henry Scholer, 1901

b. Mary Anderson, 1903

d. Maureen Allan, 1902

1. Who invented windscreen wipers & when?

Answers: 1b, 2d, 3c, 4a, 5c

2. Who invented the air filled rubber tyre & when?

a. Harvey Firestone, 1868

c. Willie Hume, 1889

b. Charles Goodyear, 1844

d. John Dunlop, 1888

3. What was the first car engine designed to run on? (not built)

a. Hydrogen & Oxygen

c. Gunpowder

b. Coal Gas

d. Kerosene

4. Who was the first person to ever have a motor vehicle accident & when?

a. Nicolas Cugnot, 1771

c. Elizabeth Hartly, 1802

b. Lillianah Deitz, 1795

d. Robert Anderson, 1814

5. Who built the first all mass produced Australian car & when?

a. Ford Australia, 1925

c. General Motors Holden, 1948

b. Toyota Motor Corp Australia, 1958

d. Chrysler Australia, 1971

26th October – General Meeting 28th Ocotber – NAMS Motorkhana - Last Round @ Awaba

17th November – Westlakes Presentation / BBQ Christmas Party

21 October – NSW Khanacross Ansell Park – TCC

27 October – Club Rally Manning Valley – CNCSCC 10 November – NSW Rally Tumut – BMSC

17 November – NSW Rallysprint Termeil – NDDC 17 November – NAMS Touring Assembly Upper Hunter – AHRG

25 November – NAMS Hillclimb Ringwood – MGCCN 15 December – NSW Khanacross Hampton

It was a sunny day with only a few clouds for once, the track was dry and it made it a bit skatey for everyone. It was great being a bit different from the usual mud everywhere. There was not a full field (although still 57 cars) which surprised me as it was the last Khanacross for the year. It was good to see two cars on the track at the same time. I think it got everything moving a lot quicker which was good. On the first run of the day, I let dad go first. We have this thing that which ever one of us drives second wins out of us. I also got to ask him how the track was and he came back saying really slippery. I went and had my run and found out just how slippery it really was in so many spots and I didn’t even need my handbrake at all. The second run of the day was much the same. It was quite fast, flowing and very slippery in my car. I let dad go first again and our dad and son thing proved to be true beating him again.

We had a short break while the officials turned the track around, then went back out for recky. I went down to watch a few cars go through the bottom spectator point. I watched a few go through before seeing the unlucky Corolla roll. Luckily the driver got out ok but the car was a bit beaten up. The car was put on a trailer and then within a minute a Civic went over on the other track. I think the night runs were the best and it was pretty close racing which was good. I would like to thank everyone that put work in to the event, it was a TOP EVENT ! Thanks

Ben Humbles Steve Jones Dave Tonkin Nicole Tonkin Sharni Tonkin

Bob Way Jamie Way Sharon Way

Veronica Way

Steven Forsberg Iain Hughes Robert Monk Aaron Mowett Darren Mowett Pauline Mowett

Tara Mowett

A group of Westlake's members travelled to Coopernook to start the 2nd round of the NSW Rallysprint series on 8/9/12. We had our regular Rallysprinters with the addition of 3 new teams (Adrian + Kristy Turnbull, Mark Turnbull + Tegan McCormack and Dylan Grant + Tara Mowett) ready to experience their first Rallysprint outside of Awaba. Peter Haughton a regular competitor of Awaba and Graham Orr drove fantastic. Have you ever watched anyone who drives so neat while maintaining a quick speed? Congratulations on finishing 8th outright. Darren and Aaron Mowett gave us all a beautifully set up corner to watch on leg 5. They finished in 10th Outright improving on previous results, congratulations! Adrian and Kristy Turnbull encountered electrical problems at the end of leg 4 and decided not to risk trying to complete pass 3. With already completing 2 passes they still were able to get results, finishing 11th outright. Good call to Adrian as the problems continued to persist.

Above: Peter Haughton & Graham Orr Photo Courtesy: Dusty Photography

Above: Adrian & Kristy Turnbull Photo Courtesy: Kyle Eyre-Allen

Westlakes @ Coopernook Cont… Mark Turnbull and Tegan McCormack thought they were doomed after the first pass when they encountered a lighting problem and went through a fence on leg 2. Tegan explained that Mark just wanted to find some cows. I am happy to say they fixed the lighting, didn’t chase any more cows, improved and completed all 6 legs placing 12th Outright. John McInnes and Peter White finished in 14th Outright in the Subaru without any incidents. They also decided not to complete pass 3. Directly behind them was Steve Arnold (another Awaba regular) and Leigh h McEwan in 15th outright.

Dylan Grant and Tara Mowett did really well completing all 6 legs of the rallysprint. They finished 17th Outright and improved on times throughout the night. Dennis Whitall had to find a quick replacement navigator after finding out that Craig would not be back in. Hayden Allen happily jumped on board and wanted to say “Thank you Dennis for giving me the opportunity”. They finished 19th Outright however they encountered engine trouble on the final leg.

Above: John McInnes & Peter White Photo Courtesy: Dusty Photography

Above: Dylan Grant & Tara Mowett Photo Courtesy: Dusty Photography

Jonny and Jessica Liverod - the fantastic father daughter team finished 21st Outright to my knowledge without any incidents. It always great to see this father & daughter together in the car. Colin Pogson and Craig Smith completed leg 1 but unfortunately in leg 2 they came off the road and found a tree. Col hurt his knee, bit his tongue and both encountered whiplash. We hope you both have quick recoveries! I know I cant say this for everyone but I believe the proudest moment was seeing so many Westlake members stay until after the event and all head out together to recover Westlake competitors cars as a team. Well done Westlake's for not just being a club but a very oversized family! All together the event started with 25 Competitors, had 23 finish 2 passes for results. The club was very welcoming and hope that everyone had a fantastic time through the ups and downs. Regards, Kristy xoxo

Above: Col Pogson & Craig Smith Photo Courtesy: Kyle Eyre-Allen

Westlakes @ Coopernook Cont…

Above: Jonny & Jessica Liverod Photo Courtesy: Dusty Photography

Above: Mark Turnbull & Tegan McCormack

Below: Darren & Aaron Mowett Below Steve Arnold & Leigh McEwan

More Westlaker’s @ Coopernook

Wow, what a great month. Members enjoying Motorkhanas, Khanacross , Rallysprint and also off to other locations for selected series. The next edition of Wheelspin is now complete. I would like to say thank you to everyone who called, facebooked, messaged and gave feedback in person it is really appreciated. An extra big thank you to a junior member who gave me suggestions for improvement – you know who you are . I hope as a club we can continue to improve our magazine together. As most of you know on event days I am either in the car or running around watching my children so I don’t get much time to watch everyone so please , please, please send in any pictures you have or stories you would like to share. It doesn’t matter if you are at the top or bottom of the results, if you are a spectator or volunteer, doing something special for the community or think she wouldn’t want a story from me, I do and I would love to hear about it. Thank you Tara Mowett, Evan Van Leeuwen, Evan Vale, Zac Calder-Love, Darren Mowett, Kylie Inskip, Graham Clarke and Kyle Allen to contributing to this months magazine ! Travel safe, Have fun and see you out the Track Kristy xoxo