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Weather at Balnarring |
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Hot News |
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MBC Blokart Track! |
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Sept 2008 |
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2008 World Champs |
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Nov 2008 |
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2008 Vic State Titles |
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State of Origin |
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Supported by Melbourne Metro Windsports |
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Sat 20th The 2007 Victorian State Titles were off to a promising start. People started arriving at the registration point well ahead of the scheduled 9:00am start, keen to get racing. With 34 entrants, this was going to be the biggest Victorian Titles Series ever. It was good to see the younger competitors ready to take on the ‘oldies’, and the newcomers to the sport ready to give the more experienced competitors a run for their money. With all of the competitors registered, blokarts scrutinised, and the initial briefing done, everything was ready to go. Everything, that is, except for the wind. The Bureau of Meteorology had forecast afternoon sea breezes, so after a few morning postponements, we moved down to the beach. When that afternoon sea breeze kicks in, we thought, we’ll get the racing underway. The wind did eventually pick up to about 8 kts, but was in a bad direction, almost straight up the beach. The Lightweight Performance class started the racing as they, of all of the classes, would have the most success in light winds. After two drawn out laps for the race leaders (and not even one for some of the others), the race was aborted. It was good for building upper body strength with all that pushing, but that is not the point of blokarting. Begrudgingly, racing was abandoned for the day, but not before taking the obligatory ‘blokart line-up’ photo. Fortunately, a stronger northerly was forecast for the next day. That was not the end of the day’s activities, however. Drinks and dinner had been organised for the competitors and guests at The Orange Roughy at the nearby town of Fish Creek. Here, 57 members of the Victorian blokart family (and a couple of welcome visitors from Tassie) came together and partied. Sun 21st As everyone set up for a day of racing, the Race Committee monitored the wind closely. If the northerlies were to come in, they would be felt round the corner at Shallow Inlet. After a quick trip to Shallow Inlet, it was obvious that if there were any northelies, they weren’t there. In fact, a small flag at Shallow Inlet showed a slight southerly. So, back to the main beach. The slight southerly was indeed slight. It started to build through the morning, but not into anything useable. If we were lucky, we would get a useable sea breeze. At the morning briefing, it was agreed by all to change the 8 race minimum for the series to 3. Time was running out. Throughout the morning we monitored the wind closely. There were northerlies observed by the Bureau of Meteorology, but they were hundreds of kilometres away. Would they reach us in time? It was decided that 1:00pm was the go/no go point. If racing could not begin by 1:00pm, then we would not be able to get the 3 races done before we lost the tide. Just before 1:00pm, the Race Committee checked the wind on the main beach. The unusable wind we had died off. As we walked back to the briefing area to give everyone the bad news, we felt something we had not felt all day – wind. It wasn’t there when we went to the beach, but it was there when we got back. But it wasn’t a southerly sea breeze, it was the northerly. We raced around to Shallow Inlet again. The wind speed was measuring 20 kts, but then we stopped the car and got out. To our surprise, there was a consistent 10 kts. Shallow Inlet was sailable, but there were some boggy patches. It would have been difficult to lay out a decent track. It was decided to cancel the racing, and invite everyone for a social sail instead. After drawing lots to hand out the prizes, most packed up their blokarts and headed for Shallow Inlet. It was certainly a spectacular sight seeing 30-odd blokarts cutting laps on the sandbank. There was a lot of impromptu racing as well as blokarts up on two wheels – especially when there was someone with a camera nearby. |
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