Event: 2013 Australian Muscle Car Masters

[Steve Holmes]

Re the F5000's at this meeting, I personally believe the low number of competitors at this high profile meeting was pretty poor.
I think there were about 9 cars that participated, of which 5 were Aussie and 4 were from NZ.
For their main feature Trophy race there were only 7 starters.
This is an opportunity to be seen by a large audience that wouldn't go to Historic meetings, and let young people see what they were all about. I believe they did not come up to expectations..
The thing about F5000's was the thunder from a big field, particularly at places such as Oran Park. There as they came over the dogleg and into the dipper the noise was unbelievable and made the whole amphitheatre shake.
I've seen them in their prime at Warwick Farm, Amaroo (completely unsuited) and Oran Park. I can still readily recall that Australian Grand Prix there with Lella Lombardi in a Matich.
I believe this lot have got to raise their game, or risk being omitted from such high profile meetings. Plenty of other classes would like to take their place.

Yes it is disappointing Terry. Full credit to those who made the effort to run their F5000s at this event. Just a shame there weren't more of them. I know these cars aren't cheap to run, and neither is it shipping them around Australia or from New Zealand. This is obviously an event outside their existing championship, and maybe the MCM organisers need to somehow find a way to make this part of their series.

I remember asking Mark Oastler about this following the very first Muscle Car Masters, back in 2005 (?) as the intention back then was to have F5000s there. I think initially from memory they'd advertised that F5000s would be at that first event, but in the end it came to nothing. He told me many of those running the F5000s, especially those from NZ, weren't very interested in racing at the MCM. They felt it wasn't the right fit for their class. Thats what he said back then. I actually suggested the NZ racing class Central Muscle Cars could be a good fit with MCM (because I was involved with CMC back then), an idea he really liked, and the idea sort of grew from there to have CMC at the event. Thats back when CMC cars were a bit closer to historic type cars than they are now.

[aaron]

Yes it is disappointing Terry. Full credit to those who made the effort to run their F5000s at this event. Just a shame there weren't more of them. I know these cars aren't cheap to run, and neither is it shipping them around Australia or from New Zealand. This is obviously an event outside their existing championship, and maybe the MCM organisers need to somehow find a way to make this part of their series.

I remember asking Mark Oastler about this following the very first Muscle Car Masters, back in 2005 (?) as the intention back then was to have F5000s there. I think initially from memory they'd advertised that F5000s would be at that first event, but in the end it came to nothing. He told me many of those running the F5000s, especially those from NZ, weren't very interested in racing at the MCM. They felt it wasn't the right fit for their class. Thats what he said back then. I actually suggested the NZ racing class Central Muscle Cars could be a good fit with MCM (because I was involved with CMC back then), an idea he really liked, and the idea sort of grew from there to have CMC at the event. Thats back when CMC cars were a bit closer to historic type cars than they are now.

I was involved with Mark on that and tried to get 4 cars to do demo laps. In the end I was the only one there with the Chevron and it rained about 6" so I didn't venture onto the track. Just goes to show how long it can take to get these things together. Australia is a big country and competition between meetings and driver support can be difficult. Credit to MCM as we get free entry to that meeting as an incentive. It's still a long way to bring cars from Melbourne and NZ.
Sandown 500 this weekend and it looks like we have 14 cars at the moment.

[Terry S]

Yes it is disappointing Terry. Full credit to those who made the effort to run their F5000s at this event. Just a shame there weren't more of them. I know these cars aren't cheap to run, and neither is it shipping them around Australia or from New Zealand. This is obviously an event outside their existing championship, and maybe the MCM organisers need to somehow find a way to make this part of their series.

I remember asking Mark Oastler about this following the very first Muscle Car Masters, back in 2005 (?) as the intention back then was to have F5000s there. I think initially from memory they'd advertised that F5000s would be at that first event, but in the end it came to nothing. He told me many of those running the F5000s, especially those from NZ, weren't very interested in racing at the MCM. They felt it wasn't the right fit for their class. Thats what he said back then. I actually suggested the NZ racing class Central Muscle Cars could be a good fit with MCM (because I was involved with CMC back then), an idea he really liked, and the idea sort of grew from there to have CMC at the event. Thats back when CMC cars were a bit closer to historic type cars than they are now.

Re disappointing F5000 appearance
Steve this IS a round of their Australian Championship. Their Australian association set up a 5 round "2013/2014 F5000 Australia Cup".
A great idea for us all to see them. Alas this was the ONLY Sydney round, the other 4 are all in Melbourne. So in Sydney we have to wait another year.
What is frustraing is poor attendance by their own association. From their web site the office holders are the President, Deputy President and Secretary. None of these three turned up. Why did they bother setting up a championship.
The thing about F5000 is not the racing and dicing but the great impact of a reasonable field at full noise.
Surely these guys can afford to run 5 meetings a year. If not why not sell the cars to those who can?

[aaron]

Terry, yes we were also disappointed but did our best at Sandown. Can you believe that there are now repercussions because we were too fast? By the way, I have now run 5 meetings this year including 3 in NZ. I know you are not criticising me and respect your viewpoint. We all wish for the Cinderella formula but it may have been the 3 years we ran at the AGP. We are only doing this for fun. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been in period.