MUCC News

Graham Pate and Cale Pearce ventured to Deniliquin in Graham’s 180B after what was to be their maiden event together - the NCCA “Challenge of Clubs” – was cancelled due to the Bush Fire threat. So this would be Cale’s first time on dirt as a Driver after many outings in his 1600 on the "Black stuff". Cale is currently building a Bluebird wagon (yes a wagon) in readiness for Autocross events in 2010 so he was keen to see what it was going to be like.

Cale:
"After the Challenge of Clubs was postponed then cancelled, Graham graciously offered to let me have a drive of his 180B at the Deniliquin VCAS. I had heard great reports of the Deni track from Graham and Peter, and given this would be my first time on gravel in anger (even as a passenger!) it sounded like a perfect introduction to it without the risk of hitting anything."

Follow up:

Cale Pearce getting the hang of driving a rally car on dirt...

Deniliquin was Round 1 of the Victorian Club Autocross Series (VCAS) and a full field of 66 cars had entered. Run one was on road tyres with Cale getting a time of 179.70 and Graham 176.10.

Cale:
The familiarity laps with Graham driving were a real eye opener since I never had any appreciation of how much grip was available on gravel, even on road tyres. My first out lap featured an off at turn 5, followed by a reasonably clean flying lap. On the flying lap of the second run I somehow managed to nearly clean up the red light on the infield along the back straight.

After 5 sessions of 2 laps each and changing to Rally Tyres Cale got it down to 163.20 with a 5 inch wide smile while Graham achieved a best of 158.60 .

Cale:
For the third run we changed to rally tyres, but my laps were rubbish with offs at turn 5 on the standing lap and turn 1 on the flying lap, however my times still improved. The fourth and final run was in twilight, and both the standing and flying laps were completed entirely between the cones on a now very smooth, hard and grippy surface.

At the end of the day Cale was 28th Outright and Graham 15th in a field of experienced autocrosses with several 4WD’s and specials up front – so they were both quite happy. However the drive home was more than interesting with the Datsun blowing the fusable link on the charging circuit when the lights were turned on. So we proved you can drive from Deniliquin to Melbourne at night on the battery on low beam – you just do not see the Kangaroos standing in the middle of the Highway.

Cale:
If you've never been to Deni, it's well worth the long drive for the smooth surface and flowing track - it's just like Phillip Island on gravel and wouldn't be too hard on daily driven or club level track cars. I had so much fun I have decided to do a better job preparing the Bluebird and hopefully it will still be ready for action by the middle of this year.
Thanks again to Graham for the drive.

G.Pate & C.Pearce

Fortunately for Cale, there is very little to hit at Denilequin...