MEDIA RELEASE - For immediate Release - February 2, 2015

 

 

LATEST NEWS - BATHURST LIQUI MOLY 12 HOUR ENDURANCE EVENT - Formula Ford support races

 

 

Every year March Bathurst comes alive at the famous Mount Panorama 6.2 km race track with fifty or so of the best world and Australian GT cars and their drivers from many countries and this year to race flat out for 12 hours and no Australian V8 Supercar stars were included as they were running an event at Eastern Creek the same weekend … but the event was an absolute success and Formula Ford (Kent engines) were also invited to participate on the programme in two x 11 laps races of approx 35 minutes each.

The FFord field was a mixture of nearly 50% historic pre-1990 cars and the rest were up to date and much younger cars and many different makes were displayed in this terrific and varied field which included quite a few top notch drivers as well ... of course including ''our'' Tom!

PRACTICE was held on Friday morning and Tom's 1986 Van Diemen RF86 managed 2nd fastest time just in front of Leanne Tander (Australia's fastest woman race driver) in a later model Van Diemen based Stealth and Jacob Parsons in a Spectrum first and the next few spots were also filled by the younger cars so this established the grid positions for Qualifying later in the day.

QUALIFYING for grid positions (starting order) was fought out and again Tom was 2nd on the grid this time to Leanne on pole who put in a great lap to be a bit faster with a couple of Spectrums behind them and in 6th was Jimmie Vernon the 17 year old up an coming FFord racer in a Reynard historic FFord but the car is a tiny bit younger than Toms but also a great effort.

RACE 1 on Saturday morning was mainly controlled by the two x Spectrums of Parsons and Andrews with Leanne close behind then a small gap to Tom and Kane Coleman in a new Anglo Spirit who duelled and swapped places at least twice every lap with exciting slip streaming moves on both straights and Tom finally took the flag in 4th outright followed by Coleman then Victorian McInnes in a Van Diemen RF89 and young Jimmie was a solid ninth with more to come later.


Thanks to the great officials I got the camera back only with a busted case and will use it again next meeting

RACE 2 in the hot afternoon was simply a spectacle of fast slip streaming and was only interrupted for 3 x laps by a safety car which closed the field right up. Tom made a ''rocket start" and was first into Turn 1 followed by the rest and he enjoyed leading the race for half a minute until the faster aerodynamic and much younger Parsons Spectrum passed him going up Mountain Straight and not long after the other Spectrum did the same so Tom had a comfortable 3rd until the two Spectrums connected in the cutting and Parsons was out with a very bent car.

Tom then became 2nd but was under safety car orders and had to potter around until the field caught him up which when restarted with 3 x laps to go they were swarming all over him and young Jimmie even passed Tom once with a slip stream up Mountain Straight but Tom reversed that pretty quickly down the hill. Meantime Leanne who was ''turned around'' in turn 1 off the start was slowly making her way up the field but was no threat to Tom and she finished 7th which was a good effort.

The dicing and place changing went on lap after lap and Tom ended up in a brilliant 2nd outright in his old car behind Andrews Spectrum and young Jimmie Vernon was swamped and ended up 5th eventually but the racing with all five drivers trying for 2nd place was spectacular and until the last corner was totally unpredictable … well almost!

YouTube at the time of writing does not have any FFord footage of their races and our camera was busted so will have to leave it up to the others but after driving his F5000 Chevron recently Tom was asked whether the FFord was a bit of an anticlimax and the answer after such great dicing and the brilliant Bathurst circuit was an emphatic NO!

Next event Phillip Island Historic in March 5-8 and he "might" be driving his father's big Elfin MS7 V8 sportscar so stay tuned …

Cheers

TEAM TOM

For more information about Tom head to www.tomtweedie.com or search for 'Team Tom - Tom Tweedie Motorsport' on Facebook.

ENDS

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

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