Mt Tarrangower Hillclimb, Maldon, Victoria, Australia.

[AussieRod]

The Annual Mt Tarrangower Hillclimb is on again, and I will have a busy weekend. This hillclimb has been running for many years, and is famous state wide. Run by the Vintage Sports Car Club in the picturesque old gold rush town of Maldon, cars of all vintages (older than 1972) come to test their mettle on the course. The Bendigo Car Club works in conjuction with VSCC to run the event, and I offered my time to volunteer and help out. I will be picking up a heap of plastic road barriers on Sat morning and heading up to help set up the course, and to be a flag official during the runs on Saturday and Sunday. Of course, I will be taking pictures and I will update on Saturday and Sunday night. I unloaded my new TTB tonight in preparation (forgot how heavy those darned beams were) so I can fit some barriers in the back. Stashed my new rims in the garage too (cant let the wife know about them yet ). If I had have had some notice for the hillclimb, I would have got the Mustang out of storage to have a run, but its too young and getting sold next month. I have to finance my F100's upgrades somehow. Anyway, I will post updates over the weekend and hope to give a good report.
Cheers.

[300]

Mustang? Have you told us about that? Looking forward to hillclimb pics.

[AussieRod]

Yeah, I have a '88 Coupe, ex Santa Monica PD detectives car. It is a genuine SSV, with all the Police upgrades from Ford. I used to use it as a weekend club racer and the rare hillclimb, but its been in dry storage for a few years now. I get it out every few months and drive it, change fluids, etc. Being still LHD, I cant register it yet and I already had a major saga trying to have it converted to RHD once. It would have been nice to give it one last run, but........ its that time.

[AussieRod]

Saturday update: EDIT UPDATE:
Got to the hillclimb nice and early, we got into putting out the barriers and setting up spectator fences, etc. I didnt get much time for pics, but dragging rubbish bins in to position, I got to see some nice old machinery. See some of the pics below.
On the way there, I sat the camera on the dash and snapped a pic. The road was too rough to drive and take pics, so I concentrated on getting there safely:

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setting up the start point, watching the timing guys get ready and doing odd jobs to get the ball rolling on time:

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This was all hands on deck to get set up. I only had time for a few pics while getting stuff in position and running errends to set up bunting barriers and star pickets.

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I might find time to go to the RobRoy Hillclimb in Gippsland, Victoria in November, but it will depend on time availability. There, I can snap heaps of pictures and see some more modern cars in action.

[AussieRod]

More start line pics:

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Nice vintage cars... Lancia:

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Jowett Jupiter, with a Bristol convertable in the background, driven by a lady driver:

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[AussieRod]

nice 350 powered Camaro, very quick aparently, being the winner the last 2 years, with the tail of one of the Bugatti cars visble in Scrutineering:

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Valiant Charger 6pak, its towing Valiant Ute is in the background of the Camaro pic:

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Some nice old bikes, Norton, a Villiers in the foreground, a Jap 4 cyl bike behind and an AJS:

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One seriously fast Norton, this guy was brave!:

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[AussieRod]

More bikes:
The Rudge, that high-sided Sunday:

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the AJS:

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another quick Norton, although the rider wasnt as brave as the rider on the yellow Norton

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My checkpoint and Saturday assistant:

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[AussieRod]

Some old cars in action:
flathead powered Ford Special:

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The Chrysler flathead Special:

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'33 Ford V8 Special, this thing sounded glorious and was fastest:

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the suicidal "Bedframe" driver, no rollbar and only a lap belt powered by a BIG Olds V8:

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[BajaBronco13]

Nice pics Rod but not one Mad Max Interceptor???

[AussieRod]

Chris, they are too new!!! This is open to 1972 and older vehicles only

[Nick]

Very cool, Rod! Thanks fpr sharing the pics.

[Mojo]

looks like a cool race & a really good time. Thanks for sharing

[Silverslk]

Great pics Rod!!!

[AussieRod]

Sunday Update:

Sorry, guys, but I didnt get to take any pics today, as it was kinda busy. Arriving at 7am, we got to preparing the check points and having the officials briefing. At 9am, we got under way and the first group was vintage cars. The bikes came out at 10am, and the #555 Rudge in the bike pics had a high-side 50 yds from my checkpoint, just as I was ready to get out the camera. I called it in and ran down to attend the rider. He was out cold and unresponsive, so I called for urgent ambulance and rescue to come. We spent the next 35 mins, stabilising the rider and getting him into the ambulance. After the bike was recovered and we cleaned up the track, the rest of the bikes came thru and then the faster cars. They kept be running up to the next corner every class change, because they were pulling gravel and small rocks onto the track. I used a gas powered blower to sweep the track and keep it safe. When the bikes came out again at 1pm, about 5 bikes in a rider on a beautifully restored Ducati 860 lost the front end big time and came down at about 70mph about 100 yds from us. Again I called it in and attended the rider. His Duke was a mess, but he was ok, and with assistance from the medics, he walked to the ambulance and the flat bed took away the Duke. We got back under way and about 15 mins later, after a (another!) trip to clean up the left hander, I stepped in a hidden hole in the grass near my checkpoint and seriously rolled the crap out of my bad left ankle. That slowed me down a bit, but we were both busy right to the end with clean ups and controlling stupid rubbernecking spectators who insisted on standing next to the track, way too close for safety. The Rudge rider, at last report was in a serious but stable condition in hospital, with concussion, a broken left ankle and internal injuries. My new (for today) assistant and I got a big thank you from all the officials, drivers, riders, etc. for our efforts with the accidents and especially from the riders for the track cleaning, and even the FIA/CAMS officers in attendance gave up the thumbs up and a big thanks for doing the right thing in looking after the fallen riders, etc.

[AussieRod]

So, after one hell of a busy day, the Valiant Charger 6pak took top honours for the fastest time, just quicker than the red Camaro. Top run for the vintage was the fastest of the 4 flathead V8 powered Ford Specials running. Bikes was the yellow Norton in the bike pics. That guy must have some big cojones, because he was seriously attacking that hill. Every run, he was flat in 3rd all the way up, and a couple of times, I was waiting for him to come off, but he did great. There were 2 beautiful Bugatti's there today, both going at it. Lots of old well preserved race cars and repli-cars from the post war and pre-war era of racing. Nostalgia plus. The D type Jaguar replica was outstanding in every detail, wish I had got some pics. There were a half dozen little Mini Coopers (the real ones, not those BMW made poser Minis) and they were stupidly fast going up the mountain, one of them sideways past our checkpoint on every run. A Datsun 1000 was at it too, the little 1 litre engine screaming in 3rd all the way to the top of the hill. A beautifully restored AJS motorcycle didnt make it up in yesterdays runs, twice he stopped at CP4, but today, the old girl made it all 3 runs to the top nice and clean, the single cylinder going like hell Once the times are emailed to me, i will post them up. Overall, I had a great weekend, and I was proud to be a part of such a great historic event, even doing my bit to make sure the fallen riders were looked after properly. I will post some misc. pics tomorrow, but for now, I'm beat.
Cheers from Mt Tarrengower, Maldon

[AussieRod]

The F100 and trailer after dropping off my load of 10 barriers:

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A nice little old T model racer, all original. This is an Aussie built T, note the steering wheel is on the RH side. The young passenger didnt want his photo taken

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Chrysler flathead 6 powered Special, basically, a stripped down car frame, with minimal controls:

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[AussieRod]

I was impressed by the long ram triple SU carbs and the unique style of the headers. How about some old style shock technology?

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Bilstien, Fox, King, eat your hearts out
Not long until Saturday's start time, I had just finished dropping off the genset at the top of the mountain:

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Roger Hall, our off road track preparer in his own Renault Bingham Special:

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note the royal wave to us marshals

[Silverslk]

Great pics and even better write up Rod!!! As a rider for many, many years (22+)......I thank you for attending to the fallen riders and wish well to the gent in the hospital.

[BajaBronco13]

Friction shocks now those are the cat's @$$. I love it. Those still look great on traditional hot rods. Nice pics Rod.

Chris

[Nick]

So, would this be like the Oz version of the Pikes Peak hillclimb?