Hello from Australia,

I am racing in a clubman/sportsracers series in Queensland Australia and thought I would contact you after viewing your wonderful website. It's great to see clubman racing so strong in the UK where of course it has its origins.

We are very lucky in that over the last 2 years there has been a revival of clubman racing in Queensland and it seems our series is going from strength to strength. We have 22 entries in 2012 with more joining us from New South Wales in 2013. In order to make the series work we have limited rules and run on a 'race what yer brung' idea. The result is we have a variety of sportscars from Westfield clubmans, Mallock clubmans, home grown Australian clubmans such as the ASP 340C, Bulants and JMW's to LMP3 cars like Junos and Chirons. Our cars are simply put into classes (A- C) through lap times around our famous old Australian Lakeside GP circuit. -Many great F1 drivers used to race there in the European off season as part of our Tasman series in the late 60's. So, the better driver and car (budget!) goes into class A. However, a Class C car can still win the overall series.

The bottom line is economically viable and competitive racing with the aim to grow sportscar racing- which is not easy in a country with a strong tin top heritage.

Here's the website for our series. There is a bit of nonsense on there but the focus is on enjoyable sportscar racing.

http://www.qldclubmansportsracers.com/

regards
Rob Cooke


PS- I enjoy your vids on all those great UK tracks!

Great to hear from you Rob

It's good to know that the Clubmans spirit spreads so far.
Lakeside - brings back memories of the 60s avidly reading all the Tasman reports to follow the fortunes of McLaren, Brabham, Hill and Clark in February each year.
A good mate of mine Terry Southam makes Westfields in Perth.....I wonder if you know him? (I do realise WA is a bloody long way from you...but there aren't many people in the way!!)
If any of you guys are ever in the UK, just let us know and come and see one of our races.

Cheers, Pete Richings

Thanks for the reply Pete.
Lakeside is a great old style track that is so rewarding if you get it right but a car eater if you dont. I would imagine it is something like Brands Hatch (?)

We have our last meeting of the year today(just a 1 day event) but Im not competing due to engine troubles which has knocked me out of the race for class B.
However, Im off to the track today to watch everyone else have fun.

I'm afraid I dont know Terry but some of the blokes at the track might. We have a couple of blokes racing Westfields- I'll ask around today.

It just so happens I will be taking a UK holiday next June 23- July 12 and would love to come and watch a race if there is one on. Can you let me know if something is happening then?

cheers
Rob Cooke

If there is one, don't come and watch, come and race.

I would love to!
Would probably be too hard with licences etc but a nice thought anyway.

We finished up our series last Sunday with some great racing on our Lakeside circuit. The highlight was a fantastic battle between Neville MacKay(done a fair bit of racing in the UK over the years) in a BDA powered Mallock U2 and young gun Ash Lowe in a Cosworth powered Swift. Great sights, great sounds!

Im thinking about getting some Dunlop Clubman slicks for next years series if its going to be practical. Ive heard some good things about them. What do you blokes think?

cheers from the Antipodes

Rob Cooke

The licence should not be too much trouble. We already have a driver who flys into the UK from the States to race with us and we get the race meeting status changed to accept drivers from other countries.

Is The BDA Mallock the ex Melvyn Coon Mk24 that was shipped to Australia from the UK earlier this year? There can't be too many of them about.

Aren't you just starting summer down there but you say you have just finished your series. Do you race all year?

Greetings Rob. I've been in touch for years with Neil and Alex Kenny. Are they still running their Mallock with you?

Hey Marcus and Rob,

Yes we still have the good old Mallock Mk31, but is currently up for sale. We are currently running with Rob in the series running both a Chiron and a Juno.
It has been a fantastic series so far and would love to sell our Mallock to someone who will run it in this series, and it would still be a front running car.
I believe at some points we have had up to 3 or 4 mallocks running between Mk8's to Mk27's and hopefully soon a Mk31 :).

Neville i believe is one of the biggest Mallock (especially Mk8's) owners around and he his Mk8 that he races is awesomely quick for what it is.

Hi Peter,
The licence news is promising. Who knows, I might be able to brag to the blokes here that I got race in the UK!
I would like to know who imported the Mk 24 as we might be able to rope him into our series if he's on the Eastern seaboard. As you probably have seen from Alex's post Neville's Mallock is a Mk8.
Yes, we race all year Feb (which is bloody hot)-Nov/Dec. We've done 5 meets this year and we are expanding to 6x 2 day meets in 2013 for $1000 total- excellent value and lots of track time. We are just coming into our wet season now (sub- tropical) so we dont get too much wet weather racing which is unfortnate but im not complaining as we are spoiled with a brilliant climate.

The invite is open to you blokes too. It would be great see more Clubbie enthusiasts here. Perhaps we could get an International series going!(lol)If you are in our neck of the woods look us up. We could probably organise a seat for you too.

cheers
Rob Cooke

We do have an international series rob, well international drivers anyway haha, with people coming from Ireland and Macau etc.
We are extremely lucky here with the rain as Rob said. It is pretty rare that you will wear out a set of wets, They go hard before you wear them out. Thankfully though as some of the tracks here in aus aren't as smooth and forgiving as everywhere else in the world, but saying that in the dry they can be some of the best tracks in the world apparently (not being biased at all)

Hi Rob

I checked my records and it was a BDX not a BDA as I thought but the person who imported it to Austalia earlier this year was Derek McLaughlan. At the same time he also purchase a Mk 20, which I owned in the 90s, and the ex David Grace MK14/25.

He is from Melbourne so not a million miles away, at least it donsn't look very far in my atlas! I have an e-mail address which I can send to you separately rather than publish it here.

Hello all, I have recently purchased a Mallock MK31. Not Alex Kenny's but another. Sue Mallock has confirmed it's authenticity and after a few minor repairs it will hit the track later this year.

Is there a particular thread that refers to Mallocks only in this forum?

Regards
Michael

Hi Peter,
I've just noticed the car is for sale on My105.com (an Oz race car for sale site)
I hope it goes to an owner who appreciates it and wants to be part of of our race series here.

Also, I hope the blizzards are easing for everyone there. Luckily we have no bushfires in Queensland at the moment-What a crazy world we live in!

Have a great year of wonderful clubman racing
cheers
Rob

Peter Burnham is correct...I sold the ex David Grace mallock to Derek McLaughlin.I had fully restored the car and put a new xflow block with the steel internals from the old Connaught unit....A very trick engine in its time .Long rod narrow journal and gear driven cam drive and I put F1 spec conrod bolts in during rebuild, These were 4 times the price of the normal ARP ones!!! I found it quite difficult to find a buyer in the UK and reluctantly let it go to Aus. If anybody is interested in buying the car and want a more indepth history , I can send images of the restoration and as much history as I have. The car was sold with a lot of documents related to its history, Richard and Sue Mallock have some also. The Melvyn Coon BDX engine car was at the shipping depot when I dropped mine off ....it had a mountain of spares with it !

The 14/25 was mine before I sold it to Ian,fantastic car to drive,many class wins and a couple of championships on the northern sprint and hillclimb scene,and it still holds the lap record on one of the 2 lap layouts at the 3 sisters track near wigan