It’s not often that you get invited to such a special birthday party. Thank you to Rod and Shelly. We are still on cloud nine after such an amazing weekend of motorsport. Here is an article that Scott wrote for the Fraser Car Club March newsletter:
Well the highlight of our month has to be the Leadfoot Festival.
Ida, myself and Fraser Cars were lucky enough to be invited to this amazing Festival. It all started on Thursday morning with a nice trip down to Hahei in the Coromandel Peninsula via Andrew’s place to pick up his car for the display. Thanks again Andrew it looked great.
When you arrive at the Ranch you are meet with an amazing driveway and property. The Millen’s sure know how to put on an event, this is on a scale not seen in NZ.
There are a wide range of cars, everything from early 1900’s through to the latest Ferrari race car and everything in between. There are a lot of international drivers and cars that are brought over purely for this event including cars from all over New Zealand, all with the common goal of getting to the top as fast as you can and having fun doing it. We met some fantastic people and got to see some great machines in action.
Practice was on Friday and it was wet for my first attack at Millen’s hill, Clark Proctor in his Escort was in the group ahead of us and had managed to put his car into the hay bales on the first run, so with his crew frantically knocking his panels out and getting his car resembling straight we all drove past and what made an already nervous Fraser driver a little bit more so. This bit of asphalt is something to be respected. I was lined up on the start line buckled in ready to go and I started to wish that I had done that extra nervous tinkle, but it was too late and the starter gave me the thumbs up and I was off.
The driveway is a mix of narrow, fast, off camber, jumps, rises, falls, lefts and rights and is a lot steeper and technical that it appears. I spoke to other drivers had everyone had done the YouTube drive through and everyone said it was different. With a 65.31 time first up I was stoked. My goal for the weekend was to try and get close to a 60 second run. With two runs a day the morning runs were wet and the afternoon runs were dry. With my second practice I managed a 61.04, fantastic.
The next two days were a fantastic mix of racing, talking and watching during the day and partying at night. The first night was the Welcome Cocktail Party which was a great night with all the stars both skyward and in person attending. The second night was the black tie Leadfoot Ball, this required myself and Ida to get all dressed up, now for Ida that’s not a problem but for myself a suit has been worn only three times before. There was a great banquet feast and then a band who happened to have an invited lead singer called Billy Gibbons. What an amazing night.
In the end the last run of the day for me was the worst feeling but the turned out to be the fastest at 58.40. All I want to do now is have another go and go faster.
In the end Rod Millen was king of his hill in the fabulous Celica, with Clark Proctor chasing hard in the March F5000 and Joe McAndrew in 3rd with a Jedi single seater. In the pre-75 class Neil Tolich won in the Perana Capri, Paul McCarthy in a
Zakspeed Escort, followed up by Roger Townshend 2nd in a Cologne Capri.
What a memorable weekend, a fantastic venue and hosts. If the invite doesn’t arrive in the mail for 2014 we will definitely be spectating again.
Our photo also made it on the Speedhunters site.
A few photos and video below.
