Ashton & Syd Reinhardt at the Cootamundra Sprints a few years back, image by Robyn Mackay

Hello! How on earth did it get to early August without me paying attention?

Well, to be fair, last weekend was the Winton Festival of Speed, a great event which brings historic cars from all over the country to northern Victoria. And they threw in a beautiful weekend as well. So if you’d been on the Hume on Thursday, you’d have seen a procession heading south.

A number of us had fun relearning Winton in new (to us) cars (I’d never driven Winton in the Elite, so that was an absolute delight – what a car!) and everyone came away with smiles on their faces, cars straight and mostly running (I developed an attack of the Prince of Darkness-itis on the penultimate lap of the last session, so need to go and sort that out ahead of next weekend’s fun and games).

On which subject, this Saturday is the CLA CSCA sprint (August 16th), and even if you are not racing, if you would be willing to come and help out with organising and facilitating in the pits and paddock, that’d be immensely valuable. Please get in touch via [email protected] and Graham and the team will gladly put you to great use, for which everyone will be most grateful. Me included!

On Sunday, back at SMSP, is the Shannons Classic. This is the largest gathering of motor vehicles in NSW and possibly in Australia – over 1800 cars and other vehicles will be there. The event has grown in attendance from CLA, and this year we will have at least 13 of the 15 spots filled. If you are still thinking about attending and haven’t let us know yet, you may have to pick up tickets in person from Evan as there is no facility for leaving them at the gate unfortunately. But please do come and pay us a visit regardless!

Looking ahead to the end of August, the VSCC are running their annual sprints up the airfield at Cootamundra. This is a very chilled and fun day which always attracts a wide variety of fascinating cars, and the people that go with them of course! And it gives you a good excuse to give your preferred steed a run out into the countryside. Tim is pretty accommodating regarding your choice of “historic” vehicle, and in the past we have run Elise S1s up the quarter mile, so no excuses! Fuller details and entry here: https://www.vintagesportscarclubaustralia.org.au/events/2025/8/30/cootamundra-sprints

On September 14th, the annual All British Day is once again back at Hawkesbury Showgrounds. Last year’s turnout was spectacular, so if you haven’t got your tickets yet, drop a line to Evan via [email protected] and he’ll sort you out.

You’ll be pleased to know your committee got together this weekend so we have line of sight all the way through to Christmas and the AGM. For Christmas we’re planning to run a repeat of last year’s successful visit to the Royal Automobile Club with the additional plan to reserve some spaces in the garage on a first-in-best-dressed basis for those who want to bring a car along too! Tentative date is Sunday 7th December – I know it’s a while away, but it’ll be here before you know it, so book it in Danno.

We’re also looking to organise a few more “annual events” to get into a rhythm with – starting with a Fish and Chip run. More details to follow, but rest assured it will be suitably non-committal in that you can decide on the day if you fancy joining us!

We are also looking to organise a family oriented day of “come and try” motorsport – based on the format previously explored elsewhere. We are thinking of a non-competitive picnic day at a local circuit with no pressure and a few of the more tenured individuals in the club attending to help answer questions, guide driving style on the track, and generally make it as easy as possible for those thinking about motorsport to try it out and work out how to approach it. I’d be glad of feedback on whether you think this is a good idea or not please!

In less good news, the ructions continue to rumble around Lotus following the on-again off-again announcements regarding the future of Hethel; latest casualty appears to be Matt Windle, recently made up to Head of Group Lotus Europe, but appearing to have fallen foul of the politics of car manufacturing in the UK perhaps. Time will no doubt tell us what is going on, but fingers crossed Lotus gets into gear and reminds itself where its roots lie, and where its future probably exists too. We’ll see.

And on that happy note, I’ll leave you to your weekend, and very much hope to see some of you at one of the several events on the calendar coming up. Meanwhile, keep it straight, upright and mostly on the black stuff.

Pip pip,
Ashton