Picture: TREVOR JACKSON
THE South Eastern Automobile Club will wind up another busy year on Saturday night, with its presentation dinner to be held at the Blue Lake Golf Club’s Links Bistro.
Awards for the events which were conducted through the 2018 season will be presented to competitors for outright or handicap placements.
The successful season saw the club run several state level events in Motorkhana and a national level meeting in the Australian Khanacross Championship, as well as a round of the Victorian Khanacross Championship.
A big push by outgoing president Kevin Raedel saw the club run a Rallycross event at the SEAC Park circuit.
Rallycross was popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s and has run at a few selected venues.
The club undertook track widening and reshaping to allow for multi-car events and the Rallycross was up and running.
The Rallycross format saw side-by-side racing, rather than solo runs against a clock.
The more serious teams which attended were several levels above the club competitors, with specially developed high-horsepower cars, but were quite surprised by a couple of Limestone Coast drivers who kept them on their toes.
Trials and a Rally Sprint were also conducted by the club, along with the annual Legend of the Lakes hill climb at the Valley Lakes, plus the Twin Peaks hill climb at Port MacDonnell.
Many club drivers travelled to other events through the year and most were able to run at the pointy end of the fields against well-built and driven cars and teams.
With Raedel stepping down after two years in the top job, Paul Heenan is set to take his place, with previous experience to keep the club on track.
The club runs the two top positions on opposing years to keep some consistency, with Curtis Boyd halfway through his two-year term as vice president.
Club stalwart Geoff Wilson said SEAC was currently in good shape and he put some of that down to Raedel’s presidency.
“Kevin would bring a lot of ideas to the club and we would run with them,” he said.
That included the Rallycross, which required big improvements at the SEAC Park circuit.
The track had basically enough width to run one car, while Rallycross required more space to accommodate side-by-side or simultaneous multi-car competition.
Wilson said Heenan did a lot of work behind the scenes through his business to ensure the track was up to specifications.
The event went off without a hitch, with several of the top drivers who competed now using the venue for practice and development.
The regular season of course includes the Legend of the Lakes hill climb, which Wilson said is a huge undertaking by the club.
“The Legend of the Lakes is a stand-alone event and there are hundreds of people who run that,” he said.
“It is a massive task to set it up in the time frame and to pull it down, then straight away there is an organising committee formed to start pencilling in what you need for the next one.
“It gets serious about June, entries are open in August and it fills in about eight days.
“We have a good following with the regular competitors who come back, not to set records, but to enjoy the weekend.”
Should the rallycross go the same way as the Legend of the Lakes, SEAC is certainly up for bigger things in the future.
Either way, on Saturday night the club members will no doubt reflect on what has been a successful season of competition and growth period for the organisation.
