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Round 5
The Hotel Oz Kyneton Sprint
Cancelled
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Round 4
EASTERN SUBURBS CONCRETING
BAGSHOT ENDURO
Finally we managed to run a Bagshot Enduro from start to finish without
being washed out or creating a dust storm! Thank you to Eastern Suburbs
Concreting for their sponsorship of a very successful meeting.
Bagshot is a very tricky event to run and conditions need to be
just right for it to be a success. This year conditions were great with
enough moisture in the track to keep the dust down
and dry enough for everyone to be able to stand up.
It
turned out to be a good days racing with a whole group of competitors
sinking their teeth into a new track and two 1.5 hour sessions. As usual the
standard “it’s an Enduro not a Sprint” pep talk before racing went straight
out the window and the red mist got in the way with just about all drivers
running at 11 tenths for most of the day.
Generally speaking a good day was had by all and as usual the Saturday
nights prove to be a great opportunity for everyone to have a chat without
the pressures of race day.
Round 3 ...
Alarmco Security Kyneton Sprint
Oh what a funny
day......
Our original plans took a different tack once
we had a look at the Lara track prior to racing. It was a dustbowl. The
meeting was moved back to our home track at Kyneton.
After a day of track work on Saturday that had
us reopening the back straight for the first time in about eight years, we
started out racing on Sunday with a good field of machines. Racing was
fierce and the drivers certainly enjoyed the chance to find all the gears in
their machines on the long straight. Incredibly we saw a 4th race of the day
produce an attrition rate unseen in the club before.
We started the 4th with a large group of
spectators viewing from inside the track and a line up of eight contenders.
Within a lap we had one sitting of the track at the hairpin, within two laps
we had two at the hairpin and one at the start line. Within three laps we
had two at the hairpin and four at the start line leaving us with a Chinese
import 250cc buggy and a very classy and competitive 1300cc powered
masterpiece. Which was overheating. He pulled over with everyone else at the
start line which was looking like a parking lot at this stage to allow it to
cool a little as the sole remaining car on the track sailed by.
The Hayabusa powered monster waited as long as
he could before taking to the track again to hunt down the little import.
The crowd at the start finish line could see a tortoise and hare challenge
arising and cheered the little 250cc home to cross the finish line under the
chequered flag with the big fella right on his tail.
The day was full of these little stories.
Due to the high attrition rate during the day
it probably wasn't a great one for the drivers searching for points but the
spectators I spoke to had an absolute ball.
Round 2 ...
PowerTyre Company Kyneton Sprint
Round 2 has been run and won at Kyneton again
with a beautiful day and plenty of horsepower on the track.
The big boys took to the track with their
usual impressive display doing their best to cover everyone and everything
in mud.
The Production Class fought tooth and nail all
day with some very close racing as usual.
Officials were kept busy practicing their
skills with the yellows and changing the track layout between races to keep
the drivers on their toes. As we are seeing so often now it was a day of
good clean competitive racing.
Round 1 ...
Images
Kyneton Sprint
What a great race meeting. This one seemed
like it could have been an extension of the "Test & Tune" day with all the
frantic action going on in the pits re-assembling broken buggies. It gave
the new guys a good look at "race" conditions and showed up the components
in their buggies that will need strengthening. This will keep a few of them
busy trying to get ready for the next race in a few weeks.
We had three buggies taking to the track for
the first time in racing conditions and it looked like they had a ball.
There is a video link in the video section and
another set of great
Photos from Craig Tannock again.
After watching James and Michael tussling for
position on the track it will be interesting to see the new "production"
class up and running with the 250cc Chinese import buggies. It's a great way
to get into racing and James is offering new members a great deal on these
machines to get the class moving. Take a look at the new "Production" class
buggy here.
As usual thanks need to go out to everyone who
volunteered to help out in one way or another. Race days just would not
happen without your help.
"TEST n TUNE" Day a Great Success
This years "Test n Tune" has been run and was
a great turn out. We had 20 machines sitting in the pits with 16 or so
hitting the track for testing. It's really encouraging to see machines
turning up at the track at their very early stages of construction right the
way through the build process until they are ready for track time. If you're
out there building a buggy to race, load it onto a trailer and bring it up
to the track as we would love to follow your progress throughout the build.
  
A terrific highlight of the day was the
skydive jump over the track with the winner of the tandem skydive Crystal
taking the ride of her life from 10,000ft. Thanks to Kim and Mike for
donating such
a wonderful
prize. You can read about the day in more detail in the Feb 08 Club
magazine.
Tooradin Tractor Pull
In January we set up a static display at the
Tooradin Tractor Pull. It proved to be a productive day with plenty of
interest in the buggies and incredibly a great place to meet up with past
club members who were out for their horsepower fix.
What
Do We Do?
TORC is Off Road Racing
at
its best. We race a wide variety of belt and chain drive mini buggies
ranging from imported low horsepower and extraordinarily cheap fun buggies
to
the genuine Honda Odysseys and right up to 1300cc homebuilt machines
What Is TORC?
The Trike & Odyssey Racing Club
(as it was originally known) has been around since 1984 and was inspired by
the growing number of Honda Odyssey's and Trikes being sold throughout
Australia . Everyone seemed to own an Odyssey with nowhere to drive it and
it was a similar story with the trikes.
A group of like minded owners got
together and started racing on a piece of leased land at Kyneton in
Victoria. Later came the quads looking for somewhere to race and club
numbers swelled with races comprising of up to thirty vehicles. Although trikes were banned years ago and quads founded their own club, the Trike &
Odyssey Racing Club carried on with a large group of die hard boffins racing
Odyssey's from the
FL250,
FL350
and the
Pilot
to those determined to exercise their engineering skills and build one off
fire breathing monsters that became the Open Class machines.
Originally the Open Class buggies
were up to 1000cc but with the increased capacity
of Japanese road
bikes the
class has now increased to 1300cc. Along with the more advanced and larger
capacity engines also came fuel injection which we accepted into our rules
in 2004. When you add up the sums a 1300cc 175HP engine in a 380KG buggy
makes for some serious entertainment. The entry level FL 250 on its own is
quite a tame machine but when a track is full of them are fighting for the
first corner they can make for some spectacular racing.
The FL350 broke into two classes
with a standard 350 class with very limited modifications to a beefed up
version which was tagged the Super Modified Class. These Super Mod machines
have now been tweaked so far that they are not too far behind their Open
Class rivals. You can pick the Super Modified class racers a mile away. They
are always the ones patting each other on the back and crying with laughter
in the pits after seven laps of the Kyneton track. It's extraordinarily cost
effective motorsport with an amazing bang for your buck
In 2006 our rules and regulations
were re-submitted to CAMS to update the specifications of machines and at
that time we cut ties with our trike and quad friends for good by renaming
the club TORC Off Road Racing Club Inc. Many names were suggested but it was
agreed by all the name TORC should remain as a mark of respect for our
original members. We also accommodated plan built machines which to that
time had never been compliant in the club. Nowadays plan built Edge type
buggies make up a large part of our field.
Over the years we have built up
quite an impressive track at Kyneton with further works continually going
on. This year an extra 300m of track will be laid with some extra jumps to
challenge drivers. This will also give us another four variations of our
track adding to the variety.
When Do We Do It?
We have a
race season which generally runs from
 February until November which gives us
ten race meetings for the year. This year (2007) we started our year off with a "Test &
Tune Day" which gave everybody a chance to come along to Kyneton and
fine tune their buggies. It was also a great opportunity for our sponsors to
show off their wares and newcomers a chance to see what we do without the
hustle and bustle of race day.
The race meetings are held on a
monthly basis and each race day is on the fourth Sunday of the month. A
general meeting is held on the Monday night before the race meeting at The
Hotel Oz in North Melbourne to discuss club matters and to determine the format for the running
of the following race day. These meetings are open and anyone with an
interest in the club is most welcome to come along.
Who Do We Do It With?
TORC operates under the
guidelines of
CAMS
The Confederation Of Australian Motor Sports. All of our racers must
have a level 3 CAMS Off Road Licence to compete.
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