Roadtrip Melbourne - Sydney for "RennSport 2013" Porsche Festival

[patrick911]

I’ve posted this report on the typ901.org registry forum yesterday, but figured there maybe more Porsche-minded people interested in reading about an interesting roadtrip on the other side of the globe.

A few months ago the inaugural "RennSport Porsche Event" was announced, and within a few days, a roadtrip was already proposed for the Melbournites to drive upto Sydney for the festival. It would be identical to the RennSport events held in the US previously, only, taking into account the amount of cars in Australia is much less, on a smaller scale. (It probably still was the biggest gathering of Porsches ever in Australia I reckon).

Anyway, I've been looking forward to the RennSport weekend for months, and in the last few weeks the anticipation was slowly building;
Preparing the car, organizing the trip, reading the various topics, receiving the tickets, and finally: meeting up with fellow clubmembers last Thursday, ready to leave for Sydney.

It took me a while to relax and enjoy the fact it had finally really started; the long awaited road trip to Sydney was finally underway but after 2 or 3 hours of monotonous highway driving however, boredom started to set in;
was this it? Was this the long awaited and anticipated trip? Well, at least the weather was good…



But as the sun started to set, we passed the sign for the ‘Snowy Mountains Highway’ and had a great last 50k toward 'Tumut' where we spend the night.
After dinner, a few of us went out for a couple of cold beers whilst enjoying the local band covering – how appropriate - driving songs. Getting back to our place for the night, we found the others setting up their gadgets for the big drive ahead; unfortunately, Phil couldn’t get his GoPro to work.

Friday morning, waking up to find our cars covered in Ice, and after an initial false start, where even before leaving town we managed to break up the group, we set off toward 'Cooma'. And man, what a drive it was!
I remember Top Gear having a go at what they considered some of the best driving roads in the world, and I can only say that this epic drive definitely belongs on that list; Great scenery, good asphalt, no traffic, and a silence only being interrupted by 4 flax-sixes. Heaven!




We did stop a few times to take some pictures and allow for impromptu driver swaps.
(I drove Phil’s stunning blue car, Phil drove my yellow 2.4T and Jesse took over from Luke in the ‘Typ-901’).



Still under clear blue skies, we made it into Canberra around one o’clock, meeting a few local Porsche-friends for lunch, after which we set off for the last bit – the drive into Sydney.
Traffic increased and the weather deteriorated, (nothing as bad as fellow Queenslanders experienced on their drive south) but we managed to stay together and got to Sydney OK.
The Saturday and sunday were spend on and around the track, because I entered my car in the regularity event.
There was an abundance of nice & special cars around, and Porsche had provided an 936, a 956 and a LMPS2 RS Spyder to demonstrate.

[patrick911]

The way back to Melbourne was going to be similarly entertaining, be it that i was going to do it by myself as the others left on Sunday, and I still had a night in Sydney.

So I left Eastern Creek early on the Monday to drive to Thredbo (ski resort - in the Snowy Mountains) via the eastern coast.
I continued via the 'Mountain Hwy' to Cooma and Thredbo: fantastic roads once again – this country is so blessed! - to arrive in a ghost town just after 16:00pm.
I was in doubt if to continue or to spend the night and decided on the latter as I don't like to drive when Kangaroos and other animals start to cross the roads.
Glad to find there was at least one restaurant open in this deserted town (there was no snow yet), but there wasn’t much to do in Thredbo and I decided to go for an early night.

Tuesday morning; the last day of the RennSport road trip, with the outlook of what had been mentioned as the most spectacular roads around, and it wasn’t off to a good start.
I knew if was going to freeze overnight (-3) so I didn’t bother wanting to leave early.
But just after 8, the car (and roads!) were still covered in ice.
Worse, the car wouldn’t start. The gasoline-pump started and the lights went on, but no ignition, nothing.
A little panic set in after trying a few times and nothing happened; it looked as if the alarm/start interruption was the culprit but how to solve that in a remote place like this?
My prepaid phone had ran out of credit the night before so it did not look good at all.
Then, for no good reason, - or it must have been my hands heating up the alarm box that solved it - the car did decide to wake up, and we were off for the last leg of this trip.



Had to be careful though, as the roads were still white from ice and quite slippery at places.
A mile or so out of town there was an abandoned car with big front damage on the side of the road – a reminder that I really had to be either careful, or just wait an hour or two.
But since I was afraid i might not have been able to get the car started again, I decided on continue driving, be it very carefully.
The further down the mountains I got, the less icy patches I encountered, so by the end I still had time to enjoy the roads and drive a bit more spirited.



Once I got to Wangarratta I had to make a choice; go Hume Hwy (boring but quicker) or go ‘great alpine road’ and drive back via Bairnsdale (exciting, but longer).
I was getting a bit tired after 5 exciting days of driving though and although I know it sounds like a lame excuse, I didn’t want to risk anything after the car had been so good to me over the last few days, so I decided to go for the quick and easy way home.
Refueled just beyond Wangarratta and guess my surprise when I see an Irish Green 901 car just driving off at the pump…
What a coincidence to meet Mark - a fellow registry fellow - here. We had a bite at McDonalds next door and drove down to Melbourne together – making the boring trip over the Hume at least visibly a bit more interesting.



In the end I did exactly what people bought these cars for in the sixties and early seventies;
to drive it to a track – race them there – and safely drive ‘m back home again.
In six days, I drove 2560km (including 85 on track) in rain, sun and on icy roads and it didn’t let me down once.
How many (40 year old) cars do you know that can do that?
A bloody 40 year old legend!

[patrick911]

Some more pictures:

[RS-GT]

Any event photos ? Please !

Thanks, JD

[reedminor]

Patrick,

A great story on thour adventure. And yes what wonderful 40 + year old cares we have. I made a simialr remark about my swb L after driving it from Sydney to Phillip Island a few years back, over the Australian alps.

It was good to meet you and your partner Patrick - I was in the irish green swb that ran in your regularity group, and was a couple of spots across from you in the marquee.

JD - a number of links below, from what was a truly memorable event. I was lucky enough to attend rr4 at Laguna Seca in 2011, and while we did not have the wonderful variety and breadth of cars ( we did not have multiple 917's for example), we had some truly significant cars in both the Australian context (the Hamilton TR which the owner very graciously handed over to Alan Hamilton on Sunday, the McEwan car, and the Foley Chesterfield car) and world context (81 936 LeMans winner).

http://blog.autohaushamilton.com.au/...tralia-photos/

http://www.motorsportretro.com/

[TYP 901]

Hi Patrick,
Sounds like a wonderful trip, wish I was part of it!
Oh yeah - I was
Happy Days
Cheers, Luke
(Let's do something again real SOON)