Widescreen Gallery: An Autumn Festival of Historic Motorsport with the HSRCA

Images thanks to Seth Reinhardt

The 2018 Autumn Festival saw the HSRCA rumble into Wakefield Park with a magic collection of motoring machinery to kick off their year of historic motorsport in style. Scroll on, and catch up on some of the action with this widescreen gallery.

Set in the picturesque countryside of Goulburn, the Autumn Festival offered some awesome historic motor racing over the 7th & 8th of April. The event celebrated the 60th anniversary of Formula Junior, commemorated the life and career of Jim Clark and welcomed the BMW E30 Racing series to an HSRCA event for the first time.

The 60th anniversary of Formula Junior was well supported, and also provided a good way to remember Jim Clark, who tragically passed away 50 years ago on the 7th of April, 1968, while driving in the Deutschland Trophäe. Clark has a successful and important Formula Junior history with Lotus, and also had a great relationship with Australia, piling up a record 14 race wins in the Tasman Series and winning the title in ’65, ’66 and ’68.

The Jim Clark trophy race was held on the afternoon of Saturday the 7th of April, 2018, and saw Victorian Danny Ciarma and Donald Thallon from Queensland fight tooth and nail for the win, with Ciarma eventually triumphing. Kim Shearn brought a beautiful Lotus 18 Formula Junior home in third.

Great drives and dices were easy to find throughout the entry, no matter the category or format that happened to be on track at the time.

The mixed field of Group N Historic Touring Car Association tin tops and BMW E30s were a highlight, and the BMW E30s perfectly fit the aesthetic and pace of the meeting. Similarly, the mighty ’75 Nola Chev of Daniel Nolan and ’68 Elfin 600 of Paul Hamilton were magic on track together. Both drivers have taken over their fathers’ seats in the cars, and were well on the pace – comfortably pushing below the previous lap record for the category at Wakefield Park. Regularity and Super Sprint are going from strength to strength and continue to attract interesting cars to meetings and provide more options for people to get into what is truly a wonderful sport.

Thanks to perfect weather, an awesome entry and plenty of great drives throughout the ten categories that competed at the meeting, the Autumn Festival made for a brilliant weekend. We’re already looking forward to the Spring Festival, which will be held at Wakefield Park over the 22nd & 23rd of September.

Images thanks to Seth Reinhardt. For more, head to the HSRCA website here, and follow them on Facebook.