This past Sunday, the 21st of December, we got together with our friends at Simply Sports cars to express our appreciation of customers and club members, celebrate Christmas with friends, and enjoy some good coffee and tasty treats together.
Lotus Photos: A Walk Around the Final Sprint Round of 2014
Slap on some sunscreen, don your floppiest hat and join the Club Lotus Australia motorsport contingent for a supremely summery final round of the 2014 Sprint Championship.
A Young CLA Man on the Move: Jake Hobbs
CAMS’ 2014 awards night was a good one for Club Lotus Australia. Jake Hobbs received his award for claiming second overall in the Formula Ford State Championships, and Mike Basquil was honoured for his contributions to the motorsport community.
Jake Hobbs is a tidy steerer on the up and up, and you can read more about his story after the break.
Lotus Photos: 2014 Christmas Picnic and Concours d’Elegance
Our coverage of the 2014 Club Lotus Australia Christmas Picnic and Concours d’Elegance continues with three fabulous sets of photos from James Chan, Simon Kalis and Jonathan Wong.
A huge ‘THANK YOU!’ to the guys for sharing their brilliant shots!
Lotus Photos: 2014 CLA Christmas Picnic and Concours
December the 7th, 2014 saw us gather together at Lane Cove National Park to enjoy a summer morning chatting cars, the universe and everything at our annual Christmas Picnic.
December 2014 Edition of Lotus Notes Available for Download!
The wonderful wordsmiths who put together the combined Lotus Clubs of Australia’s Lotus Notes have completed the December edition of the newsletter, and it’s now available to download from our members’ page.
This month’s features include:
- Goldfields Gallivant 2014
- The Lotus 4 Wheel Drive Weekend
- Magnificent Motorclassica
- The Hunter Valley Early Morning Run
- Find in Japan
- An evening with Mark Webber
Along with much, much more!
The newsletter is a membership benefit of Club Lotus Australia, and will as such require you to be logged in to your members account. Download it from our ‘Members‘ page.
If you’re not a member yet, hit this link to find out more about the club and why you should become one!
President’s Prattle: December 2014
Well look at that – it’s December already!
What a year it has been too, with a lot happening socially, in the burgeoning Lotus motorsport scene, and, for me anyway, from a technical perspective!
Looking back, the year has gone far too fast, but is also full of great memories – including some wonderful General Meetings. This year has seen us enjoy some particularly good Blokes’ Shed tours, so a million thanks to Rob, Pete, Graham and of course Bruce for allowing us into their garages. These have been a great success and we are hoping to get more Blokes’ Sheds organised in 2015!
We also had some memorable drive days, and want to try to organise more of these, so if you have a burning urge to show us some great roads, please get in touch!
Of course we have enjoyed a LOT of fantastic motorsport, both from a participation perspective, but also for spectators. Back in February a bunch of us went to Bathurst to watch the 12 Hour, and particularly the brace of Lotus entrants – Tony Alford’s Exige V6 and Mark O’Connor’s venerable Exige; then we had the CLA round of the CSCA sprints, with a great turnout to what is widely regarded as one of the best run sprints.
This year Mike made it the best yet, so a big thanks to Mike for continuing to keep the wheels on the carriage! And for those who haven’t read it elsewhere, Mike received due recognition for all his hard work from CAMS at this year’s Awards Ceremony, so many, many congratulations Mike!
Then there have been not two, but three Simply Sports Cars Lotus Only Track Days, two at Wakefield, and the most recent at Winton – if you haven’t been to one, you really should – even visitors from the UK reckon they are better than any day of motorsport organised anywhere else which is high praise indeed!
Technically (and personally speaking!) 2014 has been a year of massive learning – not only did I have to get my head around running (and driving) the Elan, but then Bruce and Warwick decided to sell their Eleven, and it was rude to say no, so I have had to start right at the bottom of a VERY steep learning curve. What it has made me realise is what a fantastic (and, I am reliably informed, unusually helpful) bunch of people own and run these lovely cars of ours – the assistance I have received so far has enabled me to take on this project with confidence, in spite of the obvious challenge of not having built more than a Landrover from scratch before (and that was nearly thirty years ago!). So a very big, very heartfelt thank you to all of you who have helped so far, and the many more who have offered to help and whose assistance I am about to take up!!
Also from a technical perspective, we have taken significant strides forward with our new website and our Facebook presence, both of which are now up and running smoothly. After some initial teething problems (for which, our sincere apologies) we are now planning to use the website more extensively to communicate with you, so if you are still experiencing any issues with accessing the Members Area, please drop a line to Seth or me and we will get you sorted out.
So as we speed headlong for 2015, we have loads to look forward to. There’s the fabulous Nationals being held in the beautiful Barossa Valley in early October by our chapter in South Australia, lots of sprints including the first round in March run by us, all the Gear and 2nd Gear days, HSRCA meets, Simply Sports Cars Lotus Only days, and a whole lot of fun and interesting General Meetings, so please accept this as an invitation to come along and have fun with your car and friends!
In the meantime, your 2015 CLA calendar should be in the post to you shortly, and this comes with very best wishes to you and your family for a fabulous Christmas, I very much look forward to seeing you at one of the many events in 2015,
So keep it safe, upright and on the blackstuff, and Happy New Year!
Pip pip,
Ashton
Simply Sports Cars & Club Lotus Australia Invite You for a Lotus-Only Cafe Morning
As 2014 comes to a close, the team at SSC, together with Club Lotus Australia, would like to take the opportunity to express our appreciation for all our customers and club members.
Simply Sports Cars has grown from humble beginnings in a small workshop in Balmain to what it is today; the most successful Lotus dealership Australia has ever seen. Many of you have supported SSC in the years since its inception, and have witnessed its evolution first hand. And we’re only just warming up, there is much more to come!
Likewise, CLA has grown over the past 40 years to represent Lotus owners (in all their forms), and is growing hard too, having just welcomed its 300th (!) member. So we would love to jointly celebrate Christmas with our great friends at SSC, and support the best Lotus dealership we could wish for.
Both SSC and CLA fully realise that neither of its success stories would be possible without your support, so we’d like to invite you swing by on the morning of Sunday December 21st, for a “Lotus-Only” café. A Barista (which may or may not be Stu) will be ready to serve, and we’ll have plenty scrumptious cakes and other nibbles. We’ll switch on the coffee machine at 9am, and will be here at least until the last cake is gone, so don’t be too late!
PJ (SSC) and Ashton (CLA)
The SSC/CLA Lotus-Only Café will be held from 9AM until we run out of cake at Simply Sports Cars in Sydney, Artarmon
Simply Sports Cars
17 Hotham Parade
Artarmon, NSW, 2064
2014 CSCA November Report and Gallery
Needless to say that the Triumph Supersprint was well supported by our members!
Thanks Mike!
We are very pleased to announce that Mike Basquil, CLA Motorsport Competition Secretary, CAMS Delegate and all-round good man, has been awarded the CAMS NSW Official of the Year award, as well as a CAMS Service Award for his contributions to the motorsport community.
The awards were announced at a function held by CAMS on Saturday evening, the 22nd of November, 2014, at the Royal Automobile Club of Australia in Sydney’s Circular Quay.
They recognise a sustained long-term dedication to the motorsport community and contributions which go above and beyond the call of duty.
Two independent nominations were submitted recommending Mike for the award, sponsored by Keith Edwards, Rex H, Barry Mather, Stephen Perry, Syd Reinhardt, Brian Sutton and Adrian Wuillemin.
“We originally put the nominations together for Mike because we are so conscious of the huge amount of effort and time he puts into the set up and running of so many events. It’s easy for this work to go unrecognised by many of those involved and we wanted to make sure that this was not the case!”
“I am absolutely thrilled that CAMS saw fit to award not only the Service Award, but also the CAMS Official of the Year, fully recognising the input Mike has to our favourite pastime! Thank you so much Mike!” – CLA President, Ashton Roskill
We’ve known for a long time that Mike is the Official of All Time, worldwide, and a man of utmost magnificence, so we’re thrilled to see him recognised by Australian motorsport’s official governing body.
Volunteers like Mike are the lifeblood of grassroots motorsport, and it is their unflinching selflessness and dedication to the sport which make it tick, and provides us with opportunities for us to get together and enjoy our cars in a safe and competitive environment.
Mike – we’re lucky to have you and are eternally grateful for the hard work and talent you dedicate to the club!
Mike had the following to say about all of the fuss.
“Ashton rang me up told me that he was getting a table together for the award night. I was in the car at the time and I didn’t gather exactly the meaning behind what he said.”
“I was already going because I get a ticket via the Super Sprint panel, so I said OK. He replied with “OH, that’s good!” and again I didn’t think more of it. So I was quite surprised when I got two gongs!”
“I was a bit embarrassed by it all. You just do what needs to be done. I’m in the fortunate position where I can award it the time that other people can’t.”
“You just want people to get out there and have a good time. That’s the reason I do it. When I first started doing track days there were good events and ordinary events. The ordinary events were really ordinary. I couldn’t see why they all couldn’t be good?”
“You want to make the days good because you’re spending your own hard-earned and you want to give people good value for money. If you don’t like something your only choice is to fix it!”
“In our series we’re lucky because everyone has been running together for such a long period of time and everyone knows everyone else, even across the various clubs. So it’s very much a social thing with competition thrown in just to make it just a bit more interesting.”
“When I took on the job of Competition Secretary I had no idea it would become the vehicle for meeting and working with so many great people, all of who I am proud to call friends. It has and will continue to be a fun ride, and I’d like to send my sincere thanks to all who have joined me in having a great time mucking about with cars!”
Images by Barry Mather