Round 6 of the Improved Production Racing Association at Calder Park 19/20-10-2002

Round 6 of the Victorian Improved Production Racing Association was held at Calder Park over the weekend, and as always the racing was close and exciting. It was the final round of the Victorian championship and the competition was close and intense in the improved production category between Rohan Ambrose in the Guru Motorsports 13B Bridgeport Series 1 RX-7, Ken Douglas from the Selectmaz team in their RX-7 and Phil Morriss in his SR20 Turbo powered Datsun 1600.

Improved Production racing is an improved version of the old club-car style of racing, and it offers many different car and engine combinations including Datsun 120Y's and 1600's using SR20DET's, RX-7's and RX-3's using 13B Bridgeport's and 12A Turbos, Commodores and Falcons, Toranas and older 3-series BMW's.

Race One was held on Saturday afternoon and Phil Morriss took the first honours followed by Ken Douglas then Rohan Ambrose in third place. Rohan's teammate and fellow Guru Motorsport entrant Kelvin Twist came home in 5th place, not too far behind the leading bunch.

Race Two was held on Sunday and with the starting positions being determined by the finishing order of the previous race, it turned out to be a repeat of race one with Morriss finishing first followed by Douglas then Ambrose. However at the end of race two it was discovered that Rohan's car had a seized thrust bearing.

It was repaired in time for race three, but the seizure had caused problems to the pressure plate which were unable to be repaired. These problems with the clutch meant that the car had problems getting off the line and it unfortunately stalled. It was a nervous few moments while the rest of the grid passed him (a field of 25) before he got it going again. However over the next ten laps, Rohan absolutely carved through the field in a highly entertaining drive to grab fourth place, while teammate Kelvin Twist managed to grab 6th place (after sorting out some brake problems). Ken Douglas got the jump on Morriss this time to come home first in the RX-7 ahead of the Datsun 1600 and Paul Rule in an LH Torana.

The third race also had another highlight for Rohan Ambrose as he managed to break the lap record for the Calder Park track with a 1:03.2292 lap, and now holds lap records for all the Victorian tracks the series has visited (Sandown, Phillip Island, Winton and Calder Park, as well as many interstate tracks as well).

This was the last chance for the Victorian based cars to run before heading to the Improved Production Racing Association Nationals event which is being held at Queensland raceway on the 2nd and 3rd of November.

They will be back in action at Phillip Island on the last weekend of November for the 'Island Magic' race.

For more information on the series, the IPRA website can be found at www.ipravic.com.au

Also a special thanks to Rohan, Kelvin and Adam from the Guru Racing team for inviting mazdarotary.net to their pit area and (along with the other guys!) helping support the site by putting signage on their cars.