The Phillip Island
Classic
March 7th 8th & 9th 2008
Historic racers gather for 80th ‘AGP’ anniversary
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Huge
Phillip Island Classic meeting guaranteed!
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World’s most
powerful sports car’
for Shannons
Phillip Island Classic
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Admission Prices:
Friday 7th
March $10.00
Saturday 8th March $20.00
Gates Open 7.00am
Sunday 9th
March $30.00
Gates Open 7.00am
Weekend pass $40.00
Children under 16 Free
Programme $5.00
Full Catering
Historic racers gather for 80th ‘AGP’ anniversary
A spectacular
collection of around 80 historic racing cars will converge on the
original Phillip Island circuit near Cowes in March this year to
celebrate the 80th anniversary of the ‘Australian Grand
Prix’.
The cars, including the
resurrected Austin 7 in which Captain Arthur Waite won the ‘100 Miles
Road Race’ in 1928 and the Bugatti Type 37 that Bill Thompson drove in
the first official ‘Australian Grand Prix’ on the same circuit in 1929,
will take part in the VACC Cowes Cavalcade on Saturday March 8.
The VACC Cowes
Cavalcade is an associated event of the Shannons Phillip Island Classic,
which is taking place at the nearby current Phillip Island Grand Prix
circuit over the same weekend.
With an expected 550
entries and more than 50 sports and racing cars travelling from around
the world to compete, the ‘Classic’, which is also supported by the
VACC, will be the largest historic motor racing meeting ever staged in
the Southern Hemisphere.
Many of the cars
participating in the VACC Cowes Cavalcade will be coming from the race
meeting, where they will be either competing or on display, giving the
public a unique free glimpse of motor racing as it used to be on the
Island in the late 1920s.
Staged just one
weekend prior to the 2008 FORMULA 1™ ING
Australian Grand Prix at Albert
Park, the VACC Cavalcade will celebrate the beginnings of the event
staged by the Victorian Light Car Club on Monday March 26, 1928, on a
10km rectangular rutted gravel public road on the perimeter of Phillip
Island’s main town, Cowes.
Watched by a big crowd,
the rain-delayed race attracted 25 entries and 17 starters, with South
Australian Gallipoli veteran Captain Arthur Waite averaging 59 miles an
hour (95km/h) to take victory in his supercharged Austin 7 by three and
a half minutes over a Morris Cowley, with an Austin 12 third.
Starting at 4.00pm on
Saturday March 8, the VACC Cowes Cavalcade of around 80 pre-War racing
cars will leave the modern Phillip Island circuit, headed by the Austin
7 owned by Graeme Steinfort, which has the engine and gearbox of Waite’s
1928-winning car inside a replica body.
The impressive list of
period racing cars gathered for the Cavalcade by organiser Jeff Brown
includes a number of Alfa Romeo, Alta, Alvis, Amilcar and Austin cars,
Bentleys, Bugattis, Delage, Lagonda, MG (including four K3 models),Riley,
Salmson, Singer, Talbot and Vauxhall models – most with an Australian
competition history.
After travelling in
convoy for a lap and a half of the original circuit immediately
south-west of Cowes, the cars will go on free display in Cowes’ main
shopping street for around two hours, giving visitors the opportunity to
see and smell motor racing from a bygone era and to talk to the cars’
current custodians. The display will conclude around 6.30pm.
More details on the 2008 Shannons
Phillip Island Classic can be found by visiting
www.vhrr.com
For media enquiries and
reproduction quality photographs, please contact Michael Browning (03)
9879 9111/0418 324 328
The Porsche Collection 2007
more
Click here for
the latest photos from last year's event (2007), and
here for
more photos
The
Phillip Island Circuit
The Phillip Island circuit is situated in a spectacular
coastal location approximately 130km south of Melbourne city. The drive, once you get on to the South
Eastern freeway, takes approximately 1 hour 45 minutes. The
Phillip Island circuit contains an excellent mixture of fast and tight sections over
undulating countryside. Large sections of the track can be viewed
from virtually all spectator areas. Click
here to go to the Phillip Island Circuit website.
Information
for Visitors to Melbourne
If you will be visiting Melbourne for the Phillip Island
International Challenge, link to Visitors to Melbourne page for useful information
and links about the City of Melbourne and it's surroundings.
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