It was a busy schedule at Wakefield Park over the weekend with two supersprint events taking place at the Goulburn based circuit, including the Zestino Tyres Motorsport Australia NSW Supersprint Championship.

 

Also taking place before Sunday’s state supersprint was the Porsche Club of New South Wales’ own club series supersprint with 37 competitors competing in Saturday’s event - some of them even getting more than 70 laps of seat time.

 

Spread across four groups, the competitors completed seven sessions of the circuit as they attempted to post the fastest time of the day, but the winning driver only needed 16 to complete his fastest time. 

 

Behind the wheel of the Porsche 996 GT3 RSR, Richard Perini was too strong throughout every session he took part of and completed 22 laps of the circuit – his fastest time of 1:01.85 coming on his 16th lap of the day.

 

Finishing just three tenths shy of Perini’s best time was Mark Johnston after he steered his Porsche 962 Replica to his own fastest time on the next lap, while Porsche 911 GT3 RS driver Shaun Hannah rounded out the top three.

 

The following day, Perini took part in the state championship round and switched to a Ginetta G55 but couldn’t beat winner Douglas Barry, who recorded a brilliant time of 53.06 seconds.

While Perini’s best time on Sunday was five seconds slower than Barry, it was still an enjoyable weekend for the 65-year-old.

 

“Any sort of motorsport events at the moment are great as they have been quite scarce over the past six months, so the weekend was great and I had a lot of fun,” Perini said.

 

“During Saturday, I was running the old girl that was pulled out of retirement and then Sunday I was in the Ginetta but was out gunned by a hybrid formula one and three car.

 

“I wasn’t expecting to be anywhere near Barry on Sunday so I was far from disappointed.

 

“As for Saturday, I only did 22 laps because the RSR is a pretty precious car and the engine has a limited life. When I do pull it out, I am deliberately trying to conserve it. It’s just enough to have a bit of fun and not stress out the engine.”

Porsche Club of New South Wales President Timothy Bickford was also pretty thrilled with the weekend’s proceedings, despite having lower than usual numbers at the club event.

 

“We did an event in Sydney during the period before everything got shut down again which was nice and this was the second one back since,” Bickford said.

 

“A lot of our members had decided they had enough of 2020 and parked up for the year, so we did have far less than usual, but that meant the 37 competitors who did come got an awful lot of laps throughout the day.

 

“Richard’s fastest lap was driving the former David Wall Porsche RSR which was just fantastic to see. It’s certainly historic and top of the line.

 

“All in all, it was very good to be back and everything went well. It was one of those events where no one fell off track, no one hit the walls, no one broke down, we didn’t have to rely upon the tow truck nor the medical team and everyone had a good time.”

 

The Porsche Club of NSW’s next event already has 110 entries confirmed and takes place as a joint supersprint at Sydney Motorsport Park on 31 October.