alternate solution

[hawkwind racing]

For starters these answers were compiled from long term stats from nonning /woomera airport

lowest wind speeds
1. May 2. june 3.april 4. july

lowest rain
1. March 2. april 3. feburary 4. November

highest rain
1. june 2. july 3. august .4.september

highest temps
1.Janurary 2.feburary 3. december 4. March

lowest temps
1.june 2.july 3. august 4. may

most clear days
1.march 2. janurary 3. feburary 4. december

there is no data for southern L. Gairdner as such

Why Gairdner ,my understanding is that Rossco was using it for testing / record runs and on that basis the fledgling DLRA followed suite , if there is more to it please tell

Why March ,cause from the weather stats is a bloody good month ,arguably the best ,but so is april and if alternate dates were adopted anywhere from late October to early may could be used

why only one meet per year ,I dare say its because thats about all the majority of members can attend and or afford

the last 3 is the 64K question these reside with the experts and answers should be sort

the following lakes at least from a map perspective have potential in so far as they have access, and are large enough to run a 10km course , I agree that a lot more investigation needs to be done before they could be concidered as an alternate location if and when Gairdner is not usable

L. Hart
L. Macfarland
L. Torrens All around the woomera area
Island lagoon
Pernatty Lagoon

L. Harris
L. Everand West of Woomera

L. Frome
L. Ayre (south) east and North of the flinders

I for one will personally take up the cause for L. Frome as an alternative and gather as much information as possible ,including a site visit and contacting the SA govt tyo see if its possible to use for an alternate site to Gairdner
cheers
gary

[Stayt`ie]

thankyou for posting the photos mister admin,, i have but one question/observation,, the salt looks very thin where the road comes onto the lake, is this a result of the ramp having to be removed

[momec]

Hawk
Lucky Kieser has stories of when younger, crossing Lake Frome on a motorbike. Anyone in contact with Lucky lately?
Chris

[BOB ELLIS]

Will be twomorrow! Cheers , Bob #66 C/GCC.

[Dr Goggles]

Top work Gary.

Lake Hart is out because it is within the Woomera testing area and it has unexploded bombs on it .....now I know that is the case with Gairdner any time people take Fords onto it( na , you two are excused ) but for instance next week they will be firing howitzers onto Lake Hart ........I'm willing to suggest a certain Clio is taken there for a reconnaissance mission but I suggest everyone else stays clear .

From what I hear there are access tracks to Island Lagoon , apparently the western approaches are sandy while those on the east are gibber more like the surrounds of Gairdner, Mal Hewatt ( DLRA #234 Roxby Downs) has spoken to locals who have been onto Island Lagoon and say the tracks they have used are rough, possibly not "trailerable"....my source ( who at this point I don't want to divulge without his permission) seems to think they aren't too bad.

Mal also mentioned he had spoken to the son of a roo shooter who said " you never drive onto a salt lake during full moon , you'll get bogged".....

At this point I'm going to go and have a look there .

Grumm may also have some more ideas about a ground water level measuring and data recording device. Give over G.

[DLRA]

For starters these answers were compiled from long term stats from nonning /woomera airport

Good onya Gary, the stuff put out by BoM now is fanstastic. And although there's no observations at the lake Nonning and Woomera are probably close enough. I'll be ading your observations to the reference pages. Along with some of the graphs from the BoM site.

Why Gairdner ,my understanding is that Rossco was using it for testing / record runs and on that basis the fledgling DLRA followed suite , if there is more to it please tell

For a short history of the DLRA and who/how they settled on Lake Gairdner have a read of this account by Geoff Rea http://www.dlra.org.au/history01.htm
I'm not sure who was at Gairdner first but we definately bought Rossco's old camp, that's one for Rob Carrol or Old Timer to recall.
H'mm now that he's "retired" I must ask him if he's interested in writing his "memoirs".

thankyou for posting the photos mister admin,, i have but one question/observation,, the salt looks very thin where the road comes onto the lake, is this a result of the ramp having to be removed

Ron, I wasn't there so I'll let Cookey or Trev answer that one.
I know that in 2007 there was just a 25mm crust of salt right at the shoreline. Then the mud underneath that. The profile is more like a beach (very flat angle) than a river (deep step off).

There are some other very good reasons why we go back to Lake Gairdner each year. The first one is infrastructure, this refers to all the stuff we need to conduct a race meeting and anyone who has stuck their head inside the containers will know what I mean, chockers with witches hats, track markers, wire, timing gear rope etc, etc, etc. To try and cart all this stuff around to different track sites would be a significant and costly undertaking.
Then there is the camp itself, who really wants to go back to the early days now that we have some of lifes little luxuries in what is a very hostile and unforgiving environment. (power generators and water supply and all the fixtures that go with them, coolrooms, toilets, showers, semi-permanent accomodation, telephone).

But probably the thing that will keep people coming back for time immemorial is the fact that Lake Gairdner is where all existing Land Speed Records in Australia have been set, at least for the last 18 years.
Sure you can go to another Lake, even set a faster time, but it never will be, never can be, recognised as a record.
A classic example of this is from our friends in the US. Bonneville is Bonneville, any where else is just a local record. (I do not mean to discount in any way places like El Mirage or Muroc)
I know the drag racing guys will have a hard time coming to terms with this one, as the quickest ET is the quickest, no matter which track you did it at. But we're not drag racers.

[nevco1112]

hello cooky most of my life ive raced speedway side cars. drag raced bikes and cars (im 58 years old) and now im racing in astraight line to achieve my next goal in life i currently run my own business selling and repairing motor cycles which is very succesful. i joined the dlra after long cosideration if it was worth doing once a year. the dlra has to have other plans in hand if it doesnt want to go down the drain. in todays world you have to run it as a business OR YOU WONT SURVIVE. lake gairdner has other problems eg
1 national parks and wild life getting worse
2 native title is about to be a major issue the aboriginals want it
3 the pastoral commision dont want permanent camp sites that look unsitely hence plan b and c. i have just joined your club and was at the lake to see what i had to take and how things had to be done . i was there when the cacellation was anounced. this is not about egos it is about having somewhere to race and club being more and more succesful on the internation al curcuit i dont do things lightly and i can see the potential of this club you cant rely on one venue only you will fail nev

[Reverend Hedgash]

No worries Nev, that sounds like a handsome pedigree!

Welcome to the club, I am sure your experience will be a great asset.

High emotions around right now so don't be concerned about the posts going on, we are just letting off steam.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with. Speedway seems to breed some innovative thinkers with cohunas...

rev H
the fasta pastor

[Cookey]

Hi Ron,
The area where the ramp used to be was cut up marginally when Len removed the ramp stones that we placed there in March '07.
All of the sand that was dumped over the stones had disappeared when we were at the lake at Christmas time. (Hopefully it has sunken into the bog and will help us in this area in future).
However the whole area from the ramp out to the course was soft and this was the main concern for the inspection team.
There were a couple of sections of the course that had 3 or 4 miles of half reasonable salt that may or may not have improved before March but the access to the lake for crews and spectators was up to Shit
Cheers,
Cookey

[PLUCKA]

Gary, Mal and others
In the submission to the RAAF about using the test facility they have asked me about a number of things, insurance , crash retrieval, fire, personnel ect. They have informed me that the air base strip is infact closed during the date range I gave them for maintainence on the taxi ways. They weren't keen on having a whole heap of people up there at the same time and made mention that extra vehicles would have to submit their own application. Now in short I can't bring extra vehicles in with my application/permit. They are saying that they will look at other applications. What costs are involved I haven't been advised of yet.


Plucka
#689

[hawkwind racing]

Thanks Plucka for all your effort to date , there are to many hoops to jump through on short notice so I will bow out on woomera ,all the best if you are able to use it and good luck
cheers
Gary

[Dr Goggles]

Top work Gary.

....my source ( who at this point I don't want to divulge without his permission)

My source for that information now that I have checked it's O.K with him was John Bayley who has owned Wirraminna station at the top end of Gairdner twice.The station also covers Lake Hart which he said was in a sloppy condition over the weekend that the check was done at Gairdner despite there being no rain there either.He's been there for twelve months this time around but has been in the area for about 30 years.

John is adamant that the salt lakes in the area are affected by the tides , he says that they change color around the full moon indicating they are wetter . He also told me that driving around his property he has noticed that some creek beds that are not flowing will have water holes in them which rise and fall over a 24 hour period indicating that they are subject to similar tidal influences on the groundwater. He said that in general the area needs an eighty to ninety foot bore to be sunk and that seems to be reasonably constant.

[hawkwind racing]

Some more facts on gairdner .
Lake Gairdner is an alluviated river valley ,it has inflows only from the surrounding catchment , its salt growth is not from leaching / surface water ,but comes from subteranian ground water ,which is a saturated brine , this ground water is classed as an unconfined aquifer ,the lake surface is an outlet of this ground water ,this ground water is NOT a part of the great artisian basin which lies much further north ,but is a part of an equally large basin called the weston plateau dranage area , the geology of the lake is from top down to water table, salt , gypsum then gypseous clays , the water table lies an average of 5 meters below the salt surface and has some flowing springs at the surface ,factors effecting the water table level include , topography , geology, seasonal & tidal effects and the amount of water pumped /drawn from the aquifer .
I have the name and # of a person in the SA govt that may have some specific info on gairdners water table , I will try and contact
cheers
Gary

[momec]

Some of the pieces of this puzzle are starting to make sense. Well done and persivere.
Chris

[gazza414]

Unfortunately we all want 1 part of the puzzle ...when is it going to be effing dry