Archive 2007
Club Activities and events during the year
Suncoast
Rally - July 2007
FUN IN THE SUN or HOW I SPENT MY WINTER VACATION
The story of our trip to the Suncoast Classic by Patrick Mewing
I have been keen on tarmac rallies since the concept was invented.
My first Targa was 1996 – as a navigator,
but it was enough to get my hooked. Since
then, I’ve been to three more Targas and two Classic Adelaides
– each trip involving more logistical preparation than car preparation, as
the distances are so huge just to get
there, let alone get the car, spares and pit crew there and back.
So when I heard rumours of a possible
these rumours have been going on for 6-7 years, now, to no avail.
This time, no less than the organisers of
Classic Adelaide were on board with the idea.
It still took three years, even with their resources, but eventually,
July 2007 was locked in, and I began making plans.
Try as I might, I couldn’t convince these guys to run it out of
While not as far as
well ready, apart from a wash and new tyres.
The little Elan should show a clean pair of heels to some more
fancied machinery on the twisty roads around the Sunshine Coast, but I still
needed two things – a sponsor
(promised the wife), and a navigator. As
time grew ever shorter, these two commodities proved to be in very
short supply.
There was also the fact that the course had been gutted by a greenie
conspiracy from four days down to
two and a half, so with time running out, I pulled my entry and prepared to
have a somewhat shorter break
with other club members who had booked the resort for the weekend to come up
and watch.
No sooner had I done all this, the phone rang – it was Tom Kuzman
– can you come and navigate? Tom
has
a great collection of toys, including and E Type and Type 14 Elite, but this
time he had entered his beautiful
Mk II Mini Cooper S – a car set up for rallying.
Barely had my “YES!” gone down the phone line, and I was
over at Tom’s to inspect the car. A
beautiful example, BRG with a white roof (of course), the mini looked ready to
go.
Tom got up to Noosa before me to get the car scrutineered, and
despite having no safety triangles, no isolation
switch, and harnesses that looked, well, period, the car breezed through –
how come this never happens to me!
We had a day and a half to recce the course, so purchased some
proprietary pace notes, dusted off the stop
watch, and we took off in the trusty Toyota Echo to have a look.
Considering that the organisers had to cobble
together most of the stages in about three months, it didn’t look too bad.
The Thursday prologue had been extended into a full day at the hill
climb to make up for the lost stages, and
at the competitor’s briefing, it was stressed to take it easy and not over
drive, as a bad crash would adversely
affect publicity, as well as ruin the hapless crew’s rally.
Tom and I had no problem complying, as the mini
developed a misfire by the third corner, and limped up the hill in last place.
We couldn’t find anything wrong,
and we had plenty of time to look, because first a BMW M3 hit the wall so hard
it moved the concrete blocks
(and wrote off the car), and then a Cobra Daytona (yes, just like the one
Brock was killed in) came off and
hit a tree, putting the driver in hospital and trapping the navigator briefly.
Thankfully, all injuries were minor,
but it did cross our minds: what the hell these guys were trying to prove so
early, on a day that didn’t count
anyway! So our day was limited to
three runs, and we continued to be the slowest, as the misfire wouldn’t
go away, despite my expert attention (I kind of tugged at some wires under the
bonnet – it’s worked before!)
It turned out that Tom had just had the engine rebuilt by Ken
Nelson, and after a pow-wow with Ken that night,
we thought that possibly the tacho was draining current from the coil, so we
disconnected it and girded our
loins for the first full day’s rallying on Friday.
Being the slowest car, we were due to be first away and had to get
up way too early in the morning to make the start.
That’s OK, we thought, we’ll be the first home!
We had all but booked our afternoon table at the café on the beach,
when the dreaded misfire returned – this time on the fourth corner of the
hill climb! It didn’t seem too
bad, so we
pressed on to the first stage, a fairly straight forward 6.5 km run west of
Eumundi. This we negotiated with
ease,
as the misfire persisted and we never looked like getting any speed out of the
car. The next stage was a very
fast
8.3 km run along the base of the
we barely made it through to control. After
pulling over and again finding nothing wrong, we headed up the range
towards the next stage. The road
was very steep and narrow, and by the time we got to the top, sometimes after
just moving in first gear, we had a long line of impatient competitors behind
us. We limped into Mapleton and
had
another look under the bonnet. This
time the problem was at least evident – there was fuel pouring out of both
carbies.
Tom, being the ultimate minimalist rally driver, had no tools in the
car, so I borrowed a (literally) rusty screw driver
and cleaned the needles and seats, which looked pristine anyway.
Fifty metres on, and the misfire returned – it
had to be fuel pressure, but I couldn’t understand how the old SU pump could
do it! Luckily we were right at
the
top of the range, and just rolled down the hill to Nambour, where, after
searching all over town, found the last fuel
pressure regulator between Brisbane and Rockhampton.
It turned out that the mini had an after market fuel pump,
putting out 7 psi! We turned this
down to 2 psi and, hey presto, we were back in the rally!
The car now ran faultlessly, but we were about three hours behind
the field, which had snaked its way a further
40 km south of us, and we’d exceeded our late time for the day, so there was
nothing for it but to head back to
Noosa and have a late, but long lunch by the beach – which we had planned to
do all along, if after a less eventful day!
The next two days saw us wind all over the
and challenging roads. Tom took it
easy and the mini sailed along without trouble (I don’t think it so much as
squeaked a tyre).
Highlights, for me, included the Lamborghini Muira SV – not just
its looks, but the sound it makes!
There was a smattering of Ferraris, the usual over supply of Porsches,
and
like a Formula 5000, but unfortunately suffered terminal engine problems early
on. The important thing is that
Tom’s
car came through without a scratch, and we had a fun few days blasting around
the
The
southern competitors what a winter should be like.
Thanks, Tom, for asking me along.
Let’s hope the event overcomes its political hurdles and becomes a
permanent
fixture on the tarmac rally scene.
Mt Cotton Hillclimb - 23 April 2007
The
annual Queensland Historic Racing Car Club hill climb was held at Mt cotton on
23 April and a half dozen
Lotus Club members took part.
Peter
Boel’s Lotus 41 was again one of the stars of
the show. With new tyres the car was quicker than last
time and Pete finished with a best of 46.92 for a creditable third in class
against a couple of open wheelers
set up as hill climbers.
Tom
Kuzman was racing his concourse winning Elite,
having resolved the low oil pressure problems.
Alan
Telfer and I were running our Sevens, grouped as a class with a fully race
prepared Sports 1300 Welsor
and what was entered as a Lotus replica, a car with Renault mechanicals under
a Lotus 23 type body.
The
award for biggest grin of the day belonged to David Read, who was very
obviously enjoying every
moment of his driving in his 500c.c. JAP engined,
1949 Cooper Mk3. With its bare aluminium bodywork,
skinny little tyres and single cylinder motor, this car really looks and
sounds like something from another
era. David drove with enthusiasm and was rewarded with a best time of 62.74
sec.
Biggest
disappointment of the day went to Peter Vandermeer
in his pristine Jensen Healey.
Having got the bug over the past year or so, Peter now has a significantly up
rated motor in
the car, in pursuit of better times. Peter ran in the Consistency section,
where the objective is
to match your nominated time as in a regularity drive. However, on his third
run he was caught out
by the bend at the finish line and damaged the panels down the driver’s side
along the Armco fencing.
Ouch !! I have particular sympathy for Peter, having rolled my Seven in the
very same spot soon
after I started hill climbing in the early seventies. Welcome to the club!!
Run
times were as follows with Peter’s nominated time as well as his time
achieved.
|
David Reid |
Cooper Mk 3 |
62.74* |
63.07 |
64.22 |
63.22 |
|
Peter Boel |
Lotus 41 |
47.48 |
47.52 |
47.78 |
46.52* |
|
Tom Kuzman |
Lotus Elite |
60.07 |
59.11 |
58.88* |
63.16 |
|
Alan Telfer |
Lotus Seven |
53.11 |
52.82 |
52.02* |
52.51 |
|
|
Lotus Seven |
54.00 |
51.53 |
51.30* |
51.92 |
|
Peter Vandermeer |
Jensen Healey |
60.00/59.67 |
59.50/59.50 |
59.52/59.14 |
- |
** Refer
Picture Gallery under "Events"
for all photos.