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02-07-2008, 08:00 AM
Dick Willis, HSRCA Group JKL Registrar
PO Box 280, Coffs Harbour, NSW. 2450
Ph. 02 66522099, 0427 400158, willisrg@smartchat.net.au (willisrg@smartchat.net.au)
Greetings All,
Have we just had our last Historic race meeting at Oran Park ? I certainly hope not but the subdivisions are getting closer and the V8's aren't coming back after this year however our June 28/29 meeting was most enjoyable with pleasant winter weather, a respectable KL field and most importantly, very friendly camaraderie amongst our group so we continue to enjoy this historic circuit while we can. We felt very privileged to have among our numbers two visitors from South Australia, John Payne and Derry Greeneklee, and two from Victoria, Peter Gostelow and Peter McKnight plus a dozen NSW L cars, Paul Kenny in the Group K Harris Special and some “invited” cars, 8 Sa's, Barry Bates' Lotus Fifteen and Bruce Smith's MG ZA giving us a quite respectable field. Unfortunately we lost both the Medley Nota Juniors before Saturday, John when he couldn't get the little BMC engine to run properly and Geoff when he had a coming together with an Alfa sedan in Friday's unofficial practice with his Nota sustaining rear suspension and axle damage which couldn't be repaired in time for Saturday. The other Medley brother, David tells me that the BMC powered Hamilton Clubman is almost ready to join us in Group L after a long period of preparation.
Qualifying quite rightly resulted in the L cars of Paul Armstrong, David Gleen and Peter McKnight occupying the first 3 positions and then Saturday's six lapper saw David Gleen take the chequer comfortably ( with a best lap of 1.27.8709, the best of any of our Group all weekend ) from Paul Armstong and Richard Line's quick MGA of which more later. Derry Greeneklee finished second on the road but was docked 60 seconds for an alleged jumped start but I wonder if the officials misjudged just how quickly this little rocketship gets away or did Derry fall victim to Oran Park's downhill slope on the grid which makes it very difficult to maintain one's position during those last seconds waiting for the flag to fall.
The Sunday morning six lap handicap was well won by Paul Kenny starting from the front and never headed, second was John Ashwell making a welcome return in the ex Les Wright Buckle Coupe and third Richard Line again. The back markers were never really in contention finishing well back probably because they were lapping several seconds slower than they had in qualifying. Our final event, a six lap scratch was again won by David Gleen who was having a great weekend, then Paul Armstrong and Barry Bates, Richard Longes was fourth in the T51 Cooper and Peter McKnight fifth. Derry Greeneklee and Richard Line both copped sixty second penalties placing them well back when they had finished respectively in second and fouth positions so this was very disappointing for them.
This meeting is the venue for the annual John Dawson Damer memorial trophy race for M and O Racing cars and was won by Les Wright in the Brabham Buick just ahead of Richard Carter in his Elfin 600 but the highlight for us was having two of our Group invited, David Gleen and Richard Longes who finished a creditable eleventh and twelth outright in this classy field. Speaking of John Dawson Damer some readers may be unaware of the misfortune that befell the collection's Lotus 25 en route to the Goodwood Festival of Speed last year. When the container was opened the crew were horrified to find a large quantity of salt water in the container which had a devastating effect on this very valuable car, particularly to its many magnesium components. I am happy to report that repairs are now well under way in the UK at a not inconsiderable cost and we hope to see the car back in Australia again soon. Hopefully this time without any shipping damage. When we shipped our Formula Juniors to New Zealand earlier this year we were able to arrange insurance to cover such an eventuality and I would certainly recommend anyone contemplating shipping their pride and joy anywhere to ensure that it is adequately insured as it is hard to know what is happening to your car when it is outside your control, containers have even been known to fall overboard !
But back to Oran Park, it has been customary recently for the scrutineers at our meetings to present an award to the best presented car as, in their position they are well able to form a judgement. I am happy to report that at this meeting the award went to Rod Moore and the Nota Consul which is always very well presented and a credit to its owner, well done Rod ! I ran the Gladiator again with an 11th, 5th (handicap ) and 9th which wasn't very inspiring considering I had been able to lap Oran Park four seconds quicker five years ago but I thought I did the right thing since then replacing the locked diff with a limited slip and now surprisingly, it doesn't handle nearly as well. Some consolation though was seeing the article Patrick Quinn had written about the Gladiator which appears in the July issue of Vintage Racecar magazine which is well worth reading and makes one appreciate the history that most of our cars have, if you are having trouble getting hold of a copy of Vintage Racecar contact Patrick on 0417 673065.
Earlier I mentioned Richard Line who emigrated here from the UK recently and has since been racing at every possible opportunity in the MGA originally built up for Historics some 25 years ago by Terry Middleton and also raced by one of my fellow Registrars, Ed Holly. John Medley brought to my attention a very historic car that Richard had owned for some twelve years and had been in the process of restoring but had sold it shortly before leaving for Australia. It is the French built SEFAC and if you are unfamiliar with its fascinating history, which I don't propose to relate here because of its length, just enter “SEFAC” on Google and I'm sure you will be intrigued, I know Steen Pedersen has been because the SEFAC has some Salmson connections.
Some further exciting news I have just received is that David Reid ( of NSW ) is now the owner of Faux Pas which, if you don't know, is the rear engined T43 Cooper
copy fitted with a Repco Holden engine which has been owned and raced for many years by Stuart Powell of Victoria. Last time he ran the car Stuart had an “off” which hasn't yet been repaired but David now has the matter in hand so we look forward to seeing the Faux Pas perform in David's hands with great anticipation. Having bought Faux Pas another merry-go-round started with David's Elfin going to Doug Anderson of Yamba who was unfortunate to be involved in the “debacle” at Morgan Park in May which caused considerable damage to his Elfin which is only a few chassis numbers away from the one has just bought.
Following Oran Park our annual pointscores ( which are based on the results of the Saturday scratch races at our four race meetings ) have started to develop a pattern, in L Racing Richard Longes has hit the front on 18 points from David Reid and David Gleen both on 10, in L Sports Paul Armstrong is in front with 20 points from myself on 17 while in JK John Payne has 10 from Paul Kenny on 9. With two meetings still to go, the next is Wakefield Park on Sept 27/28, there is still time to add to your score or even start it if you haven't been to any of our meetings so far this year.
We now have a break for five weeks or so to prepare for Queensland's 31st National Historic meeting this year at Morgan Park on August 9/10 where our northern friends are keen to get a big field of JKL's. This meeting will see the debut of a “new” L car, Mike Gosbell's Cooper T52 Junior which he has recently imported from New Zealand, this car has a lot of international history and is a very neat little unit which should acquit itself well around the tight Morgan Park track. Also up north on Sept 19/20/21 is Speed on Tweed, the last time this event will be run with Roger Ealand at helm, I am not sure at this stage whether someone else will be taking it over. Entries for both these events are open until July 17th.
See you round the tracks,
Dick Willis.
PO Box 280, Coffs Harbour, NSW. 2450
Ph. 02 66522099, 0427 400158, willisrg@smartchat.net.au (willisrg@smartchat.net.au)
Greetings All,
Have we just had our last Historic race meeting at Oran Park ? I certainly hope not but the subdivisions are getting closer and the V8's aren't coming back after this year however our June 28/29 meeting was most enjoyable with pleasant winter weather, a respectable KL field and most importantly, very friendly camaraderie amongst our group so we continue to enjoy this historic circuit while we can. We felt very privileged to have among our numbers two visitors from South Australia, John Payne and Derry Greeneklee, and two from Victoria, Peter Gostelow and Peter McKnight plus a dozen NSW L cars, Paul Kenny in the Group K Harris Special and some “invited” cars, 8 Sa's, Barry Bates' Lotus Fifteen and Bruce Smith's MG ZA giving us a quite respectable field. Unfortunately we lost both the Medley Nota Juniors before Saturday, John when he couldn't get the little BMC engine to run properly and Geoff when he had a coming together with an Alfa sedan in Friday's unofficial practice with his Nota sustaining rear suspension and axle damage which couldn't be repaired in time for Saturday. The other Medley brother, David tells me that the BMC powered Hamilton Clubman is almost ready to join us in Group L after a long period of preparation.
Qualifying quite rightly resulted in the L cars of Paul Armstrong, David Gleen and Peter McKnight occupying the first 3 positions and then Saturday's six lapper saw David Gleen take the chequer comfortably ( with a best lap of 1.27.8709, the best of any of our Group all weekend ) from Paul Armstong and Richard Line's quick MGA of which more later. Derry Greeneklee finished second on the road but was docked 60 seconds for an alleged jumped start but I wonder if the officials misjudged just how quickly this little rocketship gets away or did Derry fall victim to Oran Park's downhill slope on the grid which makes it very difficult to maintain one's position during those last seconds waiting for the flag to fall.
The Sunday morning six lap handicap was well won by Paul Kenny starting from the front and never headed, second was John Ashwell making a welcome return in the ex Les Wright Buckle Coupe and third Richard Line again. The back markers were never really in contention finishing well back probably because they were lapping several seconds slower than they had in qualifying. Our final event, a six lap scratch was again won by David Gleen who was having a great weekend, then Paul Armstrong and Barry Bates, Richard Longes was fourth in the T51 Cooper and Peter McKnight fifth. Derry Greeneklee and Richard Line both copped sixty second penalties placing them well back when they had finished respectively in second and fouth positions so this was very disappointing for them.
This meeting is the venue for the annual John Dawson Damer memorial trophy race for M and O Racing cars and was won by Les Wright in the Brabham Buick just ahead of Richard Carter in his Elfin 600 but the highlight for us was having two of our Group invited, David Gleen and Richard Longes who finished a creditable eleventh and twelth outright in this classy field. Speaking of John Dawson Damer some readers may be unaware of the misfortune that befell the collection's Lotus 25 en route to the Goodwood Festival of Speed last year. When the container was opened the crew were horrified to find a large quantity of salt water in the container which had a devastating effect on this very valuable car, particularly to its many magnesium components. I am happy to report that repairs are now well under way in the UK at a not inconsiderable cost and we hope to see the car back in Australia again soon. Hopefully this time without any shipping damage. When we shipped our Formula Juniors to New Zealand earlier this year we were able to arrange insurance to cover such an eventuality and I would certainly recommend anyone contemplating shipping their pride and joy anywhere to ensure that it is adequately insured as it is hard to know what is happening to your car when it is outside your control, containers have even been known to fall overboard !
But back to Oran Park, it has been customary recently for the scrutineers at our meetings to present an award to the best presented car as, in their position they are well able to form a judgement. I am happy to report that at this meeting the award went to Rod Moore and the Nota Consul which is always very well presented and a credit to its owner, well done Rod ! I ran the Gladiator again with an 11th, 5th (handicap ) and 9th which wasn't very inspiring considering I had been able to lap Oran Park four seconds quicker five years ago but I thought I did the right thing since then replacing the locked diff with a limited slip and now surprisingly, it doesn't handle nearly as well. Some consolation though was seeing the article Patrick Quinn had written about the Gladiator which appears in the July issue of Vintage Racecar magazine which is well worth reading and makes one appreciate the history that most of our cars have, if you are having trouble getting hold of a copy of Vintage Racecar contact Patrick on 0417 673065.
Earlier I mentioned Richard Line who emigrated here from the UK recently and has since been racing at every possible opportunity in the MGA originally built up for Historics some 25 years ago by Terry Middleton and also raced by one of my fellow Registrars, Ed Holly. John Medley brought to my attention a very historic car that Richard had owned for some twelve years and had been in the process of restoring but had sold it shortly before leaving for Australia. It is the French built SEFAC and if you are unfamiliar with its fascinating history, which I don't propose to relate here because of its length, just enter “SEFAC” on Google and I'm sure you will be intrigued, I know Steen Pedersen has been because the SEFAC has some Salmson connections.
Some further exciting news I have just received is that David Reid ( of NSW ) is now the owner of Faux Pas which, if you don't know, is the rear engined T43 Cooper
copy fitted with a Repco Holden engine which has been owned and raced for many years by Stuart Powell of Victoria. Last time he ran the car Stuart had an “off” which hasn't yet been repaired but David now has the matter in hand so we look forward to seeing the Faux Pas perform in David's hands with great anticipation. Having bought Faux Pas another merry-go-round started with David's Elfin going to Doug Anderson of Yamba who was unfortunate to be involved in the “debacle” at Morgan Park in May which caused considerable damage to his Elfin which is only a few chassis numbers away from the one has just bought.
Following Oran Park our annual pointscores ( which are based on the results of the Saturday scratch races at our four race meetings ) have started to develop a pattern, in L Racing Richard Longes has hit the front on 18 points from David Reid and David Gleen both on 10, in L Sports Paul Armstrong is in front with 20 points from myself on 17 while in JK John Payne has 10 from Paul Kenny on 9. With two meetings still to go, the next is Wakefield Park on Sept 27/28, there is still time to add to your score or even start it if you haven't been to any of our meetings so far this year.
We now have a break for five weeks or so to prepare for Queensland's 31st National Historic meeting this year at Morgan Park on August 9/10 where our northern friends are keen to get a big field of JKL's. This meeting will see the debut of a “new” L car, Mike Gosbell's Cooper T52 Junior which he has recently imported from New Zealand, this car has a lot of international history and is a very neat little unit which should acquit itself well around the tight Morgan Park track. Also up north on Sept 19/20/21 is Speed on Tweed, the last time this event will be run with Roger Ealand at helm, I am not sure at this stage whether someone else will be taking it over. Entries for both these events are open until July 17th.
See you round the tracks,
Dick Willis.