Luff’s Stuff no 2
Hi all, lots of info for you.
First of all I must apologise for the lack of information for
those who are not on e-mail who will
be suffering.
Both
Mike and I work full time (me more than him){crap! Mike} and there is no
way that we can keep you all up to date with the changes due to foot &
mouth. This is changing every day and there is no way that I can get a
newsletter out to you all every week. I am doing my best but for some of you
that is not good enough because you are wondering what you get for your
£25.00 registration. First of all you get that attention of 6 committee
members who meet every month and sometimes more than that if necessary to
arrange the series for you. Your entry forms are sent to your door and all you
have to do is enter pay and play. We have a lovely selection of awards at the
end of year and cover as many entries as possible.
Now to the News - as of 16/05/01
The new calendar is Attached with hopefully all the amendments. Please Read it
Scammonden Dam in July is running at of the above date despite what you may have heard but they are having a meeting the 1st week in June to confirm this.
This
is very important - as we
have lost hill climbs in the northern series the
committee (
that is the six of us) have decided that that the September Anglesey Event may
be claimed as either a hill climb or a sprint a you require.
This must be declared at signing on on the day and a sheet will be provided for
you to sign.
This means that the Northern Series has a possible 8 hillclimbs / 9 sprints and
Southern Series has 6 Hillclimbs /10 Sprints to count
Hope this is OK, I’m
sure that you will let me know.
Sad
news - through lack of support the
LECONFIELD sprint has now been cancelled as of tonight. Only 13 MG ‘s entered
out of a field of 32 .
I find this very sad when this is MGCC event in
the memory of JACK ARMSTRONG
(He was a lovely man who was totally committed to MG’s as anyone in the NE
will agree).
Results - The committee has decided as of now that no change will be made to the results calculations as agreed in the regs but this may change in the future ( re Foot & Mouth)
The AA - The MGCC NW has now joined the AA Motor
Club and if anyone is interested I now have a limited supply of Membership forms
(about 40 I think and going fast) For every person that joins thro us we (MGCC
NW) get 10% commission ( better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper)
For existing members of the AA they can change to our scheme but the must call
08705444444 quoting our scheme number (which is 331187) and a POS number (which
is 777496) sounds a bit complicated to me but what do I know (I'm with the RAC)
Any new people to the AA must join our scheme by post with the form stated above.
Anyway there you go for assistance at the circuit.
Questions - some of the feed back I have
received is why
a) why do we have so many rounds
b) why are they spread about
Answer
We agreed to supply a series that was local to you
Question Where
is local?
Answer We
try to get 6 events that are local to you so that you only have to travel for 2
events. This may not always work out but this is the aims of the committe.
OK now for the fun. First over to you John Thomas
Oddicombe -
is
one of the more sociable venues we attend. Within walking distance of the top of the hill are plenty of
inexpensive hotels, mainly run by Northerners who have escaped!. We have an
established a pub to visit the night before and a 10% discount! There are
lovely sea views and you can go paddling from the paddock if you wish. Anyway, what about the
motorsport:-
The track was dry until the final timed run on our second visit to this narrow,
rough, steep and unforgiving hill 'up the cliff' road.
The dry conditions meant
lots of '12 points' as the target times had been set in the wet last autumn.
The risks involved in our sport were highlighted when Mike Cole's beautifully prepared BGT was prevented from flying off
the cliff by a very large and immoveable rock. Mike was very badly shaken and it
took a lot of ingenuity to get his broken car onto his trailer. Get back on the
road soon Mike.
Max was the overall fastest MG up the hill on his 2nd practice run but he
couldn't match it on his timed run and allowed David Smith to take first in class.
JT's TF was beating Mike Heath's Metro until Mike's dad turned up and raised the
rev limiter. He'd set this at 4000rpm to stop Mike trashing his newly rebuilt
motor, lifting it took 10secs of Mike's time.
Safety Fast! jt
Back from John and away with Jim
Harewood
Hillclimb report
They say the sun shines on the
righteous, well there were a lot of righteous men at Harewood last Saturday for
the first round of the Northern series at what is North of England’s premier
hillclimb. As we gathered together
for our first foray of the 2001 season the hill was unrecognisable, being bathed
in sunshine for the first time in goodness knows how long.
And what a mixed band we were! Numbering
18 in all, 2 of the original 20 failed to show, we covered the full span of
Northern classes, from Mike “Blue Peril” Heath’s Standard Metro at one
extreme, to the Modified MGF Cup car of “Panel Basher” Tredell and racing
Special Midget of James Thacker, at the other.
In between there were assorted Road-going cars which included Chris
Cooper’s MGC, making a trip to the North and thoroughly enjoying it, and
first-timer Paul Drake in his BGT, complete with chrome wires and smiley face
fog lights (poor sad man I know!).
But to the day itself. What fun we all had! Mike was bemoaning the lack of oxygen this far North, in fact he was surprised he could breath this far away from the South coast, blaming that for missing the Metro bogey by nearly half a second. Meanwhile John Wilman was in raptures over his newly acquired Cockshoot Midget (I won’t repeat what he said about his MGB from last year for fear of offending), and demonstrated its performance by taking it to within 2/10ths of the class record.
In the Standard MGB class the usual suspects were present with Tony “Big Mac” MacIntyre winning the group 1 class at the event, just edging Jon “The Child Prodigy” Beresford into second place, while Keith Williams follwed them home in the Stealth BGT. As an aside, I’m sure Keith doesn’t polish his car in the belief that matt black paint makes it invisible to Gatsos. In the Group 2 & 3 class, Chris brought the world’s fastest banana home in front, with a sub 72 second run, almost a second and a half clear of Paul Meakin’s MGF (the fastest MGF in the wet in September 2000), while John Wilman fill the last step on the podium and put a marker in the ground for last year’s Championship class winner Richard Saxton. That look’s like it is going to be one of this season’s close competitions. Up front with the big boys, the group 5 cars of Lloyd and James were trading times through practice and the first runs, with James always managing to find a bit more, no matter how hard Lloyd tried. In fact it got to the stage where Lloyd was convinced James was merely toying with him, letting him get close, them pulling away. Never mind, I’m sure the F will get revenge when we come to the long sprints. As will Tezza, probably, who just couldn’t keep up with the more nimble modified cars through the bottom half of the hill.
Finally, the second gang of 3 in the Road-going special Midgets were up to their usual tricks, with “DC” hoping home advantage would give him victory, while Andy “The Weatherman” Long was placing his faith in a new LSD. In the end the Piglet pilot, “Coneslayer” Garvey managed to remain calm enough to stay out of the gravel traps this time, and took the class win.
So here’s looking forward to the next big one, either Leconfield or Silverstone - jg
Now that I have more room I would like to take this opportunity to say many thanks to JIM and JOHN for their event reports that I for one found very interesting
Thanks lads, Jean