The newsletter of the Luffield Cars MGCC Speed
Championship
Also available at the championship web site www.mgcars.org/mgccsc
Late again! Last month I firmly promised I would get the next newsletter out on time, so it landed in the week before Silverstone. Guess what, I lied. It’s at moments like this that I remember why I keep trying to give this lark up, what with work, house, young family etc, all vying for the little time I have. Ah well, you know I love it really, and this should arive in time for Curborough.
So, what’s been happening since my last missive? Well, lots. In the North we should have had 6 events, but I only have results for 4, and similarly down South there should be 5 pages of results, but only 4 appear. "What’s gone wrong?" I hear you ask. Nothing really, it’s just Barbon got rained off, I don’t think anyone went to Knockhill and I missed Lydden. But I do have reports for Scammonden, Gurston, both Anglesey days and a flavour of Silverstone. Yes June and July were excellent months for the championship, which included 2 more North vs South Challenge matches at 2 of the best events in the country.
Firstly, I was really pleased to see a good contingent of Southern drivers up for the Anglesey weekend, including Phillip Methuen who had an arduous 9 hour drive (a combination of distance and bad traffic - someone from the North should have warned him about the M5/M6 junction on a Friday afternoon!). From David Butler’s report it seems all had a good time on Wales’ off-shore haven, where we basked in glorious sunshine while it poured on the GP at Silverstone. Secondly, Silverstone for the MGCC International weekend 2 weeks later was all we could have hoped for, well most of us anyway. Amongst some excellent competition there were more than the usual number of mechanical casualties, from Andy Bush’s totalled MGB to the twin gearbox failures of Chris Cooper and Adrian Moore. But more of that later, suffice to say good close competition and the "cone slayer" rides again!
With no committee meeting to report on since the last newsletter, the only official news to report is to confirm that the new models out this year will attract the bonus point for establishing records, and that with the numbers of Specials up in the North, the upto and over 2000cc classes will be demerged as requested.
So, without further ado, on to the event reports>
Scammonden - 16th June David Coulthard
It's grim up north. With the previous day’s event at Barbon Manor
flooded off, the prospects for Scammonden looked bleak. The venue has a fearsome
reputation for weather, seemingly having its own cold, wet micro-climate.
England could be in a heat wave, but Scammonden would be under a tidal wave...
However, the day dawned dry and bright, and stayed that way right until the
prize presentation at the end of the day. A waterlogged main paddock area was
the only casualty of the previous night’s storm. So, with space at a premium,
it was fortunate that only 38 competitors were taking place. Over a third of
them were from the MGCCSC. Five timed runs were good value, but failed to match
the 12 offered by the North West Centre back in May.
Tony MacIntyre's B took the Standard B, C and Midget battle. Tony also picked
up a valuable extra point for being a tenth under the class target time. Keith
Williams, also in a B, followed Tony home and was just under a second slower.
Gene Barmak in the Midget made steady progress during the day, eventually trimming
some 7.5 seconds off his first practice run.
John Wilman in his 'world weary' Cockshoot Cup Midget also achieved the class
target time. But Paul Savoury failed to regain the form he had at the May meeting
and ended the day over a second away from his Standard Metro Turbo record.
Then the records started to tumble. Allen Inwood got the ball rolling with a
magnificent new RGM Midget record. Almost a third of a second was sliced from
the old mark. Diggers dug deep to lower his own RGM A/B/C record by a tenth.
Finally, Terry Pigott raced up the hill to be fasted MG on the day (27.59) and
to set a new RGS over 2 litre record by almost half a second.
As the happy band of MG drivers packed up for the day, the Scammonden rain could
contain itself no longer, and as the prize presentation started, so did a steady
drizzle. Life returned to normal on a grim bit of Yorkshire.
Gurston Down - 23 June David Butler
14 MGs ranging from John Neighbour's NA to Terry Pigott's V8 started this event under clear skies and near ideal conditions. This was the best-run hill climb I can ever remember: slick even by B.A.R.C. standards, and very few red flags throughout the day. As the first class up, we were called to the line just ahead of the 8.30 scheduled start. There was no queue and Terry took less than 40 seconds in first practice, remarking later that the lack of pre-start thinking time was a definite advantage! He continued to improve, and after his lunchtime nap put in two identical and class record runs at 38.36. Another record fell to Adrian Moore who took the RGM Midget class at 40.57.
>The closest competition was in the MGB classes. In Standard, Niall Campbell was 47.43 to Phil Methuen's 47.76, and in RGM Andy Bush ended with 41.12 to my 41.44
One of the excellent features of Gurston is the IT system. As soon as you emerge from the car at the top of the hill, you get a little print out giving 64' time, split times, mph at the speed traps at Hollow and the finish. You can therefore work out just where you got it wrong; whether it was lack of bottle or horse power, etc.
First start, first finished, and we were ready to leave by 3.30. But Gurston is also one of the best spectator hills, and some of us spent some time up at Karousel watching the other classes, which included bikes and trikes: always spectacular entertainment. FTD went to Karl Davison in the Gould at 27.77, and hitting 140mph through the traps. Car of the meeting for me was unquestionably Simon Taylor's superbly restored early 50's HWM-Chevrolet sports racer: immaculate but no museum piece with a climb in 39.51.
Anglesey - 6/7 July David Butler
This combined North and South event attracted a total of 22 MG entries: not bad considering the distances many people had to travel. I believe the furthest was Phil Methuen, who drove his B up from Lymington, Hampshire. The travelling was compensated by this being a well-organised two-day meeting, in hot weather on the coast.
Ty Croes is a racing circuit of approx. 1.1 miles, with a great many interesting features: blind brows, a fast bend at the end of the pit straight, a hairpin, and a couple of chicane style complexes. The course is just under 2 laps, and the finish line is placed in the middle of one of the chicanes, so you take a different line second time round….
Chris Cooper's MGC broke a half-shaft in second practice. Since the only spares among us were for Banjos not Salisburys, some rapid networking (I think Mike Entwisle takes credit here) produced an offer of one in Wrexham, and Chris set off in a borrowed car to collect it. With a little help from his friends, by the time he returned the axle was stripped, and he had it back together before the Barbeque started at 6.00. On Sunday Chris got down to a creditable 106.11, but was not fast enough to catch RGM A/B/C class leader John Dignan's 104.96.
John, in the 2 litre B was in fact only .67 secs slower than Terry Pigott in the 4.6 litre V8. Terry took the John Ellison Trophy for Best MG weekend performance, but he had to work for it.
There was some drama in the RGM Midget class. Adrian Moore on 108.34 was a comfortable 2.6 secs ahead of Steve Holford on Saturday, but after third runs on Sunday, Steve was down to 107.94. Adrian however hadn't improved on his Saturday time, but is clearly a man who responds to pressure, and after changing his wheels front to rear, put in a scorching 105.63 to become third fastest MG after Terry and John. (Steve found some grass on his last run) Memo: I'll have to try the Adrian wheel trick sometime.
We all owe a vote of thanks to the organisers of this excellent event, and for the Club members who ran the Barbeque. This includes Jim Garvey who also got stuck into start line marshalling on Sunday: it looked like a tiring pastime holding cars on the downhill start. Might encourage him to get back to a relaxing drive in the Piglet soon?
Overall, a fabulous day’s motor sport. I for one would gladly make the trek once again.
Note from Jim G:
Supplementing David’s excellent report, and at the same time thanking him for his kind words about the NW Centre’s event organisation, the Anglesey weekend proceedings cannot go by without mention of Andy Long. Once again Andy placed his reputation in the lap of the Gods, lending his car to the very experienced Mike "Entune" Entwisle to double drive on the Sunday. Throwing caution to the wind, and maybe with a bit of help from warm tyres, he set a personal best time to take 2nd in class, beaten only by Terry’s V8, and collect what is, I think, his first event award. He also collected the accolade of "spin of the day" (surpassing even Steve Holford) when he demonstrated why the first corner isn’t flat in 4th on the 2nd lap!
This year’s sprint at the MGCC International week-end was either enormous fun or heartbreaking tragedy, depending on who you were. The day commenced with much debate over whether it was a new course or not; had the start line moved, did the finish line appear closer and was the chicane tighter. As if to demonstrate this last point, Andy Bush tried to take the chicane as he thought he did last year, only to discover he couldn’t get round, bounced the car off the tyres, into the armco backwards and totally wiped out the nearside. Not a good start to the meeting.
With Andy’s accident sobering our approach to the event, most seemed to take the chicane cautiously (at first) but really threw themselves into the second half of the course and progressively the times tumbled. For me the day was a blur as I was caught up in my own little battle (as you’ll read later), but it was hard to miss the event-long tussle between Adrian Moore and Stephen Holford in the Road-going Midgets. The class lead swapped several times, before Adrian blew his gearbox on the fourth run and Steve found an extra second on his fifth run to take the win and with it revenge for the final run defeat at Anglesey.
A similar tussle was going on right at the front of the field, where after the demise of the Johnson/King Modified RV8, Terry, in his road-going car, was left to preserve MG pride and hold off the lone non-MG, a highly modified Clan on slicks. This he managed, much to everyone’s relief (well almost everyone, I don’t think the Clan driver was too happy), to collect both fastest MG and overall FTD, with a 50 second run.
Other class battles were taking place throughout the field. In my old class, the Road-going Specials under 2000cc, Russ Morgan made his first appearance in the new 200BHP K-series Midget, pushing down into the 52s, closely followed by the Fisher Midget, now also with K-series power (I think Piglet’s going back to the RGM, how can a 30 year old A-series compete with this technology!). Tam was beaten back into 4th, but her co-driver, James Hebditch, in his first event, pushed hard to break into the 54s and take 2nd in class. In the ultra competitive RGM MGB class, Diggers notched up another class win, but it could have been so different. Going into the the 3rd timed runs there was just over a tenth in it, with Chris Cooper chasing hard and David Butler hot on his heels 0.04s behind. Then disaster, Chris went for 3rd gear, there was a loud bang and everything slowed down. The second mechanical failure in as many events saw Chris out of it, and while Diggers went on the stretch his lead, David couldn’t respond and they remained 1-2-3.
My own event was enormous fun. With Piglet still in bits, I was having a go in a borrowed MGF Cup car, with the car’s usual driver Neil Billingham and its owner David Wood (our championship sponsor and MD of Luffield Cars), driving the Luffield MG ZR for the first time. The lead see-sawed back and forth between Neil and me, with both of us pushing the car beyond it’s level of grip, until it was finally decided by just over a 1/10th of a second in my favour. Beginner’s luck I reckon, and Neil will be out to prove that this weekend at Curborough.
And finally, as a post script, I have had definitive word from David Rainsbury, the Silverstone Clerk of Course, the track was different, and will be every year, as we cannot mark the track, and the circuit is laid out by Silverstone officials, not the MGCC. Looks like an extra point for everyone every year. Now there’s an incentive to come and join us next time.
Positions so far!
Now we’ve passed the mid point of the season, things are starting to even out between North and South, with the overall top 6 now not the exclusive domain of Southern drivers. Adrian Moore currently leads with 8 events completed and 90 points showing, while Terry’s V8 is just one point behind in 2nd before a substantial gap of 8 points to Chris Cooper and Matt Dryell both in 3rd on 81. 5th is also shared, with 3 drivers on 73 points, Diggers in the South, Diggers in the North and John Wilman’s Cockshoot Midget, with the latter 2 sharing the Northern championship lead. Immediately behind them is Terry in the North, again just 1 point behind the leaders, before we jump back 11 points to Richard Watkinson in 4th on 61, then back another 10 to Allan Inwood and Ken Bound, both 5th on 51 and sharing the RGM class lead to boot!
So looking forward, we’ve got the final joint N&S meeting at Curborough this weekend, before the Northerners head up to 3 Sisters, Elvington and the 2nd Anglesey weekend, while the Southern drivers have only Wethersfield to look forward to later in August. By that point the events completed in each series will be about the same, so the true overall picture may emerge more clearly.
Until then, have fun, and see you at Curborough. If you’ve not entered, come and watch, it’s bound to be fun.
Jim