I can’t recall how far I got with the saga of little darling build #2625, but to recap, after a brilliant weekend at teretonga, and trip back, the car used a few litres of oil on the second new set of rings, so I have accepted that the dust infiltration not only chomped up the first set of new rings, but the bores also.
So, the blue car is back in the shop, currently engineless, but with a shiney new one (well, second hand) waiting to go in this week, hopefully in time for Levels at Timaru next Saturday (28 November).
But round 3 of the Otago Sports Car Club hillclimb championship was today (22 November), and it seems clear to me that to have any sort of a chance of finishing near the top of the 1600 class, it is essential to compete in every event to keep at least some points adding to the tally. So, after much grovelling, pleading and promising to do the ironing for a month, I persuaded my partner to let me borrow the white car - the ex Craig Watson completely untouched standard 1984 N/A car (build #2671). (I drove it REAL careful, Craig)
Having heard the weather forecast was for sun, I decided to leave the road tyres on, on the basis that there would be insufficient heat build up in the Hankooks, and cold race tyres are worse than road tyres in the grip department. Well, true to tradition, it started to rain lightly just as we got underway. It is known as Scotch Mist.
The road is up Bethunes Gully, and is a steep winding sealed track not much wider than a car, and surrounded by Dairy Farms which use the road for bovine ingress and egress. I am told that it is the oldest hillclimb in New Zealand. Given that this is predominantly a Scottish settlement, and used to be very busy, it may well be true. One can imagine the first event being held by default when the rumour went out that Farmer Bethune was putting on FREE haggis! It is equally possible that the first man (or woman) to the top back then set a time which remained unbeaten for years :-) There was a supplement to the local paper last week with photos from the 1920’s, and there is one of a very happy looking gent in a Bugatti racer, having just set fastest time of the day at the 1921 event. I wonder what became of that car.
Anyway, the road is (shall we say) unusual. It has been patched and repatched over the years, and now it resembles a patchwork quilt. There are ditches on either side, except for up through the cutting where there are twelve foot high perpendicular earth banks on either side. There is one flat straight which runs past the main entrance to the milking sheds, and is affectionately known as Cowshit straight. Add the drizzle, and the track was diabolically slippery, with Cowshit straight being almost the worst - it was almost impossible to keep the car pointing ahead no matter what you did! The patchwork didn’t help one little bit either!
Practice confirmed everyones worst fears, with slow times, and big grins at the finish line from the tail out cowboys, and very pale faces from the newer competitors. basically, everyone seemed to scare themselves silly at least once on the practice run, and generally the first timed runs were slower than practice! My decision to use road tyres was wrong, I believe, as all day, I simply could not get grip. The lack of a Limited Slip Diff certainly did not help (almost everyone else had one!) and a combination of all of this means it is a minor miracle that I did not spin. There were some very close calls, I can tell you.
I decided to get a little more serious on the second timed run, and took 4 seconds off my previous time (and 3 years off my life) which was great. By then, I had managed to pull up to third in class (I think). But, everyone was getting their confidence back despite the continued rain, and although I took another half second off in the final run (should have been more, but I went in too hard at the start of the three “S” bend combo, hooked the ditch on the apex, and unsettled the car and me for the rest, which involved hooking more ditches and a somewhat more sideways attitude comparative to the verge than was desirable - if ya know what I mean :-) finished 5th in class.
I am, at least, pleased to report that the 4 cars ahead of me were; First, a purpose built Starlet powered by a modified 4-AGE (a quick car which was quicker than the blue car at teretonga), Second, a period rally Lotus Escort (owned by a local car dealer, and lives with his racing Cooper S, two immaculate E-types, etc), Third, the ex works 1981 Corolla hatch also running a heavily modified pre 4-AGE twin cam (this is the guy I was beating by a second or two in the blue car in previous events, although he got me by quarter of a second when the head gasket had blown), Fourth, a road Corolla Levin (with 4-AGE recently rebuilt and modified by Bruce Saxton - local guru engine builder of his own NA 4-AGE Starlet with 220 bhp which lapped the Dunedin street circuit quicker than Ray Williams in the 911 Turbo Porsche which once held the NZ Land Speed Record - and newly fitted slippery diff). I am also pleased to report beating a road Civic twin Cam, and a Turbo 323 2WD amongst other cars. I guess, all in all, the white car did pretty well, considering its total lack of modification and running on road tyres in the wet on a road not driven before and with a driver terrified of how he would survive telling his partner that “a bloody ditch jumped out Right in front of me - there was really NOTHING ANYONE could have done, sweetheart - I SWEAR”. As it turned out, all I have to do is clean all the cowshit off the sides of the car and the wheels, and the inexplicable bits that seem to have attached to the strangest other parts of the bodywork. I will also clean out under the guards, even though she didn’t look there .. thank God! :-)
While everyone had at least one scary excursion, there were no "offs", and a good day was had by all, despite the “Scotch Mist”. A few times;
| Mitsi EVO IV Rallycar (Fresh from Targa) | 55.29 | 1st |
| Mazda 323 Turbo Rallycar | 55.71 | 2nd |
| Subaru Impreza Rallycar | 56.20 | 3rd |
| Starlet 4-AGE Racecar | 1.02.03 | |
| Escort Lotus Rallycar | 1.10.10 (I think) | |
| Factory Corolla TC Rallycar | 1.10.51 (I think) | |
| Corolla Levin | 1.12.70 (I think) | |
| My white MR2 | 1.14.34 | |
| Honda Civic TC | 1.18.15 | |
| Mazda 323 GTX | 1.26 ish |
Now, all prayers are directed to the God of “Getting the Blue Car Finished in time for Levels” next weekend. Otherwise, it is back to the white car, and another frustrating (if otherwise enjoyable) day of not enough power. And, of course, the risk of having to do the ironing for a Year!
Ah well - such is MotorSport. More after the Levels meeting at Timaru.
Cheers
Daryl Munro