Saturday, May 23, 2015

This year's Six Hour.

Best described as a weekend of ups and downs, we can be proud of our ability to meet the downs with our traditional ingenuity - most of the time. Entered were 5 cars and 5 drivers. Then in the week before the event we lost Alan and his car but that's OK, a team of 4 isn't too bad. In practice on Saturday, Chris' GT40 overheated and developed a distributor problem (a Westren trait I believe). The problems were not immediately resolvable and Sunday began with 3 cars and 4 drivers, still acceptable. However, Bernie's recently converted to a road car, Nagari, detuned to a mere 400 hp, failed the scroots as they couldn't find a date on his harness.There were no compromises and thus began a whip around to the Sprints and Auto Pros within a 30 mile radius but to no avail. Ironically, if the car was fitted with a 50 year old lap sash, that would be OK. It looked like we were doomed  because a team needs at least 3 cars to be eligible. Miraculously, one of Scott's mates turned up in his Porsche GT3 and his passenger side  harness clipped straight in (to Bernie's car). Anyway, things got under way  and all 4 drivers are circulating well, picking up bonus laps and hardly forfeiting any. Bernie was black flagged at one stage for having his visor up. Things were ticking along nicely until Pete's off-track excursion broke his Panhard rod mounting so we were down to 2 cars. A makeshift weld had him back out again but the weld broke again and that was it. Then the Nagari slowed  with a manifold problem and from then on it was left to Norm and Chris in the ever reliable Clemente. Then, even the "ever reliable" succumbed to an electrical problem and at the 5 hour mark we had run out of cars. On the bright side, we beat the rush at the Mallala pub.

The trusty Mk.7
The Nagari in its "stock" format.
The "ever reliable" with its new side bars.
and another Clemente that turned up on the day, the new lady owner, whose name I've rudely forgotten. To be rectified soon.

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