December 2014 (now bi-monthly)
Revs Ernest Owen Production Car Trial Sunday 31st August By Nick Pollitt Lucky with the weather, overnight rain and a lovely sunny Sunday for 4 rounds of 8 hills and 24 competitors. Our Chief Marshal Melvyn Cox had assembled 7 marshals from Owen MC and I did a bit of phoning round the night before to drum up another 9 friends and ever helpful BTRDA chaps, so we were ready to go! All 3 Championship classes were well supported, 10 in Class 1 (standard modern cars) which featured the Saxo VTR of Dorset’s Mark Hoppe (my old car I sold to him earlier in the year), he took an early lead and
then nearly chucked it away allowing Loughborough’s Dave Walker (1600 Corsa) to catch him. Not far back was Owen’s Tom Bishop doing really well in his 1400 Micra, at lunchtime Tom was 3rd, a great performance, but he slipped back a touch late in the day. In the same Class, the other Owen members Tim Beard and Dave Allman (Saxo 1100) were battling well finishing 3rd
Owen Motoring Club
Do you have news about what you have doing or what you are going to do? Let our new editor know and we’ll put it in Revs. Email Clare Bird with your newsbirdy_2212@hotmail.co.u k Do we have an up to date email address for you? Let us know what your email is by sending a message to admin@owenmotoringclub. co.uk
Inside this issue: Ernest Owen Production Car Trial cont.
2
NEC Classic Car show
3
Bright Sparks PCA
3, 4
Audience with Stuart Derry
4
A Busy Three
6,7
Slithering Santa
8
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NOTICES TROPHIES!!!!! We are now at the end of another season of motorsport. The championships are competitive and scores will soon be finalised. Please return your trophies to Ruth
Tabard Amnesty The club have ordered some new tabards for marshalling duties.
Ernest Owen Production Car Trial Continued... and 5th just 8 marks apart, with Tom Bishop 6th just 1 mark adrift of Dave. Mark Hoppe took the Class win and 2 nd overall, enough to confirm him as the 2014 MSA British Car Trial Champion, and also of note was 4th placed driver John Wadsworth in his KA, a result that gives him a Class win in the MSA series...John is 80, and in the 1950’s competed at Le Mans, and on a number of International rallies including the Monte. Class 2 (modified FWD cars) was 7 strong and it was Simon Harris and his Golf Gti that leaped into an early lead which he retained after a number of very impressive climbs, running him close all day was Nottingham’s Neil Mackay in his Citroen AX, and then Ilkley’s Rupert North in his little yellow Mini who at one point looked like taking a win but the steepness of the afternoon sections was a bit too much for the Mini.
Class 3 (rear engined cars and sports and kit cars) was likely to be a battle of the Imps, but Brian and Kevin Roberts (all the way from Bala) took their Dutton into what looked like an We have lost many tabunassailable lead dropping only a few marks by lunchtime, ards over the last few with Warwickshire’s Steve Courts in his red Imp a little further years when people have back. All changed in the afternoon, Steve steadily eating into forgotten to give them the Roberts’ lead, Brian dropping a real clanger on the 3rd back. round and Kevin also making some errors, and then the Please have a hunt around Dutton developed a fault..it was game over. garages, sheds, cars etc to Steve Courts took the Class and outright victory after a really see if you have Owen tabfabulous drive. ards that can be returned. A huge thank you to ALL the marshals... Will Barnes and RaPlease return to any comchel, Phil Darbyshire and Bob Cotterell, Mike and Hazel Ste-
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phens, John and Julia Baden, Paul and Ruth, John and Kaye, Melvyn, Darren and Ian......the competitors were particularly outspoken saying what a great job the marshals had done. My thank you also to Jude Preston and Graham for secretarial stuff and the excellent computerised results, available within 20 minutes of the last car finishing, and to Terry Moore for his invaluable assistance all weekend. It all seemed to run really well and we have booked Catton for the Ernest Owen next APRIL 26th.....make a note in your 2015 diary!
NEC International Classic Car Show After not initially being offered a place at this year’s show we were a little disappointed with the organisers considering we have supported them through their good and bad times since 2000. At short notice we did get offered space re a cancelation which we took up. Five cars
were shown, Pete Shenton loaned his fantastic Mk1 Escort Sprint Car (Tarmac spec rally car really) Martin Parkes Hillman Imp, Derrick Wallbank Escort Harrier and Mark Barnes brought two Fiat 500`s one being his rather special ex Fiat works rally car, thank you to you all for making the effort at such short notice. Several club members attended but we surprisingly ended up with tickets left over for most days, where were you all ??.
Owen Motoring Club Christmas Party The annual Christmas Party will be held at Aldridge Social Club in the function room on Wednesday 17th December, 9 pm Come along for a get together with other members. Free buffet provided.
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Bright Sparks PCA Autotest—Sunday 19th October 2014 What a turnout! A full entry of 40. This was In an effort to avoid wrong tests I added dibeyond my expectations. Best ever! rectional arrows. However this seemed to make little difference to some competitors I proves that the event now has a really good who decided on their own courses or exreputation of providing fast, exciting and pecting bonus points for knocking over flowing tests. There were plenty of smiling cones. One of the worst culprits was Tony faces all day long. Bishop, navigated by Tom, who ended up The quality line up included, “Maestro” Kevin with three WT’s and 5 hit cones. A visit to Hardwick who had won FTD for the previous Specsavers I reckon Tony! 2 years and was on a hatrick. Also “Mr There was a heart-racing moment on the Smooth” Nick Pollitt (Lotus Elise), the main sprint course when a car went back “Master” Mike Sones (MX5), Tom Bishop along the way it came resulting in a near (Micra), James Nicholls (rally spec 205) and “head-on” with the next competitor. Luckily Will Barnes in his new Fiat 500 “Fartbox”. he veered onto the grass to avert a catastroA warm welcome to Ben Heggs from Coalville phe. I will have to add even more directional in a Fiesta and also five “sprinters” from arrows next time and go through the test Shenstone (Rob Swadkin, Chris Gillie, Carl courses at the drivers briefing. Bounds, Mark Byng and Harry Whiting) I At the lunch break James Nicholls was leadhad spent several previous Sundays “chatting ing on 273 with Kevin Hardwick 276, Ben up” Production class sprint entrants to enHeggs 281, Nick Pollitt 283, Tom Bishop 284 courage them to have a go at autotesting to and Mike Sones 290. improve their driving skills. Again all of them enjoyed the new experience. Hopefully they After a few minor course alterations the may pass on their experience and recom- afternoon went without too many incidents mendation to other sprint colleagues. Good to see some new Owen members enThankfully the weather was good and pro- joying themselves including Neil Holland in a ceedings started at 10.15am. As usual there Corsa and Polish recruit Michal Kulpaka in a were 2 large tests each taking approximately BMW 3 series - a big car to throw around (also the Sierra Cosworth driven by Shen11/4 mins to complete. stone member Carl Bounds). Each test consisted of 3 runs with the worst score being dropped. A second car was start- The event finished in daylight by 4.15pm and ed when the first was about ¾ way distance the whole proceedings ran very smoothly run by very efficient marshals. A special thanks to reduce queueing time.
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goes to Clare Bird, Darren Kiernan, Roger Tolley, Barri Wilmot, Ruth Langford, Roger Tristram, Geoff Allman and David Allman. Special thanks goes to Mark Barnes who marshalled on the Paddock test and also Paul Langford for looking after the VIP’s. These were people who expressed a desire to sit in the passenger seats of various cars during the day to experience the thrills and excitement in the hope that they may join the club and have a go themselves. The results were fast in the hands of Jude Preston ably assisted by Graham Burgess. Many thanks to Barri for helping me set up on the Saturday. A true club member.
Clare Bird supplied homemade cakes to raise money for Air Ambulance. A great effort on her behalf to obtain monies for this essential charity. The final result was so close with Kevin Hardwick beating Nick Pollitt by just 1 second. James Nicholls would have won by 13 secs but we decided to disqualify him as he was running on “knobbly” non - List 1A tyres. He knew about this predicament earlier in the day and generously accepted the ruling so that there would be no ill feelings at the end. He just wanted to have a good time following his disappointment the previous day when there was an electrical problem on the Cambrian Rally and failed even to start the first stage!
An Audience with Stuart Derry Many thanks goes to Stuart Derry for entertaining us on Wednesday 8th October. He told us all many stories of his rallying days and had us all laughing at various moments. A good evening was had by all and an impressive £35 was taken on the door towards Air Ambulance.
As a gesture of goodwill we gave him the Best Owen award. He was happy enough! An admirable attitude under the circumstances. Such is his fine character.
Bob Cotterell
Events Coming Up Wednesday 17th December - Christmas Party Saturday 27th December—Slithering Santa Autotest—Curborough Sprint Course
Looking Ahead AGBO Stages Rally—Sunday 22nd March 2015
NEWS This newsletter will now be issued bi-monthly.
A Busy Three Weeks!!
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By Martin Parkes
Following the sale of my Westfield in the early part of 2012 I’ve been renovating/ modifying my next competition car which is a 1965 Hillman Imp Super. There’ll be a full write up in Revs Those that we do not have an next year. My 49 year email address for will receive old Imp was finally put back on the road at the a printed copy of the newsend of July this year, letter by post. which is slightly later than I had planned, and I still need to put some Renew your membermiles on it to get the new ship engine run in. As I’ve only run It’s coming to the end of the it locally I decided to trailer it to the Annual Imp National membership year so now’s Meeting just outside Camthe time to renew. Most bridge on the 1st weekend in members will get an email August. There I was presentreminder soon and those of ed with 2nd in class for “road you who had this issue by going competition Imps” by mail should have had a reRosemary Smith which made newal form included. all the hard work so far worth Renewal and payment can be it. I then drove it back home with Elaine following me with the truck and trailer to add on some more miles! The committee have taken the decision to have a bimonthly newsletter in replacement of the magazine. This is due to lack of articles and rising printing costs.
It made its OMC debut on the club stand at a rather wet and poorly attended Shugborough Classic Car Show the following weekend. The pho-
to shows it beside a friend’s 1937 Buick 4 Door Sedan. My final planned show appearance for 2014 was at The Shackerstone Festival in September. This is a very good
and well attended 2 day festival, not far from MIRA, and well worth a visit if you’ve never been. Although the car looked finished I still had a list of jobs still to be done and plenty of time....I thought. Imagine my surprise when Bob Cotterell suddenly paid me a visit one October Sunday to say he would like me to display it on the OMC stand at this year’s National Classic Car Show at the NEC in November. The long jobs list then had to be prioritised to make sure that it looked it’s best for 3 days of inspection at this very popular show. The main job was
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asked if I would help man a car wash for the Welsh Rally GB just the other side of Welshpool and having a free weekend at the time said yes. I was on the road at 6.30 so I could meet up with my brother and his son at Welshpool at 8.00am. By 9.30 we were set up with waterproofs and 2 diesel powered jet washers, the first course cars started arriving just before 10 to strip the front end of lights, grill, bumper and then it was nonstop until about 15.00. etc. so it could all be rubbed down, rust The car wash was at a village garage just outproofed and then rattle-canned. New removable spot light brackets were manufactured so that my ex-Dave Greenwood Cibie Oscars (carrying on the Westfield second hand parts scrounging tradition) could be suitably mounted although I didn’t have time to wire them! After a lot of work and a final polishing my Imp was ready, initially I was going to drive it there, but with a lot of Club equipment to take I volunteered the X-Trail truck as transport with my Imp on the trailer. Equipment was collected from the new club container on Wed, with the help of Anton and Bob and by Thurs afternoon the Club stand looked very impressive made even better by the blue carpet scrounged from Quinton MC! I then helped man the stand on the Friday with lots of interest in all our cars and just the right amount of visitors to the exhibition enabling good relaxed viewing and photographing of cars during the day. Saturday then commenced with a very early start but for another car related reason. Weeks before volunteering for the NEC I was
side Meifod as the rally cars came out of a very muddy Dyfnant and made their way towards the Chirk Castle Special Stage. The poor garage owner must have wished he’d have asked for more money as he was on a meter and we must have partially drained Lake Vyrnwy washing 160 competition cars plus official cars! I finally arrived home about 19.00 very tired but still managed a walk to the local pub for a couple of beers. Sunday was another early start to get there in time to miss the traffic and get our stand ready for the final influx of visitors. This was my busiest day with so many people wanting to talk to me about my Imp and the Imps that they’d owned in the past including Barry
‘Whizzo’ Williams. I find that Imps are a Mar- er with the money from the sale of this one mite thing, people either love them or hate to him! them! As I’ve never owned or worked on one Once the show was over strip down was completed by the time I’d navigated my way from the car park back into the hall. I hall. Have to say all the NEC traffic people in the Hi-Viz green jackets that I met over the 3 days were all very helpful and polite. Once the car was loaded I followed in my Imp back to the trailer park for final loading and got home about 7.30ish and Elaine and I were in the local pub for a late Sunday lunch by 8 before this one I was glad of any information o’clock! Anton met me back at the container people were giving me and have tried to refor unloading on Monday morning. All in all a member it all. About a dozen people wanted very enjoyable, if busy, few days and thanks to buy my Imp including one person who just for asking me Bob. Hope we get a stand at wouldn’t take no for an answer, he kept saythe restoration show in March now. ing that I could now build another one quick-
Slithering Santa Autotest 2014 Come and blow away the Christmas able to download a cobwebs at the Slithering Santa www.owenmotoringclub.co.uk Autotest. Please, where possible, enter The annual Slithering Santa auonline. This will save on your entry totest , which is a PCA so you need getting caught up in the Christmas a passenger, will take place at post. Curborough Sprint Course on SaturIf you can’t compete then come day 27th December. along and marshal. Be there by Traditionally it is a bit of fun for us 09.30 to sign on as a marshal. Free all to get out of the house after all snack ticket. We should be finished the Christmas festivities. by about 1.00 pm. REGS and Entry form are now avail© Owen Motoring Club Ltd, 2014 Owen Motoring Club Ltd, A Company Limited by Guarantee Registration No. 1378393, Registered office, PO Box 10, Darlaston, West Midlands WS10 8JD