1996 3 Peaks Rally: The first day was at Winton raceway
Photo: Copyright Fotoworld Image Cache (www.fotoworld.com.au)
Back in, I guess, '93 I joined a mailing list called british-cars@triumph.cs.utah.edu. It was not long after I joined the AHSDC. I was an active particpant of that list until the spridget list was formed. One of the other members of that list was Daren Stone of San Jose, the previous owner of this car. He had christened it "Redcar". I had seen a number of posts from Daren detailing his adventures in Redcar.
A year or two later Daren sent a "For Sale" note to the list. I had been lusting after a bugeye for quite some time, in fact I was originally looking for a bugeye when I bought Fluoro. I thought that Redcar was exactly the sort of car I was after - 1275, disk brakes, roll cage, ribcase tranny, panhard rod, tweaked suspension etc. It had a fair bit of competition history in Daren's hands including the"La Carrera" (Pan-American Road race) which made the car quite attractive in my eyes. I decided to buy it!
Now, this set off a chain of events that I may well regret, but nonetheless I eventually set off to California, loaded a container with Redcar and assorted bootie and in April 95, it all arrived.
I have tried renaming the car but somehow the name "Redcar" has stuck, so I have given up and decided that Redcar it shall remain.
I did a few events with Redcar in "as-landed" state, including a Phillip Island MSCA sprint, and a Winton MSCA sprint (Bill Lines shared that drive).
I was very impressed with the handling, not so impressed with its speed. The 1275 was solid, but very standard. It had a reasonable exhaust (Maniflow LCB) and a 40mm Weber, but the overall performance wasn't all that flash. It was about 4 or 5 secs/lap slower than fluoro on the Winton short circuit.
Peter Brice and I decided that we would do the 1996 3 peaks rally in Redcar. There was a team of 5 AHSDC cars (4 Sprites and the Milvain 240Z) doing the event and it sounded like a bunch of fun.
One of the "goodies" I had brought back with the car was a 1380cc hot road motor. This was a straight off the shelf Mini-Mania/Mincomp motor. So for the 1996 3 Peaks I fitted the 1380 (which came with a single HIF6 SU carb and new maniflow LCB) to the car, did some minor cosmetic repairs (replaced 1/2" thick fibreglass on the floor of the passenger footwell with sheetmetal!). Got a CH permit for the car (this was a minor drama since I had decided to keep the car LHD), and we were off. We had a pretty good time on that event, despite pretty ordinary organisation of the event itself.
Peter and I did 3 or 4 "Marysville meanders" all up, mostly in redcar. We won once and placed 2nd at least once. These were fantastic fun, I hope we see the return of this event! We also won the club economy event in Redcar one year, amazing given it had a Weber (DCOE45) by that stage! A few other minor mods had happpened, a set of Hans Peterson's extractors and muffler, and the fitting of Spax adjustable rear telescopic shocks.
We also joined up for the 1998 Lactos Heritage Rally. This was to be a very special event, packed full of Sprites to celebrate the 40th birthday of the bugeye. Tony Bennetto of The Bugeye Barn had arranged for John Sprinzel to come out and compete at the rally in a car that Tony provided. This event was a relevation to both of us - it was a fantastic event and neither of us has missed the opportunity to return each year since. John Sprinzel was great, the spirit amongst the competitors was great and the event itself was very exciting and challenging. Since I wrote an article on this event elsewhere, I'll just include a single photo here.
Another big event that I "had to do" was the 1998 Healey International Commemorative Race, held at Mt Panorama (Bathurst). This event was originally scheduled to be run at Le Mans to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bugeye and the 100th anniversary of Donald Healey's birth. getting to this event was a fair old effort since I had to get an international historic licence. This meant a busy season of racing observed by the stewards at each meeting. Redcar was used for each of these events, most of which were "all Healey" races designed to help all the locals to get their international licences.
These all-Healey races were a good deal of fun. Unlike the rest of the world, these has traditionally been very little mixing between Big Healey folk and Spridget folk here in Victoria (and NSW). In fact, Sprite owners are not eligible for membership of the local Austin Healey Owners Club!!! This was a great opportunity for the two groups to mix and compete together on a bigger scale. This was a Very Good Thing in my books. Since then things have improved considerably and I hope this is a trend that continues.
The HICR event itself was a great event, one that unfortunately, only a few fellow Victorian Sprite owners (Steve Schmidt, George Forbes, and Bill Hemming) made it to. It was a fullfillment of a dream to race at Mt Panorama, to do so in an exciting race with National TV coverage was just terrific. I wrote an article on the event so I'll just include a photo here.
The same year, the NSW club asked me if I could help fill their team for the annual 6 Hour Relay race held at Eastern Creek. I had done this event a few times before in Fluoro - it is a good event, so I joined the "opposition" that year. I had a great time and spent almost 3 hours on the track if I recall correctly!
Peter and I returned to lactos in 1999, but unfortunately we didn't finish the event. We crashed out doing damage to the front left of the car that has seen it off the road/track since then. Look for a return later this year with shiny new paintwork, a new interior and all around nicely presented I hope.
As well as the big events, Redcar has seen lots of service at other club events, including road events, motorkhanas etc. It is a great little car and great fun to drive around in. Mighty handsome too if you ask me!
Over the time I have owned her, Redcar has been beefed up considerably. It still sports the Winer's Circle Panhard rod, but not much else of the original ancilliaries remain. The Steel roll cage has gone, replaced with and alloy 5 point cage with removable forward brace. The steel bonnet has been put in storage for a lightweight fibreglass version. The car has been lowered further and the front springs stiffened a little. The sway bar has gone back from 3/4" to 9/16". It has new rear springs and uprated dampers from Peter Caldwell at Worldwide Auto Parts. The engine now sports a high-lift race/rally cam after experiments with a 286 cam. The DCOE40 and HIF6 carbs have made way for a DCOE45 Weber on a Russell Manifold. The standard 1275 motor was replaced with the 1380, the old ribcase refurbished then replaced with a Straight-cut/Close ratio gearbox from John Needham. The Longman GT6 head that came with the 1380 was replaced with a much better Simon Gardiner head, and small things like the A+ timing chain tensioner added on. After experiments with 1.5:1 roller rockers, I now run 1.5:1 non-roller rockers from Speedwell Engineering (Tom Colby). The maniflow headers have been replaced with the Brownrigg headers from Hans Peterson at HP Products. I also have a front and rear Frontline suspension kit to bolt on at some point. The original 3.9 diff died a noisy death, but I have a number of diffs to choose from now - everything from 5.3 -> 3.7. Braking is with standard Mk III brakes but with Carbon/Kevlar pads and shoes which provide awesome, fade-free braking performance. The Chev Vega GT wheels (6" steel) have been replaced with 5" or 5.5" minilite replicas running anyone of Yokohama A032R (175/60), Hoosier Street TD (185/60), or Dunlop D98J Formula R (175/60). Finally, the original half shafts were replaced with high strength competition half shafts from Simon Gardiner. It is now a potent little car.
I have become very attached to Redcar - it is a lovely car, a car with real character and history. It is one car that I have no intention of ever letting go of. It seems destined to remain in the family even longer because young Scott (now 7) has took ownership rights on Redcar when he was 3. He keeps reminding me that it will be his one day too!