Sporting Triumphs May 2013
The first round of the 2013 MSCA Super Sprint was held on the 24th of March at Mallala. Neil Martin and Duane Kaak entered their TR7V8’s for this event. The event proceedings were slightly delayed due to a technical problem with the timing durians. This problem couldn’t be fixed on the day so the officials needed to resort to manual timing. Roger Lange worked as the dummy grid marshal and controlled proceedings in the pits. Some drivers had become a bit rusty over the summer break and couldn’t remember their grid positions after they left the dummy grid. This lead to some sloppy form ups at the start line in the first round.
Neil had fitted some new bigger and more effective brakes over the off season and found that he had to set himself some new braking marks. Brake bias was a problem and he needed to do some work after the meeting to get more braking to the rear.
Duane didn’t have a very good day when he discovered a hole in his water pump after the 1st round. Some epoxy putty was found and put over the hole. His next task was to wait until the putty had hardened and then very slowly try to drive home. Easter Historics at Mallala were held in fine but cold conditions.
Andy Ansell made the trek over from Victoria and Neil Martin was the local TSOA entrant. Both Andy and Neil were entered in the super sprint events for Saturday but on Sunday their events changed to modern regularity. Confusion ran supreme on Saturday when the commentators clearly didn’t understand what the difference was between sprinting and regularity events. Complaints came from some of the competitors on Saturday which is probably why on Sunday the event was changed to modern regularity.
Andy had mechanical problems after his first run on Saturday. Luckily he was able to fix the problem for Sunday and placed 9th in his 1st run, improved to 6th in the second and finished 1st in the final run. Neil also improved in each run placed 11th in his first run, 10th in the second and 6th in the final run.
The 5th of May is the next event with the running of the team’s 6 hour regularity event. We have a full team of Triumphs entered with 3 of the entries coming from Victoria. Andy Ansell has again entered his “Choc-wedge” TR7 and he is joined by fellow Victorians Ed Ferguson in his TR7V8 and Ian Cowie in a GT6. This year’s event looks to be bigger than last year with larger numbers of entries expected.
Historic Winton is on 24th -26th of May and this year will feature the 60th anniversary of the Triumph TR2. Standard Motor Cars are celebrated with their110 year anniversary. This race meeting is one of the premier historic motor races in Australia featuring both cars and motorcycles and is a real celebration of not only motorsport but general motoring. I know a few of our club members make the journey to this event each year and thoroughly enjoy it. A worthwhile weekend away. Visit www.historicwinton.org for more details.
Until next month.
Cheers, Rick Staehr
Coming Events
5th May 6 Hour Team Regularity Mallala
18th May SA State Road Racing Championships – Twilight Meeting Mallala
19th May Modern Regularity Mallala
26th May Hillclimb Multi Club Rd 1 Collingrove
24th -26th May Historic Winton Benalla Vic