MGCC, Cadwell, 5th September 2010

[John Turner]

Yes, I know, I should have been at Donington (Masters D/Header) or even CSCC at Silverstone (anyone go to that - thread?) but, in the end I took my old MGC GT appropriately to the second day of the MGCC meeting at lovely Cadwell, which is a lot closer to me, too! Met up with photographer Steve Jones who always makes me laugh, and later had a good chinwag with fellow 10-Tenther, Colin Stubbs who was spectating on this occasion.

Didn't manage to visit the paddock as racing had already started by the time I got there. In fact I missed the first race (Race 9 of the weekend) so the first I saw was Race 10 (their 2nd of the weekend) - 'The Lincolnshire Centre 30th Anniversary Race for Drayton Manor Park MG Metro Cup'. Has there ever been a longer race title?

The winner was Mike Williams in his Rover 100 (28), 6.5 seconds clear of Simon White in his Metro (52) with Tony Howe, another 5 or so seconds down the road, 3rd in his Metro Turbo (7):-

[John Turner]

A 25 minute race for Challenge Classes B, C & E with 13 starters and 9 finishers. The race was led initially by the 4 cylinder 'B' (4) of Ollie Neaves, who drove a bit of a blinder to hold off eventual winner, Simon Cripps in his B GT V8 (66) for several laps before the more powerful car got by, to win by 3.2seconds. Dan Ludlow was 3rd in his ZS:-

[John Turner]

A 25 minute race and rather poorly supported with 10 starters and 6 finishers although with some reasonable action in it. Won by David Coulthard in his ZR190 (83), he was chased much of the way by Sean Peters in Midget (8). Unfortunately, the latter failed to finish and it was Peter Bramble who finished 2nd in his B Roadster (89), some 43 seconds behind. 3rd, and a lap down, was Ian Wright in another Midget (1).

[gary396]

Originally Posted by John Turner

.... in the end I took my old MGC GT appropriately to the second day of the MGCC meeting at lovely Cadwell, which is a lot closer to me, too! Met up with photographer Steve Jones who always makes me laugh, and later had a good chinwag with fellow 10-Tenther, Colin Stubbs who was spectating on this occasion.

Wish I had known you were there John - I was time-keeping for TSL - would have been nice to say 'hello'. Didn't take my MGB though - not yet in a fit state, maybe next year. Good photos as usual (I'm still sifting through my Gold Cup photos!).

Always a pleasure to visit Cadwell. I am time-keeping again there this coming weekend for the CSCC meeting.

Gary

[John Turner]

Gary, it would have been good to meet up. Trouble with me is that I'm never quite sure what meeting I'm going to go to or when. Having said that, no-one else seemed to set a thread in being for this meeting. We really need aficionados of particular clubs (AMOC, MGCC, VSCC etc) to get new threads going on events before they happen rather than after.

[COLIN STUBBS]

Nice to see you John!
And a good relaxing days racing. Its great to have a wander round Cadwell in the sunshine. Wish my pics were as good as yours though!
Were doing the sports v saloon races at CSCC Cadwell this weekend if anyone wants to say hello..

Heres my best one...

[SFurness]

Hi Colin,

We'll be at Cadwell this weekend doing the Sports v Saloons on the Saturday and the RAFMSA on the Sunday in the white D Type replica.

We are camping at the circuit on the Saturday night hoping for decent weather.

What car are you with ?


Steve

[MGDavid]

Hi John, sorry we did not know you were there or would have made a point of meeting up; another lost opportunity to put faces to names :-(
Did you happen to get any shots of the other ZS180 - #54 - we were in the Peter Best race and also the 1-hour 2-driver sprint at the end of the day. What a bonus the weather was, we hit rain within half an hour of leaving at 7pm.

[John Turner]

No problem, David, it was a bit of a last minute decision to go, and as I said, I didn't get time to go round the paddock anyway. Not quite old enough for this forum but pic herewith!:-

[John Turner]

A few shots of the qualifying for the 1 hour Allcomers race which was to take place at the end of the day:-

[Team_Neaves]

Hi John,

Ollie Neaves here from race 11...... nice little write up, got any more pics of the old girl?

Regards

Ollie

ollie@teamneavesracing.co.uk

[COLIN STUBBS]

Hi Steve Im in a red Rover 216Gti. Will keep a lookout for you !

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by Team_Neaves

Hi John,

Ollie Neaves here from race 11...... nice little write up, got any more pics of the old girl?

Regards

Ollie

Welcome, Ollie. I think that I have displayed the best one, but here are a couple of somewhat out of focus shots! :-

[John Turner]

Race 13 was for more modern MGs so I won't cover it but it produced one of the best lead dices of the day between eventual winner Chris Bray in ZR190 and Paul Luti in the LE 500 which lasted the whole race. Great fun, and I was impressed by the speed the cars in this race carried into Coppice.

Race 14 - full title - 'Surveying Devon & Cornwall MG Midget Challenge' - had 12 starters and 8 finishers in this 20 minute race, the relatively small field depleted further by a startline shunt which eliminated 2 cars and brought out the red flag. The restart initially provided another excellent race for the lead between Paul Sibley (31) and David Weston (36) until the latter fell out leaving Sibley a comfortable winner, with Mark Turner (64) 16 seconds behind in 2nd place and Graeme Adams (67), 3rd, a further 24 seconds back:-

[John Turner]

A 30 minute race with just 13 cars, but they all finished and provided good racing all down the field. The battle for the lead involved 3 cars and it was a surprise to me that David Elliot Beresford (17 - MGB) won this one because my recollection is that for most of the race he was 3rd with Mike Harris (84 - MGB) usually having a few cars lengths over the battling duo of Beresford and John Anson (6 - TR4). In fact at the finish the TR4 was sandwiched between the two 'B's with just 3.2 seconds covering all three. The battle for 4th was also a good one, with Pete Foster (77 - TR4) just prevailing over the 'B's of Graham Shrigley-Jones (73) and John Yea (35), only 1.4 seconds covering all 3 at the flag. There was yet another good battle further back, so all in all, an excellent race. Of particular interest were the two WSM Sprites, representing, if memory serves, one third of the total built (excluding the one off 'B'), one of which was driven Tony Wilson-Spratt (21), son of the original builders of these pretty cars. So some real history here:-

[Brian A]

Originally Posted by John Turner

e. Of particular interest were the two WSM Sprites, representing, if memory serves, one third of the total built (excluding the one off 'B'), one of which was driven Tony Wilson-Spratt (21), son of the original builders of these pretty cars. So some real history here:-

Putting my anorak on to respond to JT's observation - there were 10 Spridget based WSMs, plus the MGB, a Healey 3000 and a few other special 'activities'. There will be 3 of the baby coupes at Goodwood next week plus Tony's WSM MGB in the Fordwater Trophy.

We were at Goodwood yesterday for the pre Revival test day as I've been garaging the MGB in Sussex, it has been keeping the sole Midget based WSM company.

The circuit is looking in fine fettle with a huge amount of building work going on in preparation for the film set..

[John Turner]

Thanks, Brian, I was going from (failing!) memory. I'd forgotten about the Healey example, too. I remeber seeing the 'B' race in period, and then much later saw it in Croydon. More recently, it has appeared at the Revival.

[v8dave]

John,

Congrats on getting a shot of car 11 in the 2 driver race. I only managed 7 laps total in the practice and race due to electrical and fuel pump problems. Definitely some work to do before the MGCC relay race at Snetterton on the 3rd October.

Regards,

Dave

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by Brian A

Putting my anorak on to respond to JT's observation - there were 10 Spridget based WSMs, plus the MGB, a Healey 3000 and a few other special 'activities'. There will be 3 of the baby coupes at Goodwood next week plus Tony's WSM MGB in the Fordwater Trophy.
...........

and did I hear that the W-S family have authorised a run of continuation cars, I think Ian H has the first one?

[Brian A]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

and did I hear that the W-S family have authorised a run of continuation cars, I think Ian H has the first one?

Yes - there are to be a series of Sanction 2 cars. I believe that 3 have been ordered so far, one racer and 2 road cars. Rumour has it that the race car is for a certain Ian H.

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by v8dave

John,

Congrats on getting a shot of car 11 in the 2 driver race. I only managed 7 laps total in the practice and race due to electrical and fuel pump problems. Definitely some work to do before the MGCC relay race at Snetterton on the 3rd October.

Regards,

Dave

Well, Dave, managed to get one in the race, too (which I will illustrate a bit later); not very good but at least a record that you started it. I hope it all gets sorted for Snetterton:-

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by Brian A

Yes - there are to be a series of Sanction 2 cars. I believe that 3 have been ordered so far, one racer and 2 road cars. Rumour has it that the race car is for a certain Ian H.

Hmmm, like some others, I always have mixed feelings about this, although equally, I can understand why people would want to own such a pretty car without having to pay the premium attached to the originals. Can I please, please plead that absolutely fastidious records - chassis no. build date, colour, spec, unusual features, reg no, owner etc are kept by the business, and I would happily create a thread in the chassis archive to disclose as much info as the builders/new owners are prepared to release in order that we have a public tracking record of these cars. And whilst we are talking about Wussums, how about an archive thread covering the histories of all the original ones?

[John Turner]

16 starters, 14 finishers for this 25 minute race, the fastest of the day. Quickest of all, was Paul Sibley ((96) although he did have to work his way passed Chris Tilly (90 - retired on lap 2) and then Joe Parrington (87) before going onto win by nearly 57 seconds from Parrington, although best lap times suggest that the gap should have been a lot smaller, so maybe the latter had a problem. Third went to Phil Walker (83), a further 18 seconds down:-

[John Turner]

23 starters, 15 finishers for this race with some driving solo but most with two driver line ups. The only potential challenger to Mark Campbell's lovely sounding TR5 (1) was the 'ground effects' MG Midget (3) of Staines and Griffiths but that was hobbled by gear selection problems from the start and dropped back through the field although once the drivers had worked around the problem they were able to work back to 3rd at the flag. Campbell had a quick, controlled run to victory 70 seconds ahead of the MGB of Ian Prior (58). As the last race and the longest, I'm covering this with 3 posts even showing a couple of moderns, since I know at least one of the drivers involved is looking at this thread!:-

(Sorry, despite several attempts, pictures won't load - will try again later)

[John Turner]

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