Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Hillclimbing and Scrap Dragging!

My first Australian motorsport spectating happened last weekend when we went to the Noosa Historic Hillclimb. It was run on a 1.5km twisting forest (public) road with about 15 corners on it, and the walking track alongside was elevated from the tarmac affording excellent views.

The line up of cars was spectacular - 175 in total, with a real variety, from Lotus 7s, Mini Coopers, Alfas, TR7 V8s, even a GT40:
GT40 Noosa

Other than the half dozen TR7 V8s (most 3.5l, but a few 4-5l V8s) there was also a TR4, a 3a, a 2.5Pi MK2, and a GT6 Mk2.
The most notable results were the TR7 V8 3.5l cars - dominating their class of 5 cars they took all but the last position ... which went to a lowly Porsche 911!
TR7s Noosa

But in a class with some competition the TR3a came second out of 5 in its class, and incidentally is a daily-driven 11,000 mile per year car!
TR3a noosa

A Dolly Sprint came fourth out of 16 and only did half its allocated runs, then, the GT6 came second in its class, with one great time and a load of diabolical ones ... I wonder if there was some mid event tinkering!!!

GT6 Noosa

Some of the other great cars were the Minis (one in particular was being chucked around brilliantly, and another had a suzuki 1200 bike engine), the Datsun 240zs
Datsun Noosa

We spent the week after this at the in-laws, which gave me and Jacques the chance to move the spares car. It's been in the garden sitting up at the back end from the diff. removal a month or so back, and somebody was keen on us putting it somewhere out of site. Hilarity ensued.

The car wasn't delivered with any wheels, so we had to consider the best way of moving it 20 metres into the shed ... bearing in mind that my BOB (the 2500 S) was in Brisbane so we couldn't borrow its wheels. Fortunately we had a Bobcat on hire for some other jobs ... could it lift the whole car?

Can we lift it?

The Bobcat strained and thought about tipping over, so we lifted each end in turn and propped it ... then worked out that the trailer's wheels looked to be about the right size! So with no diff. we dragged it inside:
Dragging nearly done

I doubt you can see the wheels well enough ... but if you ever saw Doug Foreman's GT6 with the wrong rear spring, plus him and Colin in the car ... you get the idea.

Finally we got it in the shed, and up on some home made stands!
New home!