Cotton Pic'ing

BOB is still patiently waiting for its new carb's. It should be happening next Monday. I intend to take before and after pictures of the engine bay ... may be of interest to those who've never seen the anti-emissions set-up for 'special' overseas markets.

Ella is keen to try rally navigating, so we've been making contact with car clubs around Brisbane, trying to find a suitable entry-level introduction. It turns out that over here "road rallys" are called "touring assemblies" or something similar ... sounds tame, but that could be clever PR of course! In Brisbane there's an umbrella club Marque Sports Club that organise practices and competitive events. Nice, all sounds good ... except that we have to join a different CAMS (like the UK's MSA) affiliated club in order to join them. So, the decision that needs to be made is which of the CAMS affiliated clubs to join.

It turns out there's a fair amount of activity in the area, and the MG Sports Car Club of Queensland have a good competition schedule. We went along to the first of their hillclimb events on Sunday ... at their own purpose built circuit!!!! How about that for organisation.

It's a great little circuit 30 minutes drive away, and entry is free for spectators. As a circuit, what goes up must come down, so the 1 in 4 hills mean some hard braking is needed, and some good judgement.

There was a great field of entrants - not many MGs, a fair few modern Subarus, Skylines, etc, the Aussie muscle cars, and some Westfields. Plus lots of Mk1 and 2 Escorts, Datsuns, and a Ford Anglia (running with a 2000cc Nissan unit).
The two Triumphs on show were a 2 litre PI Dolomite (driven by the MG Club's president) and a 1300 Spitfire, with fibreglass GT6 bonnet and English plates. A nice way to spend a bit of Sunday morning, and it all helps fuel the enthusiasm to get out and use BOB ... but really sitting watching cars go round in circles gets a bit boring (although watching a modern Mini lose control on the hairpin was a bonus!). The camera ran out of batteries after 3 photos so this is the lot I'm afraid.





All good fun. Hopefully we'll progress and get involved in some rallying soon.