COMPETITION REPORTS. MSCA SANDOWN 19 June

Competition Report & MSCA News MARQUE SPORTS CAR ASSOCIATION (MSCA) 2016 MSCA Championship Events listed below count towards the Competition Championships (unless marked **). Sprint and Regularity events require a basic CAMS level 2S licence only. (contact Rod Vogt) 2016 MARQUE SPORTS CAR ASSOCIATION (MSCA) CALENDAR SPRINTS AND REGULARITY Round 7 Saturday Sept 17 Phillip Island (inc round of MGCC Championship) Round 8 Sunday Oct 2 Sandown Round 9 Sunday Nov 6 Winton COME AND TRY DAYS for 2016 Saturday December 10th at Phillip Island The Marque Sports Car Association in conjunction with CAMS is running two of its very successful days wholly devoted to Come and Try for beginners. A one day fee provides formal lectures, two track sessions in your car with an experienced instructor and two sessions solo. A perfect chance to enjoy a low stress track day with a view to more activity in the future. If you wish to enter for the first time (or discuss Come and Try days) ring Rod Vogt on 0408 395 240 or email competition-msca@healeyvic.com.au and you will be assisted. Entry is via the CAMS online entry website www.meecamsau. com Spectators are encouraged. Entry is free and you are welcome in our pit garage. Competition starts at approximately 9 am. OTHER MAIN EVENTS with points counting toward Championships August 6/7th Historic Winton Races (long track) www.vhrr.com August 20th Alfa Club Sprints at Broadford www.alfaclubvic.org.au August 27th Winton Sprint Series Rd 4 www.wintonraceway.com.au Sept 3rd Alfa Club Sprints, Sandown www.alfaclubvic.org.au Sept 3/4th Vic State Series races, Winton inc MG and Invited British sports cars. Sept 24/25th Historic Races, Wakefield Park. Goulburn. www.hsrca.org.au COMPETITION REPORTS MSCA SANDOWN 19 June A fine but cool and then cold day at Sandown for the overcapacity field at another popular and very successful MSCA meeting with 138 entrants our hard working race committee asked for, and were granted, permission from CAMS to increase run group sizes from the normal maximum of 20 cars to 23 cars. Thank you to David Kelly, our Clerk of Course, and Terry Wade acting as CAMS Steward for a very well run meeting where we all achieved many laps over 4 sessions. A highlight for our drivers was the large number of club members who attended during the day to watch and support. The Team Healey garages were a lot of fun and the support is much appreciated. I cannot remember a greater number of members attending an MSCA meeting. As I try to write this report I am struck by how smoothly Team Healey runs at MSCA events. Nine members competed and all presented themselves for paperwork at 7.10 am and then scrutineering, with no problems, and then relaxed awaiting drivers briefing at 8.30. The first session at 9am was Regularity, featuring five of our Team Steve Pike in his Group Sa blue 3000, Rob Raverty in his red 3000, Leon O Brien in his 100/4, Andis Salins (3000) plus new member Rick Lyon having his first ever track day in his lightweight Sprite recently purchased from AHSDC member Jeff Smith. This is a well known Sprite having been run at MSCA events and 6 Hour Relays in Jeff s hands for many years very quick with its late model Toyota engine, very reliable and achieving unbelievably consistent lap times for Jeff at the relays. Jeff ran in the AHOC Winton 6 Hour Team when Peter and Anne Stanley were managers. No pressure Rick! Hundreds & Thousands - August/September 2016 17

This is a chance for me to remind any member secretly wishing to join us on the track (secretly only because you have not told me yet!) that Rick enjoyed what could have been a challenging day. As Competition secretary ß(or another senior member of Team Healey if I am absent) I ensured that Rick was well informed of how the day runs and what he needs to do before the event, and then he is assisted with the processes of paperwork, scrutineering and some practical advice (track is anti-clockwise, Rick!) to minimize stress and maximise enjoyment. We garage together so help and encouragement from the other members is always there. To win an MSCA Regularity trophy you must nominate a target lap time after the first practice session and then achieve lap times as close as possible to this nominated time for the rest of the day. Rick had never driven around Sandown before, in fact he had never even driven the Sprite, which is not road registered, but managed a fastest practice lap of 1.49 which was 6th fastest in the 20 car field. Impressive! He said several times that he just wanted to learn, improve slowly and not look like a fool in front of his more experienced peers. He put down a conservative target lap time of 1.52, BUT came no where in the MSCA points competition because he inevitably got faster as he became familiar with the Sprite and the Sandown track and finished the day doing a high 1.42s and many low 1.43s (very quick, especially for first time out) for second last on points but the cluster of lap times were very tight. Once he gets some experience Rick can look forward to more certainty in his time nominations and should do well. And what of the rest of our Regularity members? Ho Hum, too professional and competent, giving me little to talk about. Steve Pike was clearly the fastest in the run group, the Historic Group S racer doing 1.35s and 1.36s for 10th place but looking and sounding like the race car it is. Steve could run sprints but enjoys running his Healey with our other Healeys in Regularity. The Raverty Healey continues to get faster all the time now that Rob has put on Yokohama AO50 race radials for track days. First time on the Yokohamas at Sandown made nominating his target time difficult. Rob chose 1.49, being about 2 seconds under his previous best but pulled out a couple of 1.46s in his first timed run! By run three Rob controlled himself and had found his rhythm for a fine first place and recovery to 8th over the 3 sessions. Rob achieved a most unexpected 15 minutes of fame when the editor of CAMS Speed Read trolled through the MSCA results for some unknown reason and picked out Rob s fine win in the 3rd session. He printed the result as a WIN in SPRINTS and it read like a win in the only sprint at the whole event! That must have cost Rob plenty. Rob thanks (I think) Bill Vaughan for spotting the mention, despite the well deserved ribbing we continue to give him lest he get a swelled head. Leon O Brien ran without drama, or none he would admit too, with the highlight being second place in session two and 13th overall. Andis Salins lost his mantle of least experienced member when he introduced his friend Rick Lyon to our sport and his growing experience and confidence resulted in Andis improving his fastest lap at Sandown by an amazing 15 seconds, from 2.04 to 1.49! Discovering this when preparing this report I rang Andis to find out if he had fitted Peter Jackson s race engine or a quiet V8, but he has just been tweaking tyre pressures working on the Healey s suspension and brakes. Plus more confidence of course. Luckily Andis did some quick laps in practice so nominated a 1.54s (10 seconds quicker than his previous best), drove to that pace for second place in session one and then gradually got faster as the day progressed to achieve his fastest lap on his last lap of the day. Andis was our leading regularity driver with 5th place overall. Sharing our garage and also doing regularity was Paul Flint in his immaculate and fast Nissan 1600cc powered MG Midget built by Paul with help from his friend Steve Pike. We drivers all know Paul from MSCA and Historic regularity events and it is nice to have him in our garage. The remaining 4 members competed in Sprints where fastest lap for the day determines positions in each class determined by engine capacity and whether the car is Classic or Modern. I had the MGB back after a total rebuild with Simon and Mike at Powerplay, with a new engine (apart from some bits salvageable after the problems at Historic Phillip Island in March 2015) and just about everything else replaced or refreshed as we discovered just how tired and worn out the B was after a long race history. I have a log book from its start in the USA in 1991, it went to Japan with its owner and then saw much hard racing in Australia from 2000 onwards before I purchased it in late 2009. After dialing the Sprite out of my head in session one and carefully watching the 18 Hundreds & Thousands - August/September 2016

gauges etc I was pretty happy to record some fast laps in session 2, the best of which secured a class win and a new PB by just 0.1 second. A good start but after the lunch break the temperature fell quickly and I could not improve my times with the track so cold and becoming a bit slippery. Russell Baker was in run group 3 with me and all the other Clubmans and this is always a quick group. Russ had also continued to work on his car with Simon and Mike since his last run at the Winton Australian Supersprint Championship where the PRB seemed to lack pace by the end of the weekend. New Yokohamas and a few problems found and solved saw Russell improve his fastest lap time at Sandown by nearly 3 seconds at 1.23.89 which is very, very quick! He went past me at such a rate that I checked to make sure I did not have another gear to go in the box! Russ was also unable to keep up this pace when the temperature fell which made us both feel that it was not US. Russell was second fastest car outright to a Caterham Super 7 Clubman but being in different classes gave Russell his class win. More pleasingly, Russell pipped the two Clubmans that he has been chasing for a long time. You knew he had had a good day when those guys came looking for Russell to have a chat! Or to spy perhaps? Mark Bird joined us in the same run group but mechanical problems for the 100/4 Healey cut his day short halfway through session two. Despite only 8 laps completed, Mark achieved handy points toward the AHOC Competition Championship and second in his MSCA Class. His 3 fastest laps were his last 3 laps! Final sprinter was John Raisbeck in his immaculate Escort Mk 1 powered by a modern Ford engine. He had some great battles in his run group, ran consistently and finished 2nd in class. John sits second in class after 5 rounds. John did HIS fastest laps after lunch which contradicted our theory that it was getting too cold to go faster. Maybe Russ and I were just getting too cold in our open cars? POINTS TOWARD AHOC COMPETITION CHAMPIONSHIP for Healeys and 4 fastest laps Steve Pike (3000) 908 pts 1.35.67, 1.35.92, 1.36.08, 1.36.59 Rick Lyon (Sprite) 898 #1.42.96, 1.43.01, 1.43.31, 1.43.98 Andis Salins (3000) 859 #1.49.69, 1.50.16, 1.50.99, 1.51.10 Mark Bird (100/4) 814 1.38.29, 1.38.53, 1.39.73, 1.40.15 Rob Raverty (30000) 756 #1.46.51, 1.46.84, 1.48.05, 1.48.95 Leon O Brien (100/4) 743 1.59.23, 2.01.64, 2.01.74, 2.01.80 POINTS TOWARD ASSOCIATE CHAMPIONSHIP for non-healers and 4 fastest laps Rod Vogt (MGB) 927 pts #1.33.83, 1.34.18, 1.34.50, 1.34.65 Russell Baker (PRB) 847 #1.23.89, 1.24.46, 1.24.49, 1.25.42 John Raisbeck (Escort) 836 1.36.04, 1.36.45, 1.36.66, 1.37.68 # denotes new fastest lap for member GEOFF LEAKE took his 100/4 to Wakefield Park to compete in the June 25 Saturday Sprint meeting run by the NSW Austin Healey Owners Club as a round of the CSCA Championship -

much the same as our MSCA. Then on the Sunday Wakefield Park organized an All British race meeting with a race for Triumphs and another group for the rest of British. POINTS TOWARD AHOC COMPETITION CHAMPIONSHIP and 4 fastest laps Geoff Leake (Healey 100/4) AHOC NSW Supersprint 928 pts 1.15.74, 1.16.21, 1.16.28, 1.16.46 All British Race Meeting 912 pts 1.15.40, 1.16.08, 1.16.25, 1.16.28 WANDY LEAKE has kindly written the following report The Super Sprint and All British Day weekend in June has been a permanent fixture on our calendar for many years. With seriously negative temperatures it helps shake us out of winter hibernation into some sort of action. We found ourselves with a Jaguar E type to deliver to its owner in Armidale NSW so decided to make it one trip. With the trailer occupied that meant driving the Healey to Goulburn. I haven t driven the Healey in about 10 years because I hated the ceramic clutch. Since its replacement with a conventional clutch I have renewed my friendship with the dear old girl and as I didn t really fancy towing someone elses embarrassingly valuable Jaguar I got the gig. Friday dawned as a very Healey unfriendly day, cold and drizzling. Hood up and road wheels on. The hood is remarkable draft and water proof and I have always found the passenger side, with its well heated floor, very cosy. Unortunately, not the case on the driver s side. Jacket, gloves and knee rug did their job, but a sneaky little unfindable arctic breath trickled in upon the feet. With drizzle turning to sleet in some areas it was not the best conditions for a great drive, but I loved it. My 474 km was a longer drive on the road than Geoff has done in the past 10 years. Wish the weather had been better. A bit late as always we hit Goulburn just on dark. With headlights partially taped it seemed a good idea for Geoff to lead through town. This was just as well because at least he couldn t see or hear what a complete pig s ear I was making of driving through town. My feet were so cold couldn t feel the pedals at all! I managed not to stall it, but that was about my only saving grace. Back at the motel we found Colin Goldsmith and PJ and joined them and the rest of the NSW crew for dinner. The dining room was not very warm and the service was slow (I don t think our waitress got one order exactly right) but the company was great. Temperature at the track at 7.30am was minus 4. Despite his very best efforts Colin had not managed to get all the Healeys housed together and we were spread all over the campus. We were all running in different classes too, which meant we didn t see much of each other all day. Despite very pleasant sunshine the track just didn t warm up and Geoff was a bit disappointed with slow times, but I think everyone else was in much the same state. For lack of Healeys in his group to play with Geoff had a great time with Brett McManus in his MGB, in fact I thought the stewards might have a word to say to them about not racing but they didn t. It was Brett s first outing in a new car and as the weekend progressed and he got used to it and sorted some tuning issues he got faster and faster, so that by Sunday afternoon they were no longer together. Saturday night dinner was noisy and funny, but the service was no better. Sunday morning not quite so cold for the All British Day, but WHERE WERE ALL THE HEALEYS? One sole black and red 4 cylinder Victorian representative. Come to think of it, where were the MGs and the Sprites and Lotus, Morgans, Minis and Jaguars? Triumphs were there in force with races to themselves but they felt pretty let down by everyone else. The All British Day is in danger of folding altogether for lack of British cars! The program was padded out with Super Tin Tops and Pulsars, exciting to watch but just not British! There were a lot of excursions into the mud with slow retrievals so our last race was subsumed into the STTs. Not on your Nelly mate those guys are mad! But for all the disappointments it was still a fun weekend just like to see more of the right cars there. We tucked our girl up alone in her garage (and I must confess I felt as mean leaving her behind as I did leaving the dogs in the kennels) & pressed on to Armidale to deliver the E Type, where we promptly got snowed in. Beautiful. Healey didn t greet us with quite the enthusiasm that the dogs do on our return, but she did trot up onto her trailer and snoozed quietly all the way home. Let s hope it won t be last British weekend, and let s get some Healeys out here. MSCA WINTON 10 July Just three weeks after the Sandown round, I backed up again in the MGB to get in some much needed MG practice in preparation for the Winton VHRR Historic Meeting on August 5/6th. Three of our Sprites came with Rick Lyon keen to see Winton for the first time, Bill Vaughan who can do Winton blindfolded and Simon Gardiner in the Super Sprite for the first time this year. Simon had just completed a gearbox rebuild and engine freshen and this was a good chance to practice for the coming 6 Hour Relay. Tony Rogers also had his 100/6 back on track for the first time after engine issues last year forced Tony to run his Porsche instead of the Healey in our Relay Team last October. The weather forecast was not good. The carports are fairly open to wind and rain so we decided to pay for garage space which proved wise just to keep us warm, we were lucky as the rain held off until mid afternoon and being in early run groups we all got four dry but cold runs and plenty of laps. 20 Hundreds & Thousands - August/September 2016

Once again David Kelly as Clerk of Course and Mark Rae and the hard working MSCA crew did a fantastic job to give us plenty of action. I seem to say this every time now but we must never take the high standard of MSCA events for granted. Rick Lyon and Tony Rogers did Regularity. Rick was through paperwork and scrutineering in a flash, without any help needed, like he had been doing it for years. After a quick talk about certain parts of the Winton track which needed to be watched for safety, and what the racing line should be, Rick was off to find out for himself. As at Sandown, Rick improved his times very quickly as the day progressed and had no hope in the MSCA regularity points score as he beat his nominated lap time of 2.02s right from the start. The lap times shown in the point scores below show 1.56s and 1.57s and were all done in the last session. Buying Jeff Smith s well sorted Sprite was a good move. The Sprite has shown how quick it can be when in Jeff hands, so Rick has much to look forward too. Tony Rogers soon settled back in to the Healey and his experience showed with two first placings and then a 6th in the 3rd session to be just beaten for first place overall in MSCA Regularity. That 3rd session provided Tony s three fastest laps of 1.53s and 1.54s shown below, very compact times but he was penalized for being too fast compared with his 1.56 nominated time. Joining them in Regularity in his first track event was an immaculate red Healey belonging to Simon Kelly. Simon is not an AHOC member (he belongs to the Historic Rally Association) but we invited him to join us in our garage and will do so again when he does more MSCA events. Bill Vaughan, Simon Gardiner and myself ran in Sprint Group 3 with a large number of MGs with a big speed and driver experience differential. This event was a round of the MGCC Championship and we had to be aware of slower cars with drivers who were not always fully aware of faster lapping cars. Some were quite unpredictable in their lines but this is a Level 2 CAMS license event and we are all there to have fun, safely. Run 1 was difficult when all three of us started at the rear of the 20 car group and although we had a lot of fun carving through the MGs, we did not get many clear laps. For Runs 2, 3 and 4 we got up to dummy grid very early and started each run with Simon, myself and then Bill in the first three positions. AHSDC member Bob Lomas in his quick Sprite soon cottoned on and joined in behind. We got a couple of laps to warm tyres, a couple of clear laps to set a good time and then we were lapping much slower cars, with care, and times dropped off a little. Simon fitted the big front spoiler and rear diffuser for the last run and was moved to the fastest run group where he had the Sprite passing new Porsches, a Corvette etc and set the second fastest outright lap with an amazing 1.31.58, just behind a Ford Ecotec powered clubman, and achieved a comfortable Class win. The MGB was suffering a fuel issue on three left hand corners which Simon worked on each run. Despite this the MG felt strong and tight and was less than a second off my best Winton time and my 1.43.10 gave me a comfortable class win by nearly six seconds over the second MGB there were 28 MGs in my class! So all looks promising for the Historic meeting in August. Bill Vaughan chased me in each session and attributes that to his new fastest lap times at Winton. He is always so modest. When I asked during the day how he was going, Bill casually replied that he thought he had a new fastest lap when I checked our times at home his improvement was enormous, given the number of laps Bill has done at Winton over the years, taking three seconds off to record 1.50.36! Yes, the track has been resurfaced but it was very cold and tyres were not working at their best and it felt a bit slippery because of this. A great effort, again, Bill who continues to go faster at all tracks in recent events. Bill was just beaten in class by AHSDC member Owen Crombie. POINTS TOWARD AHOC COMPETITION CHAMPIONSHIP for Healeys and 4 fastest laps Simon Gardiner (Sprite) 969 pts #1.31.58, 1.31.79, 1.31.85, 1.31.89 Bill Vaughan (Sprite) 884 #1.50.36, 1.51.07, 1.51.18, 1.51.52 Tony Rogers (100/6) 831 1.53.41, 1.53.72, 1.54.71, 1.55.10 Rick Lyon (Sprite) 825 #1.56.19, 1.57.09, 1.57.46, 1.57.94 # denotes new fastest lap MSCA NEWS Competition Secretary Mark Rae sent competitors an interesting note with the Winton results. He informed us that this year we have had 318 drivers compete with MSCA so far. The most popular class is regularity with 40 drivers (AHOC members are prominent ). MSCA is the only club running a regularity series in Victoria and this is a pathway to Sprints for Come and Try drivers and Novices. Mark is trying to promote the concept of a State Regularity Championship. Without sounding like boasting, Phil Nicholson (Triumph Club) and I suggested and pushed for Regularity when we joined the committee back in 2007, realising that Healey and Triumph owners (and other valuable cars in the hands of older owners) would not participate if forced to mix with the faster Sprint cars. The response from our members and the success of Regularity overall is very pleasing. CLOSING THOUGHT THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE except for race cars.. Cheers Rod Vogt Hundreds & Thousands - August/September 2016 21

competition Above: Steve Pike coming in after a run (pic Sue Rafferty). Left: Rod Vogt taking the reworked MGB for a spin (pic courtesy AHSDC). Below left: In Wandy s words a new use for a louvred bonnet. Bottom left: Roger the Goat showing new member Rick Lyon the way around. Below right: L to R Graeme Marks, Dennis Varley, Leon O Brien and his Healey Bottom right: Steve Pike and Faye Raisbeck. 16 Hundreds & Thousands - August/September 2016

competition SUppoRTERS TEAM PHOTO