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The

Link

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2/242 Motorsport Club of Ottawa The Link May/Jun 2004 http://www.mco.org

Board of DirectorsPresident Ron Woltman H: (613) 831-8682 W: (613) 863-5360 [email protected]

Vice-President Bennett Leckie H: (613) 258-0348 W: (613) 822-1765 [email protected] Wheel John Blouin H: (613) 443-3507 W: (613) 945-0329 [email protected] Wheel, Public Relations Sam Mandia H: (613) 745-4227 W: (613) 228-0250 [email protected] II Charles Payne H: (613) 792-1083 W: (613) 772-7349 [email protected] Muise H: (613) 241-9983 W: (613) 765-9169 [email protected] Microys H: (613) 822-7204 W: (613) 765-5744 F: (613) 763-8312 C: (613) 761-0306 [email protected]

Appointed Officers and Executive MembersKarting Paul Swinwood H: (613) 720-3468 W: (613) 237-8551 x133 F: (613) 230-3490 [email protected] Craig Hamm H: (613) 727-3192 W: (613) 596-7107 [email protected]

Solo I Jeff Graves H: (613) 258-0497 W: (613) 843-3000 x5859 [email protected] David E. Butler H: (613) 596-5518 W: (613) 226-7755 x16 F: (613) 828-4400 [email protected]

Assistant Membership Albert CohoeTreasurer Robert Benson H: (613) 837-2051 W: (613) 995-7374 [email protected] John Powell H: (613) 835-2910 F: (613) 835-3471 (call first) [email protected] Merchandise Co-ordinator Warren Haywood H: (613) 286-6252 D: (819) 682-5000 [email protected]

Web Site Manger Aleida Dikland C: (613) 298-5918 [email protected] Editor Steven Fong C: (613) 868-0476 [email protected] Editor Alan Ritchie H: (613) 745-6424 [email protected]

Associated ContactsOntario Race Committee Rep Cindy Armstrong H: (613) 489-2725 [email protected]

General meetings are held thefirst Tuesday of every month at 7pm. All are welcome. Meetings areheld at:

Louis Steakhouse1682 Cyrville RoadOttawa, Ontario

You can contact and find moreinformation about the MCO byphone, web or mail.

Hotline telephone(613)788-0525

Web Sitehttp://[email protected]

Hosted by:

MailM.C.O.P.O. Box 65006Merivale Postal OutletNepean, OntarioK2G 5Y3

RallySporOntario

Affiliated withCanadian Automobile Sport Clubs - Ontario Region (CASC-OR)

ASN Canada FIARallySport Ontario (RSO)

Canadian Association of Rally Sport (CARS)

Ontario Kart Racing

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Subject: Re: Car show - HUGE

SUCCESS and BIG THANKS!!!

Robert Microys writes:

The bustle of serious activity

started about last week at this time. Thedust has now settled and Ive been ableto take a few spare breaths and nowsurvey the scene.

The CASC-OR/MCO car show wasa big success! I think we reached outand touched more people than everbefore! Speedorama usually sees apretty knowledgeable crowed when itcomes to Solo II and a number of theCASC-OR divisions - but this time wehave touched more people who havenever heard about us than at any event

before, that I have participated in. Wehanded out EVERYTHING. Im glad thatsover for another year. Ive learned a fewnew things about going to car shows. Iwould say that this show, although moreexpensive than Speedorama, provides abetter forum to catch peoples attention,as the racecar was certainly an attentionmagnet for people of all ages.

Thanks are in order, to the following,I hope I remember everybody, I apolo-gize for anybody I left from this list :

- Ian Madden for graciously offeringhis freshly painted Touring GT Champion-ship car for the show.

- Perry, John and Steve at CASC-OR for springing for the cash to getthe booth, car stickers, sending up theflyers, banner, to help spread the gospeland to make us all look pretty snappy!

- Bennett Leckie and Hovey Indus-tries for supplying their display booth togive a very nice backdrop for the booth.

- Jean MacGillivray for making agreat display of photos and contentshowing club members in action, it wasan eye catcher at the side of the booth,

and certainly help to display the variousdisciplines (not to mention nicely cov-ered the big unsightly wall that the fudgebooth setup next to us).

And of course to the booth workers,setup and tear down crew, the peoplewho stood all day during their shifts, pro-moting CASC-OR and all of its divisions,and member clubs...

Tuesday Setup: Sherissa Microys, GordAcorn

Wednesday Setup: Alan Ritchie, CharlesPayne

Thursday: Alan Ritchie, Sam Mandia, BudLimbrick

Friday: Richard Muise, Sherissa Microys,Jeff Graves

Saturday: Cindy Armstrong, ChrisKrepski, Sherissa Microys, SamMandia

Sunday: Steve Pomeroy, Dave ButlerTear Down: Steve Pomeroy, Dave Butler,

Mike WhiteVideo tapes: Jim Holtom for providing

the CGTCC banquet tapes. MikeWhite in the #120 VW Jetta, which

provided most of the stellar closein car racing action, with his hugeslide at the top of 2 being a crowdfavorite.

Thanks again! We couldnt havedone it without a lot of help!

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I am just returned from a quick trip

to Houston, Texas where I picked upa car I bought on E-Bay! Its quite theinteresting story, which I intend to tell ata later date, but for the moment, how-

ever, another Legend is in the driveway.Okay, one small side bar from CanadianCustoms.

There were two young and enthu-siastic male and female types whogreeted me inside to review my paper-work (take my money) for the importa-tion of the Legend.

When the young, and not unattrac-tive female CCRA official asked me whattype of car it was, I replied, somewhatconfidently: Its an Acura Legend, Isaid with a wry smile: Its the only car I

could find with my name on it!

Whereupon, until now silent youngmale official shot back without as muchas a missed beat: Your name is Acura?

While I was able to help only the

Sunday having spent the Saturday inToronto prepping for my role as DeputySteward for the new Honda MichelinChallenge Series MCO again outdidourselves in putting on another very suc-cessful Racing School. I am NOT aboutto name all of the GENEROUS VOLUN-TEERS who contributed as that hasbeen done and we ALL know who theyare rather I simply want to say THANKYOU TO EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU.

This segues to my next topic. TheTed Powell Summer Trophy Races -- July

2, 3, 4 at SMP. Every club member

During the first two months of2004, an analysis was made of actualmembershipcosts and it was deter-mined that $ 60 per Single individualand $75 per Family for all members ofthe same family living at one residence

address would be sufficient to maintainthis Club as a viable entity associated toASN Canada FIAand all of its affili-ated organizations in Racing, Rallyingand Karting. Therefore, the decision toeliminate the Social Membershipwastaken. As far as the current By-Lawsare concerned, this action has not beenratified but a motion to that effect will bedrafted later this fiscalyear for inclusionin the changes to be considered duringthe 2004 AGM in November. If you arecurrently listed as a Social Member, youwill be able to discuss and to vote onthe disappearance of that classificationat that time, unless a Special Meetingiscalled or requested before the regularAGM.

From time to time, people haveindicated that they would like to maintainan association with the Club withoutbeing classed as Members. Since theSocial designation is disappearing,a suggestion off and on has croppedup for a designation simply known as

Friends of MCO (or FoMCO) being aregistryof people affiliated with the club.These people may be additional resourc-es to whom the Club members can turnto for assistance like during a RaceWeekend or specialized services. Should

there be a cost associated to that desig-nation? Maybe! If there are costs for therecord keeping, then a nominal annualfee (say $15 or $20) could be assignedand a special Newsletterother than TheLink, which is now posted for freeonthe MCO Website simultaneously withbeing sent out to members might be theresult. Both current and former mem-bers are encouraged to comment on thissuggestion. This is your Club, make itwork for you!

Since taking over (again) as theMembership Chairman during the middleof last October, I have re-learned thisposition and all of the intricacies relatedto its functioning in what we hope youare finding to be a somewhat seam-less manner. There were probably a lotof designated members who did notreceive a new member package northeir permanent membershipcards anddecals. For that, we can only apologizeand attempt to do better in the future.If you were one of those individuals

owes it to him/herself to be there in onecapacity or another. It should be consid-ered a per-requisite for MCO member-ship, I believe. Guaranteed to be FUNto boot. PLEASE SEE ME SO I MAY PUT

YOUR NAME DOWN AGAINST A JOB!

Mike Lowe, principal author of thenew completed The Motorsport Clubof Ottawa: The First Fifty Years, wasin attendance at the May meeting toannounce officially the good news. THEBOOK IS FINISHED!!

In about 12 or so weeks it will be inyour hands! If you have not ordered acopy, DO SO NOW. They will be all gonein a flash and no more copies will beprinted.

See Donald Tarte.

or families and you would still like thepackage, please let me know. All newmembers since my take over either haveor will receive that package. The onlyexceptions being those persons whofailed to either re-issue or replace their

2003 membership payments that werestale dated during the drives to replacethe Membership Chairperson. There arenow only 15 former members in that category and their names are permanentlyin our records. No renewals will ever beissued to them without the replacementbeing paid.

Near the end of your current membership, a Membership Renewal form (inone of 12 different colours) will be sentout to you. You are expected to signyour form and along with your chequeor a copy of your credit cardreceiptsend it either directly to the MembershipChairperson or to the Clubs postal ad-dress. Issuance of your new cards anddecals takes about two or three weeks.And, yes you may pay by credit cardthrough the CASC-ORwebsite, listedelsewhere in The Link.

BTW, you, the members are nowmore than 250 strong, making MCO oneof the largest in the province. Congratulations!

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Ontario Regional Race #1 -May 1-2 2004 Mosport

After facing the conditions for thefirst race weekend, I think Baseball has

the right idea. You know 47 people pull-ing a huge tarp across the infield, the TVcommentators making small talk aboutnothing really important. If only ...

Well, it didnt happen that way. Asmall turnout, miserable cold, fog, andwet conditions greeted us on Saturdaymorning and continued throughout theweekend. The reason we are all here isto race, rain is the great equalizer, whenit rains it rains on everybody.

Stefany Malanka competed in bothFF and GTD. In the Saturday race she

finished 2nd and set fastest time for herclass for the weekend. In the two racesheld Sunday Stefany finished 3rd in bothevents. In GTD, she finished 5th in all 3races, even after a big spin at corner 5during the last race.

Richard Muise, running in the TGTCfinished 14th in the 20 min race, and13th in the 40 min race. Richard was assmooth as always.

Matthew Cornford had an engineexpire, I believe sometime on Saturday.

Sam Mandia running in F1200finished 5th, 3rd, and 7th.

NOTES:From the drivers meeting John

Bondar, the President of CASC an-nounced that CASC OR is approaching3000 members.

A new support service will now

exist at all Regional events. ShorttsMotorsports Support will be selling Leafracewear at the track.

Contact Garry or Sherry Shortttel. 1-519- 940-9960, e-mail:[email protected]

Next event BEMC May 15-16 Mosport

(below, pictures by Alan Ritchie)Ian Maddens freshly painted

Touring GT Championship car sittingin the booth in the Congress Center.

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Herewith the blow-by-blow sagaof my first endurance race which, as

noted in this months MiscellaneousRumblings II, I wrote for the fall 1968edition of R.P.M., The Journal of TheSports Car Club Toronto. I havereproduced it in its entirety, the onlychanges being to correct spelling andgrammar errors. Its a look at a bit ofhistory, but it also shows that, for theamateur racer, some things haventchanged very much.

Unfortunately, I have no photo-graphs, as in all the panic surroundingthe event none of us thought to take

a camera, but thats rather immaterialright now anyway, as my scanner justquit. Before we get on with the story, aword of warning: the style is, perhaps,not as polished (?) as my current ef-forts, and even more wordy, if that bepossible. So for the strong and patientreader, here goes . . .

1968 Sundown Grand PrixEver since I first spectated at the

Sundown G.P., it has been my intentionto enter it when it became possible.This year that ambition was realised,however, if I had known that the prob-lems that appeared were part of it all, Iprobably wouldnt have bothered. Youllread all about them as Brian Hillis hasrequested several times that I write anR.P.M. article about our effort in thisyears event.

I suppose the best place to start ispreparation. You know, it really takes alot of work to convert a road car into aracing machine, and in the case of my

M.G.-B, this process is not completed,as the engine is still virtually stock. Wedecided, in setting the car up for theSundown, to concentrate on handling,and here the help of Tony Simmswas invaluable. I shant go into all thedetails, one reason being that Im nottoo sure that Tony would appreciate thefact that I might reveal some of his littlesecrets. Suffice to say that, as his caris probably the best handling B in thearea, we decided to duplicate his set-up

as closely as my limited budget wouldallow. The wide wire wheels were un-

obtainable due to the postal strike any-way, as was the limited-slip differential,but we did intend to convert to close-ratio gears, had the time and moneybeen available. Work on the cylinderhead was a must, though, as we hadblown a head gasket at the meeting atHarewood prior to the Sundown, andthis was the cause of 75% of our prob-lems. We also intended to have HughMcGregor port and polish the head, butdue to a hold-up in the machine-shop,we only had time for a rough clean-up

and a 50 thou. cut off the face. Up tothis point, that is a week before therace weekend, everything had beenprogressing quite smoothly, but nowthe problems really began to appear.

The first such problem was thedual fuel pump set-up, something thatis a must for a six-hour race due to thequestionable reliability of the S.U. elec-tric unit. Lack of parts (fittings, hosesand brackets) at B.M.C. meant muchrunning around for neoprene hoses,hose clamps, and jury-rigging my own

bracket. The fitting problem was onlysolved after sitting on the floor of theshowroom at Superior Automotive onEglinton for two hours one Sundayafternoon, with two fuel pumps, hoses,millions of brass fittings, and a verypatient sales clerk for company.

The next two nights work were un-eventful, except that bolts that shouldhave come off easily were all seized up,and other minor irritations. Wednesdaynight the cylinder head came back from

High, and Thursday morning it went outto have the seats faced. Thursday nightTony and his crew came over to helpfinish the preparation, and when theystarted to lap the valves in, it was foundthat the seats were not machined deepenough, and the valve guides hadntbeen reamed for clearance.

When I heard about this, my spiritfell to its lowest ebb, as I felt that wecould never get the car ready in theone day that remained. At this point themoral support I received from a club

member who we all know proved to beinvaluable. The assistance I received

from Cliff Taylor for the rest of thatnight and all day Friday was the realreason that the car was sitting on thegrid on Sunday. Other club memberswhose assistance was deeply appreci-ated were Mike Penny, Dave Jamesonand Dave Halliday.

The car was finally finished at aquarter to five Saturday morning aftermuch hard work by all of us, the onlyevent worthy of note being a minorelectrical fire while wiring in the lights.So all work done, we closed up and

went to catch a few hours of sleepbefore heading out to Mosport forpractice.

I towed the car out myself, havinghad only three hours of sleep, arrivingabout 12:30, and started to preparethe car for scrutineering. After gettingthrough inspection, Tonys crew cameover and did a tune-up, while our crewsorted out other minor problems. Oneof these was a wiring mix-up that gaveus ignition on the headlight switch, aproblem soon cured by Tony when he

went over the wiring with a volt meter.All through this I was getting in the wayas I was worrying and fussing and notin the best condition due to lack ofsleep. I was finally told in no uncertainterms that the best thing that I could dowas quit bothering the workers and getsome rest.

The final blow came during nightpractice, when, after Tony and I haddone five laps each, the car started torun really rough. A compression test

showed zero compression in numberthree cylinder, and when the valvecover was removed, we found that avalve had seized in the guide. Now Iwas really right out of it, tired, discour-aged, and so on. It got so bad thatTony told them to get me to bed, andas Cliff led me away, I was told not toshow my face outside the tent beforeten o clock the next morning.

After I was safely out of the way,Cliff, Mike and Dave went to work andpulled the head and removed all the

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a

bb

b c

ed

fa) cap....................................................$15b) windbreaker and track pants.............$40c) travel mug.........................................$6d) pen....................................................$7

case..................................................$8pen and case ................ ............... .....$15

e) 2 diameter MCO badge ...................$3f) key chain............ ................ ...............$5

bits and pieces. They started in againthe next morning, and by the time I gotup were all well at work. After getting anew valve from the B.M.C. van, and bor-rowing a pushrod from Jim Vollink, whocame up from Michigan for the racewith his M.G.-B, the car was gassed-up and ready just in time for the sprintrace.

The sprint race is worthy ofmention only for two reasons. First, Imissed a shift coming out of Mosss,and bounced a valve, so I pulled into the pits for one lap while it waschecked out. The second was unin-tentionally testing the controllability ofthe car with our suspension work bygetting all sideways going down CornerTwo.

Up to this point I was still runningon the (Pirelli) Cinturatos, which areexcellent tires, but not quite up to the

job, so after a look at the clouds, andpraying that it wouldnt rain, we wentover to the Firestone truck and had aset of Indy 500s fitted. We were now allset to race.

Tony got off to a pretty good start,and soon settled down to two-minutelaps, a good time when you considerthat we are giving away at least 20 to25 horsepower to the other M.G.-Bs,and we were running a full load of gas.We didnt consider this to be a formida-ble handicap, however, as we gained

in reliability some of what was lostin speed. This was borne out as thecar ran consistently and well throughTonys first driving session, except for afluctuation in oil pressure while corner-ing. This was due to not having timeto make up a deep oil sump, but theproblem was solved by over-filling byone quart.

After about 2 hours, Tony pulledin and after the car was gassed up, Iwent out. This being the first time thatI had driven the car on the Firestones, Iwas not aware of the immense differ-ence in controllability and corneringpower that they made. This differencewas impressed upon me when I lostconcentration for a moment and wentinto Corner Two a little too fast, and alittle off line. When I crested the hill andput the power on to pull the car throughthe second apex, it immediately wentdead sideways across the track for thesecond time that day. As the B swungpast the point that would have had the

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Pirellis scrabbling for grip, I began toget quite concerned, remembering thecondition of the TR3 that had barrel-rolled at that spot. Everything turnedout OK though, as the Firestonesmerely scrubbed off the extra speed,enabling me to regain control and steerout of a very uncomfortable situation.

Two other points that I discovered

during my turn at the wheel were thatthe Firestones, contrary to what I hadbeen told, were not uncontrollable inthe wet (it did rain a little after all), solong as the track is not really wet. Ifound this out when I started to pullback on an (Sunbeam) Alpine that hadpassed me in the dry. The last pointis that a stock engine is nowhere upthat long back straight at Mosport,because as it began to dry out again,the Alpine just out-dragged me up toCorner Eight. The worst part of the lack

of power was not when the other threeBs just drove past me up the straight,but when I caught up to the EcurieShoestring M.G.A. 1600 Mk. 2, I had toslipstream him up the hill and out-brakehim going into Corner Eight to get past.

After about two hours driving, Ibegan to feel a bit tired and the enginebegan to overheat a little, so I decidedto pull in a little early and have thewater level checked, and also to handover to Tony for the remainder of therace.

Things began to look a little betterin the positions, as one by one thefaster cars began to have their littleproblems, and quite a few retired. Our

car ran steadily, except for one stop forwater, with the engine sounding quitegood. We had moved into the top ten,much to my surprise, during my drivingstint, and Tony moved us up one moreposition while he was at the wheel.Then came the last lap.

We were all waiting for Tony to ap-pear, figuring that he would be due just

as the flag fell, as he had been turninglaps of two minutes even. At 2:05 wewondered where he was, at 2:15 wewere a little concerned, at 2:25 wewere downright worried, but at 2:35he appeared and took the flag, the Brunning at a very odd angle. When hepulled into the pits, we found the leftrear tire flat. We had checked tire clear-ance earlier on, and although they wererubbing on the inside of the wheel well,we had not considered it to be critical.In fact it was, as the tire had finally let

go when Tony was going down throughthe chute at about 95 m.p.h., and heonly just managed to keep the carunder control.

When everything was all straight-ened out, we found we had finished in8th position. Tony considered this to bea very good showing, considering thestate of tune of the car and the prob-lems that we had encountered, and Iwas also quite pleased with our effort.The final satisfactory touch, though,was receiving a cheque for $70.00 in

the mail a couple of weeks later. Now Icould replace the $50.00 tire that wasdestroyed. Racing does cost money!

Well there you are, folks, the end

of a story which now seems almost asold as the Icelandic Sagas and just aslong. You will note that a club news-magazine editors continual pleas forcontributions is not a new problem, soSteve, take heart.

Jim Vollink (the borrowed push-rod, remember) was quite concernedabout getting back home to Michigan

if we bent his pushrod in the race. CliffTaylor, ever the pragmatist, calmedhis fears by reminding him that therewould be seven others left, and itwas unlikely that all of them would bedestroyed too. As for the tire clear-ance, under the SCCA rules we wererunning then, the outside of the fenderhad to remain stock, so we couldntflare them and run wheels with moreoffset. The fix for the B was to cut theinside of the wheel well and move itback about three inches, as was done

on Tonys car. We hadnt had it done onmy B prior to the race due to time andmoney issues, but after the incidentwith Tony driving, the car didnt evenget off the trailer when we got home.It went straight to George ComacchiosEuropa Coach Works in Milton, Ontario,for the fix. Oh, and one final point, weactually gotprize moneyat someraces back then!

And for those interested in sta-tistics, below are the final results of

the 1968 Sundown Grand Prix, andMCO old-timers may find some familiarnames here:

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NORTH TORONTO MOTORSPORTS CLUBSUNDOWN GRAND PRIXSUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 1968- PERMIT No. FIA-CAN-68-8 -

________________________________

THE SEVENTH ANNUAL SUNDOWN GRAND PRIX OF ENDURANCE

Pos. Car # Driver Car Laps Time1 8 Maurice Carter / Nat Adams Camaro Z-28 190 6 1:28.42 33 Rainer Brezinka / Horst Petermann Porsche 904 189 6 1:58.03 51 Chris Harrison / Dick Brown Chevy II 189 6 2:07.24 471 Cam Champion / John Mann MGB 178 6 1:41.05 305 Leon Alain / Norhand Perron Camaro Z-28 176 6 2:09.06 302 Doug Weaver / Robert Long Camaro Z-28 174 6 2:08.017 110 Fritz Haefele / Fritz Hochreuter Porsche RSK550 171 6 3:06.08 296 John Powell / Tony Simms MGB 170 6 1:33.0

9 950 John Trevethick / Tim Eddington Sprite 169 6 3:05.510 116 Gill Baker / Bill Johnston Morgan 4/4 167 6 3:15.211 201 Ron Schantz / Paul Lambke Austin Cooper S 166 6 2:17.012 100 John Cordts / Stan Ward Shelby 350 163 6 3:07.413 101 Bob Attrell / Bob Griffith Volvo 122S 163 6 3:33.014 109 Ken Christensen / Ed Hicken Sunbeam Alpine 151 6 3:14.015 361 Stephen Bell / Dave Lawler Camaro 149 6 2:48.016 125 David MacKenzie / Peter Bell Lotus S7 143 6 2:13.017 53 Keith Arkley / Harold Hunter Sprite 141 6 3:15.018 63 Bob Tanner / Paul Strangways Lotus Cortina 139 6 2:58.019 174 John Baldridge / Richard Harms Sprite 138 6 1:38.020 28 D. Lincoln Kinsman / Al Souter Lotus Super 7 121 6 3:14.221 0 Gord Brown / Ted Powell Barracuda 85 6 2:12.0

D.N.F.145 Don Lowe / Craig Hill TR4A141 Louis Donolo Jr / Rudy Bartling Elva BMW25 Doug Durrell / Doug McArthur Kiki Mk III6 John Barton / Jack Boxstrom Barco Chev13 Paul Bowen / Terry Welch Corvair Corsa114 Doug Hoy / Ted Lorenz MGB850 Bill Brack / Tom Spencer Austin Cooper480 George Ferland / Ron Evans MGB115 Bill Brewer / Jerry Romanick MGA Mk II84 Martin Chenhall / Werner Gudzus Corvair Stinger118 Eric Cassidy / Eppie Wietzes Shelby GT350441 Randy Fraser / Andrew Aitken Triumph Spitfire154 Richard Puertas / Gordon Harrison Ginetta G4157 Francis Bradley / Peter Hanes MGA

Elapsed Time: 6 hours, 1 minute, 28.4 seconds

Fastest Lap: No. 14, Car No. 141, Time 1:40.8

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Meeting starting at 6:30pm

AttendeesRon Woltman, Jeff Graves, Richard

Muise, Sam Mandia, Dave Butler, BennettLeckie, Charles Payne, Bob Benson, Aleida

Dikland, Steve Fong, Alan Ritchie, Jim Mor-row, Jean McGillivray, Evan Gamblin, KlausWillroider

Secretary- It will be hard to replace the wonder-

ful work done by the former secretary JohnPowell. However a new club secretary isrequired.

Ted Powell Weekend- A meeting had been held about the

Ted Powell weekend on March 9th.Attendees were Ron Woltman, SamMandia, Aleida Dikland, Richard Muise,Paul Swinwood and Bob Armstrong. A draftschedule for Fridays activities was putforward. It had about 110 minutes for eachgroup (each level of lapping, plus open andclosed wheel test sessions for race cars).It was felt that there would not be as manyopen wheel cars and that time not used bythem would be given to the other (non-rac-ing) lappers. A

- This evening, a second proposal

was put on the table that provided for 120minutes of testing for the race vehicles in3 sessions throughout the day. Non-racevehicles would get about 170 minutes. Thecosts would be lower for lapping as thatlonger time would be split over a muchlarger number of drivers (the track is about$1500 per hour of operation). There wasno specific allocation of track time forworkers or for open wheel testing.

- The track booking for Friday wasextended to 1800hrs. According to SMP,there is no restriction on the on-track start

time, but it was agreed that it would be noearlier than 8:30am.

- Sam Mandia again mentioned thatthere was likely to be a low turn out for

open wheel vehicles.- A brief discussion was made over the

number of lapping groups - three vs four.Scheduling was easier with four groups.

- A estimate of track workers was 4-5per track or about 9-10 for long track. Thenew Friday schedule did not use Pro Trackexcept for the race vehicle test sessions.

- Bennett mentioned that last year had62 paid lappers, and he expected the at-tendance might be higher this year.

- Charles proposed that we vote toaccept the schedule as our starting point,as it was able to accommodate everyones

needs. For: 4, Against: 0, Abstain: 1. Votepassed.- Dave suggested that we find a sepa-

rate weekend for the lapping activities nextyear, and there was general agreement.

Treasurer- Bob reported $42,691 in the bank of

which there is $25,132 disposable income.- The current status of the winter activi-

ties was showing a profit of $8,488.

Race School- Rob Microys submitted a report that

the school was low on entries. He sug-gested that it will pick up as the date getscloser, but urged everyone to put out theword.

- Richard will bring up the school atORO (March 17th) and discuss with theVARAC representative.

Flyers- All disciplines in MCO are asked to

forward pictures of their activities to Steve

Fong for inclusion in the new MCO flyer.This flyer would be used to represent theclub activities to interested people (i.e. Carshows). Deadline was for the next monthlymeeting.

Web- Aleida showed some handouts of

the upcoming web site changes. It willtake about a day to switch over to the newlayout. During the switch over time, therewould be a temporary page indicating thatthe web site was being redesigned.

Solo- Jeff would be attending the CSC/Solo

open house in April.- Charles asked for some new equip-

ment, including a new laptop and tent. Thelaptop would come in around $300 for aused Pentium-266 and required PCMCIAcards. The PCMCIA cards would provideextra serial ports for our timing hardware.

- He brought up a company that coulddo a personalized three-colour MCO tent

10x10 feet. Normally this would be $1200,but if we were willing to display the name othe tent manufacturer on the tent, the pricewould be closer to $550 plus shipping.This was approved.

- Pat Weightman appears to be willing

to loan the timing display again this year.- Charles has already started discus-sions with the Corel Centre, but schedulingis still a problem until the Senators seasonis over.

Other- Sam has received a large sponsor-

ship package from Sunoco. The contentswill be distributed to all MCO disciplines.

- Ron would like to donate some filingcabinets for storage of the MCO club docu-ments (historical and otherwise). Richard

agreed to take them in a few months. JohnPowell would like to move his extensivefiles.

- Sam has been contacted by GlebEsman, who would like to be the clubphotographer. A number of issues werebrought up, including ownership of theimages, insurance and taking pictures oflicense plates.

- Dave has two quotes for bulk pur-chasing wristbands. It was estimated thatwe might require 5000+ for this year.

- Dave noted that the membership wasnow up to date. Jeff agreed to test thenew online CASC-OR membership renewaland report back. The membership formshave been updated to reflect the new fees.Aleida agreed to look into online credit-cardprocessing - the winter schools had about10% no-shows.

- Steve was still working on the March/April issue. The deadline for articles is 2weeks before printing.

- Richard noted that the twice-monthlyemail notice has been set up and the first

messages sent out. It is open to anyoneon the internet. It lists upcoming MCOactivities, meetings, regional meetings andinternational motorsport events (i.e. TVviewing schedule). The signup page is onthe MCO web site.

- The 2004/2005 club insurance hasbeen submitted.

- The MCO 50th Anniversary book isonly days away from going to press.

Meeting closed, 8:50pm.

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In Britain they call them punctures.A puncture is something that happens topeople who wear ascots and drink ginand tonics while the kitchen staff roast

the pheasants that were blasted out ofthe sky during the morning hunt. Unlikethose ascot wearers, I have flats, notpunctures, and I have had a lot of them.I have had a flat with nearly every car Ihave owned. Although it is probably not arecord, it certainly feels like one.

My first car was a white 1971 Peu-geot 204 4-door sedan that I bought in1976 when I was a student. A couple ofmonths after I bought it, on a cool cloudylate spring day I was leaving campus togo home and a rear tire went flat. A bolthad pierced the Michelin. The next fewminutes might have been fun to watchas a funniest home video. I had toconsult the owners manual several timesbecause the necessary pieces of equip-ment were hidden all over the vehiclein places that were not obvious to me.The jack was hidden in a compartmentin the trunk, but the twisty handle thingthat is used to turn the jacks screw wasclipped to the bodywork underneath thefront hood, of all places. I panicked when

I did not see a spare in the trunk but thenremembered that it was underneath thetrunk, hanging outside near the gastank. Naturally, the spares holding brack-et was rusted stuck. I also remember thatthe wheels on that car had 3 bolts, whichmade me nervous somehow.

About a year later I owned a 1974FIAT 128 (the ownership of which wouldbe a good topic for a separate article)and was living in Toronto. I was travelingon the 401 eastbound, and crossing overfrom the express lanes to the collec-

tor lanes near the falsely named AllenExpressway. The right front tire startedto soften very quickly. Luckily I was in theright lane at the time and got onto theshoulder without drama. I only remembertwo things from that episode, that thewheel had 4 bolts, and how noisy it wasunderneath an overpass on the 401 nearmidday. Less than a year later, that sametire, which I had by then mounted on therear, went flat in Stratford, Ontario. Wewere headed there for a play and made it

with plenty of time to spare, due partly tomy growing expertise in wheel changing.The tread had separated, probably start-ing near where the tire had been repaired.I remember that the tire was very hot tothe touch.

I then owned two Hondas in succes-sion, a red 1980 Accord sedan and ablue1984 Accord hatchback. I did not

have any flats in the red 1980 model buthad 2 of my 3 automobile accidents withit instead, the first occurring 2 days aftertaking delivery. Given the 2 accidents, aflat would have been superfluous for thatcar, over the top, even. But the 84 Ac-cords right front tire was punctured by abolt in the second year that I owned it.

Next came a 1986 Toyota MR2, redas can be. I did not have any flats withit, in the strict definition of the word, butI had to have 3 of the tires re-mountedbecause of air leaks. It was at that time

that my hatred of alloy wheels began. Andeven though it was red, I had no acci-dents with it. Just after the MR2, I owneda 1980 VW rabbit, which was in really sadshape. I never had a flat with it but thatsabout all that did not go wrong. That wasthe only car I have ever taken to a scrapyard. A friend and I had lunch on the $50that I was paid for it.

At around that time my ex owned a1985 Honda Civic on which I had a flaton the way to a long weekends stay inOttawa. We were living in Toronto at the

time.After the Rabbit I owned a 1984

Tercel hatchback that was used mostlyin ORRCs. We flattened and ruined twoDunlop winter tires, ripping a 2 inch tearthrough the sidewall of one during PM-SCs President Prize rally one year. I can-not remember where we were when wehad the other flat. After the Tercel came a1986 Colt Turbo, an underrated car thathad the most sensible transmission ratiosI have owned. Its 5th gear was a true over-drive, yielding low rpm at highway speedsout of a 1.6 litre engine. Now, why cantothers do that? There were no flats withthe Colt but the previous owner hadstripped the threads on the lug bolts byusing non-metric nuts so when I tried toput on winter rims I had to pay someonea lot of money to install new bolts on all 4wheels while I nursed back spasms.

After the Colt came a brand spank-ing new red 1992 VW Golf, which I sold8 months later to be replaced by a 1992Suzuki Swift GT, for reasons that I cannot

remember. In turn, I kept the Suzuki foronly about a year. No flats with either carbut had I owned them longer, I am certainthat I would have. By acting quickly,I cheated fate. The next car, a 1991Honda Civic, gave me unbelievable gasmileage, no flats, and a sore back fromthe too-reclined driving position.

By the way, the red 1992 Golf was

hit by someone while parked by the curba couple of weeks after taking deliv-ery. This was my 3rd of 3 lifetime autoaccidents, all of them happening with ared car. I do not wish to make an invalidstatistical inference by asserting thataccidents are caused by owning red carsBut I do not see how my life would beimproved by gathering further experimen-tal evidence either so I will never buy ared car again.

The Civic was replaced with a 1990Subaru Legacy sedan, whose right front

tire was pierced by another bolt, but onlyafter I had installed new tires. After theLegacy came a 1995 Ford Escort GT, anice fun car except for a short 5th gearwhose purpose defeats me. Whats thepoint of an overdrive that isnt? The rightrear went flat, another bolt, technicallyon the 401 but this time I was on the exitramp at Bayview Road so I did not feel soat risk when changing that tire, comparedto the FIAT episode several years before.

After the Escort came another Leg-acy Sedan, a 1993, which remained flat

free, but it made up for that by droppinga flywheel onto the pavement in Graven-hurst. Months later, someone offeredme more for the Legacy than I thought itwas worth and I quickly replaced it witha Jetta whose tires were in such terriblecondition that the mechanic who certifiedit should have been investigated. Still,ignoring reality, I left for a driving vaca-tion to the Charlevoix area in Quebec,where not only did I have a flat but hadto buy a used tire from a local garage.The flat happened on highway 40, justwest of Quebec city, on Labour Day,where I learned a lesson about keepingspare tires properly inflated, especially onstatutory holidays when service stationsin small villages are closed. I boughtnew tires after the vacation, an excellentexample of bad timing. After moving toOttawa, I managed to put another boltinto one of those new tires last summer.I sold that Jetta last year and am nowusing my wifes Golf, which has remainedflat-free, so far. But it wont last.

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Subject: Re: An Incident during the

2003 Tall Pines Rally

How about 3 at a time, times 2 forthe story in pictures.

During my working stint for the

above-noted event, the car shown in

these pictures was competing and then

suddenly, it just wasnt there. A local

resident brought out his equipment

and extracted the car from its lucky rest-

ing spot over the side of the cliff. Hope

you like this pictorial story! ... Dave B.

----- Original Message -----From:David E. Butler

To:Ross Wood

Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 5:29 PM

Subject: An Incident during the

2003 Tall Pines Rally

Ross: Sometime next week I hope

to send you pictures of an extraction

of one of the competitors in the sec-

tion where I was working on last yearsevent. Unfortunately, I misplaced the

email address of the citizen who just

happened to be living at the right place

with the right type of equipment to get

the competitor out. If you review where

I was posted because of a bulldozer on

the side of the road, you may be able

to get his email address again. It occurs

to me that it was something like name

@ look.ca. Ill check my notes again and

see if I can find that address....{exerpt deleted}... Neverthe-

less, as I am preparing to become Ryan

Hubers backup as the Safety Officer for

The Black Bear Rally at the end of June,

I started thinking about your efforts for

The Tall Pines and realized that I must

get those pictures to you. It should

prove to be an interesting local story.

... David E. Butler

Subject: An Incident during the 2003 Tall

Pines Rally

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Whether hes wearing fatigues or aracing suit, Maj.-Gen. Lew Mac-Kenzie isa force to reckon with.

Canadas most famous peacekeeper

will be leading an army of horsepowerthrough the twists and turns of the islandwhen he competes in Septembers 2004Targa Newfoundland rally.

Its pretty unique, MacKenzie toldThe Sunday Independent in an exclusivefrom his home in Bracebridge, Ont. Imean where else can you close off theroads to the towns and villages and thepeople, rather than protest, will turn outto cheer and watch the event.

The Targa is unique to this prov-ince and is a first in North America. A

European creation, the rally offers noprize money, just plates (which in Italianmeans targa) for the winners of each

her somewhat shocked son to turnaround and take her back to her home inTruro, N.S.

So I never really did make it, says

MacKenzie.Retiring from the military in 1993,

MacKenzie is recognized as one of themost experienced peacekeepers in theworld. Even superpowers like the U.S.regularly call upon Canadas most-recog-nized soldier for his peacekeeping skills.

MacKenzie and co-driver Nigel Mor-timer will bring their decades of racingexperience, which include everythingfrom stock cars to open-wheel formulaFord cars, to the event which is quicklygaining international recognition. Com-

peting in a specially prepared DodgeSRT pocket rocket, the pair hopes toadd one more trophy they are consid-

he was on the phone to Mortimer, whoalmost came through the phone withexcitement over the idea of competing inTarga Newfoundland.

But for the soldier who made hisname confronting bandits and rebels inthe former Yugoslavia, he says the fearof losing control of a car at full throt-tle and staring down the barrel of anenemys gun are two different things.

Its a different type of adrenaline,he says. Its not like Sarajevos sixmonths of adrenaline where youre nothungry and youre not tired because youare working on adrenaline, which is, youknow, a self-produced drug,

The race, he says, is often much

less stressful than preparing the car,attracting sponsors and getting the carto the track.

When the thrill of driving a car to itslimits, and sometimes beyond, turns tofear, he says thats when hell know thatits time to hang up the racing suit andwatch the races from the pits or on TV.

When the first lap of the first eventof the season is fear rather than excite-ment (its time to quit), and you neverknow when thats going to happen.

While preparing the car for the trackis very much a team sport, MacKenziesays things change once the green flagis dropped.

Its the opposite of a team sportwhen you are in the race itself, its avery individual sport.

Being a soldier in the CanadianArmed Forces has helped his racingthrough the organizational skills hedeveloped on dozens of military opera-tions, which require meticulous planning.But racing also helped him communicate

with his soldiers who often had morepimples on their faces than stripes ontheir arms.

Its a helluva gap both by age andby rank. I always say that Canadian sol-diers have got two things on their minds:Their girlfriends in one hand and theircar keys in the other.

http://www.theindependent.caReprinted from the The Sunday

Indempendent, Newfoundland andLabrador

stage. Covering 2,200 kilometres ofroads that wind through the eastern and

central part of the province, the driverscompete against the clock with specificsections set aside for full-out racing. Theevent, which debuted in 2002, attractscompetitors from across the globe.

So that to me is as close to a raceon public highways as you can get,especially with the faster cars startingat the back every day separated by 30seconds.

MacKenzie led the internationalpeacekeeping force in Sarajevo and wasresponsible for saving thousands of lives

when he managed to reopen the airportto international mercy flights.Given that his mother was born in

Harbour Breton, the race is a sort ofhomecoming for MacKenzie. With hisonly memories of his late-mothers homebeing faded-yellow pictures, a fewyears ago he tried to bring his motherhome on a pilgrimage. After getting offthe ferry in Port aux Basques and driving300 kilometres, his mother decided thatthe trip home was just too far and asked

ered to be one of the strongest contend-ers in the event to the hundreds that

already line the walls of their respectivehomes.Mortimer has prepared MacKenzies

formula Ford car for years.He quit (driving) three or four years

ago because he felt he was too old andhe was so humiliated watching me race,says MacKenzie, whos a few older thanMortimer. So we embarrassed him intostarting again and Im delighted hesback.

Beginning his racing career whilestationed in Germany in 1975, Mac-

Kenzie admits that his vintage presentssome unique challenges when beingobsessed with driving meets the mid-dle-age spread.

During the winter a guy my age hasto workout every day just to make the(seat) belts fit in the spring in the open-wheel car, says MacKenzie.

In fact, he was working out on atreadmill and watching a videotape of thefirst Targa when he decided to enter therally. The tape had barely finished and

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May 2004

photo by : Flair Photo

Why? Because its fun! O.K., maybe

thats a bit skimpy. What I mean is thatmotor racing is fun and thats why Irace. And its satisfying, and challeng-ing, and well folks, this is another ofmy works that started with a few notesand then grew and grew and .sort of turned into something like an

essay. So, read on

Why I race - the short answer.Ive been asked several times why I

drive a racing car, and especially atyourage?, and I guess that the shortanswer really is because its fun. Buttheres more to it than that, much more.Theres the mental and physical chal-lenges; the sense of satisfaction whenthings go right and coping successfullywhen things go wrong; the sense ofaccomplishment when driver and car

are performing on the edge withoutgoing over it, and better yet, managingto save it if you do go over the edge;and measuring your performanceagainst a fellow competitor, to namea few characteristics. In other words,it has all the essentials of participatingin a worthwhile and enjoyable athleticactivity.

But is it a real sport?There has in the past been a gen-

eral feeling by many people, especiallysome sports announcers and those inestablishment sports such as trackand field, that motor racing as not areal sport, and racing drivers arentreal athletes. A few, who should knowbetter by now, are still of this opinion,which I find extremely irritating. Muchof what I have to say in this articleabout the various aspects of our sportis addressed to these doubters, and Idfirst like to make a couple of introduc-tory points.

Motor racing in general, and roadcourse racing in particular, is one of thefew athletic endeavours that continuallychallenge both the mind and the bodyover extended periods of time, underadverse physical conditions, and wherethe consequences of mischance orerror can be immediate and extensive,both financially and physically. My con-tentions, and I would like to emphasisethem, are that motor racing is ath-letic, even at the amateur weekend

warrior level, and that most of ouramateurs really are just that! Unlikeestablishment run and jump and simi-lar sports, for our amateur athletestheres no government support. Wehave no carded athletes receiv-ing monthly Federal governmentsubsidy cheques, nor, in Ontarioat least, any level of government

building training and competitionfacilities for us, or providing freetraining and coaching, whether bythe governments themselves orthrough Universities or other agen-cies.

Our amateur provides, amongstother things, his/her own tools, equip-ment, training, and through entry andother fees, track time, facilities, vehiclerecovery and emergency medical sup-port. In addition, he/she does most ofthe equipment (race car) preparation

him/herself. All the financing for thiscomes from themselves or their fami-lies, and occasionally for the fortunateones, some help from sponsors, mainlyin the form of discounts on equipmentrepairs, parts, service and supplies.

And despite the lack of governmentsupport, our sport has producedmany world class athletes, whoactually win races and champion-ships at the highest levels, and arerenowned, and some even revered,worldwide. There are many ex-

amples, but I only need one here- Gilles Villenueve!!!

So whats athletic aboutprepping a race car?

Lets now look at the challenges ofthe grunt work. As noted, owner/driv-ers at the amateur level working witha limited budget, have to do most ofthe car preparation themselves. Is thisathletic? Well how about: lugging aroundheavy parts; climbing in, around and

under the car to work on it; heaving onnuts and bolts that dont want to budge;cleaning and polishing; and, makingadjustments that are delicate but alsoneed an application of significant force.All this requires physical strength, andcontrol of that strength, conditioning,and flexibility. As for mental exercise,brain twisters in such areas as planningorganizing, analysis and evaluation,problem-solving, decision-making, andcontinual monitoring against objec-

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tives often bedevil the mind. A racingmechanic is not just a grease monkey,but has to be an intelligent, skilledtechnician (at the higher levels of thesport, many are graduate engineers),and also has to be in excellent physicalcondition. His/her effective and effi-cient contributions are essential, as thebest driver in the world wont win races

in a poor car or one that breaks down,and, to emphasize the point again, ouramateur owner/driver usually is thistechnician for his/her car.

O.K., but what about justsitting in a car and drivingaround?

This aspect is where our week-end warrior shares a lot with the topprofessional drivers, the main differencebeing, perhaps, the level of intensity.Both mental and physical conditioning,excellent vision and reflexes, and a highdegree of controlled strength are es-sential to success, even at the amateurlevel.

Regarding the physical aspect,balancing the car on the edge of controlexercises all of the body. Lower bodymuscles are used for: braking andaccelerating; simultaneously coordinat-ing the clutch and accelerator whenchanging to a higher gear, and adding

to these, the brakes when down-shift-ing; frequently making delicate precisecorrections in braking force and the ap-plication of power; and, while all this isgoing on, resisting g loads in all fourdirections and continually sensing thebehaviour of the car through the seatof your pants. Upper body musclesare used for: steering, again making fre-quent delicate and precise correctionswhile sensing and reacting to feedbackthrough the steering wheel; changinggears; constantly moving and focusing

the eyes, and controlling the move-ment of the head; and, again, while atthe same time resisting g loads in alldirections.

The use of muscles to performthese tasks not only involves movementand the direct application of force, andresistance to the application of exteriorforces, such as the g loads mentionedabove, but also applying direct forcewith one set of muscles while apply-ing a controlling counter force with the

opposite set. A good example here isin maintaining control during cornering.For a left hand corner, the right sideof the upper body is applying force tosteer the car in the desired direction,while the left side is applying varyingdegrees of counter force to regulatemovement of the steering wheel inorder to avoid excessive inputs. Such

excesses would upset the balance ofthe car, frequently bringing disastrousresults.

As for mental exercise, considerplaying a game of chess in your mindwith an equally skilled opponent whiledriving down an icy road, albeit onewith which you are familiar, as quicklyas you dare because its an emergencytrip. The road itself goes up and downhills and around left and right handturns of varying radii, and these oftentraverse those hills, thus making them

blind corners. Now to make thingsinteresting, lets say that in addition tohaving to avoid losing control of the carthrough a physical miscalculation or notadapting to changing road conditions,every time you lose a piece throughmental error, you also momentarily losecontrol of the vehicle, thus slowing youdown, with the severity dependent onthe rank of the piece. Further, if yourKing comes under check you go offthe road, and have to stop then try toget going again. And if you come under

check mate, youre off the road andin the ditch with, at a minimum, severedamage to the car.

Muddying the waters even more,your opponents moves, mistakes, andresponses to your moves are frequentlyunpredictable, so that youre continuallyfaced with having to change tactics andstrategy. Oh yeah, and thats all justfor the guy in front that youre tryingto pass. Theres another driver behindwhos trying to get past you, and youreplaying another game of chess with himor her at the same time. And if yourein a pack of several cars all trying topass each other, and at the same timebeing lapped by a faster car or lappinga slower car, lets just say it all getsreally interesting.

If you understand this analogy, youwill appreciate that a racing driversmind must be receiving, analysing,and evaluating data and making deci-sions on several planes simultaneously.He/she is continually processing and

reacting to physical feedback from thevehicle and visual observations of theroad direction, conditions and traf-fic; assessing opponents moves andmistakes and developing short-termtactics to take advantage of them; and,monitoring all of these factors overtime and amending his/her long-termstrategy in order to achieve the best

finishing result possible under theparticular circumstances. All of thismental effort, together with the physicaleffort outlined previously, is expendedcontinually and simultaneously withlittle opportunity to relax, even on longstraights, for periods of time rangingfrom twenty minutes to two hours ormore at a stretch. Compounding thisis a hot, smelly and sometimes dustyenvironment, usually with little or noventilation, and wearing a helmet andfire resistant driving suit, which by their

nature, do not breath well. My argu-ment, then, is that motor racing is asport, and it is athletic. In fact, it is oneof the most satisfying, but also one ofthe most demanding of athletic sports- period!

So its a sport and its athletic,but what about you, you oldfart?

Well as I said at the start, racing ischallenging, satisfying, good mental and

physical exercise, and just plain fun.Now, why do I race at sixty-three and ahalf years of age?

Its a bit of a story, and one Ivegone into before, so Ill just summa-rize a little. I had been farming part-time for about 16 years, raising vealcalves, which lost money, adding a fewsheep, and losing more money, andfinally changing to a small cow-calf beefoperation. I didnt lose as much moneywith the beef, but the damage wasdone, and I finally had to give it up in

1998. A few years later I was lookingfor something to do in my retirement,and in 2000 some money becameavailable in my RRSPs. I consideredreturning to farming, but decided that itwas ridiculous to raise beef at a loss sothat the major supermarkets could sellit at a handsome profit, and this wasbefore the current BSE crisis. As I hadraced in the 1960s with some degreeof success, and had enjoyed myselfthoroughly, I decided to investigate a

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return to racing in a Vintage car, espe-cially if I could find the 1965 MGB thatI had raced in 1969. I found the car atthe 2000 Vintage festival at Mosport,but the current owner wasnt interestedin selling it, so I began searching foranother car.

In the spring of 2001 bought arace-ready 1983 GTC Mazda RX7 and

formed Team RRSP (Registered RacersSavings Plan). I spent the rest of 2001and all of 2002 in trying to convinceCASC that I was not too old and de-crepit to drive, passing the time run-ning the car in Mosport Test Days, andadding Solo I in 2002, where I finishedthe season first in my class, admittedlyagainst sparse fields. My medical wasfinally accepted by CASC in the springof 2003, I received a new Novice RaceLicence, and went racing again in theCASC Regional GT Sprints series.

My first season back was fun, but itdid have its challenges. First and fore-most was a very steep learning curvedue to technological improvements overthe last thirty or so years, and which Ihave not yet fully mastered. Much moreis know today about vehicle dynamics,and even the amateur driver has to bemuch more well versed in what makesa car perform well, such as suspensiongeometry and set-up, aerodynamics,and tire technology to name a few.Also, the level of grip of modern tires is

light years ahead of what I knew backin the 60s, and I am still learning howto assess their limits of adhesion. I cur-rently race on Toyo RA1 R rated radialtires, which are technically street-legal,and the grip level greatly exceeds eventhat of the pure racing tires that I ran onthe MGB. I estimate that, if the Toyoshad been available in 1969, I couldhave knocked off up to four seconds alap from my best time at Mosport in theB, and four seconds a lap is a longtime in motor racing.

There were other issues to dealwith too. We had some problems withgetting the correct tire pressures, someignition woes, and a fuel system prob-lem, all of which related either directlyor indirectly to lack of familiarity withthe car and tires. Then there was thebig off at Mosport at the BEMC SpringTrophy Races, my first weekend backin racing. In the second sprint race, inthe rain, I was getting used to the carin the wet, and my lap times improved

considerably until I was lapping as fastas the quickest cars in my class. Thencoming out of turn one on the seventhlap, I aquaplaned on some standingwater, got all sideways, and wound upgoing into the wall two-thirds of the wayup towards turn two. The damage tothe front end of the car was extensiveand expensive, and I didnt get it back

on the track until two months later. Butthere were also successes. I foundthat I hadnt lost my ability to tigerand my skills and reflexes were stillgood enough to be competitive in myclass. And on our best weekend of theseason, we qualified first in class forour first race and got a best finish ofsecond in class in our third race - myfirst racing trophy in thirty-four years.

Was it worth it all? Damn right! AndIll keep on racing, even at my age, untilthe money runs out. So why do I race,

and why did I return to racing in my sup-posedly mature years? Well, if youvemade it this far, I think you know why.

But notwithstanding what I have said

above, ordinary life has a nasty habit ofgetting in the way. And yes, the sagacontinues. There seems to be somesort of force that is continually trying tomake it really difficult for me to get onwith my racing (and if there is, it hasntcounted on my Celtic bloody-mindedobstinacy!). And as Ive said before, Idont claim to be alone here - many ofyou will understand this from your ownexperiences. Also, this is not just aboutmy racing, but also about having tobreak a commitment that I made to theClub, the reasons for which will, I hope,be more understandable to you as youread on.

When I started the process ofgetting back into racing, I figured that

I had enough money and time to dothe job. There were some issues inthe background regarding householdfinances, but I thought that they wouldbe resolved before they became aproblem. Then in the late fall of 2001,I accepted the appointment as ClubSecretary, thinking that the time require-ments would not be that heavy. Wrongon both counts! In December of lastyear, the financial bubble began to showdistinct signs of bursting, and by lateJanuary of this year I knew that I was in

trouble.The financial issues meant that I

had to hold the racing funds as a finan-cial reserve for household expenses incase of an emergency, and spend timein finding some answers. One is on thehorizon, as we have some land that wemight be able to sell, but that involves aseverance, which involves (I feel a rant

coming on) the Byzantine bureaucracyof our new Mega-mini City, which in turninvolves time spent on land titles and research, forms, consultations with plan-ners, trips to downtown Ottawa, and,. oh how I long for the old Townshipdays! Anyway, theres a ray of hopethere, but in the meantime, vehicles andappliances which are getting old, andshould be replaced, are breaking down(often) which again consumes time andmoney. The latest here are a washingmachine that doesnt (at least, not very

well), a u-joint gone in the van, and abad exhaust leak in the pick-up caused,I am told, by a rusted-out and crumblingheader. The last two are the latest in aseries of vehicle issues dating backto last November, to the point where Idont feel now that I can trust either oneof them not to fail at an inopportunemoment.

Compounding all this regarding theavailability of time, I underestimatedthe requirements of my duties as ClubSecretary. Being a perfectionist (oh all

right, a nitpicker!) I tried to prepare realminutes of meetings, not the skimpysummaries that pass for such in toomany organizations these days, but Idont have shorthand, so note-taking atmeetings was hectic to the point that Iusually didnt know what really went onuntil I tried to decipher my scribblingsprior to preparing the draft minutes.Also, my typing skills are somewhatrudimentary, with the result of all thisbeing that, on average, preparing aset of minutes took about twice thetime as attending the meeting itself,including travel time. In addition to thisthere were the other duties, includingcombing through reams of executivee-mails in order to find, print, classify,and file the few that were required forthe Clubs permanent files. This againrequired much more time than I had firstestimated.

By mid-February, the demands onmy time due to the financial issues andthe duties of Club Secretary had meant

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that, other than some research onvehicle handling dynamics, I had donenothing on my 2004 racing program,not even a draft budget. In fact, otherthan to drain the cooling system for win-ter, I hadnt even touched the RX7!Something had to give. Time spent onthe household finances was obviouslythe first priority, and, as I had explained

to the President when I accepted theappointment as Secretary, my racingtakes precedence over other pastimes.In view of this, my only choice had tobe to resign from that Office, which Idid effective at the end of February. Iregret having had to make this decision,as when I was asked by Ron Woltmanlast October whether or not I would becontinuing as Secretary, I advised him,after some thought, that I would. I be-lieved at that time that I would be ableto handle the time requirements, but

unfortunately events proved otherwise.As I was raised to honour my commit-ments, I believe that I owe this briefexplanation and an apology to the Presi-dent, the Board of Directors, and moreimportantly, to you the members, forhaving to make the decision to resign,especially on such short notice.

As for the future, the situation isnow such that I will have time and abudget to do some racing this year,hopefully by late June or mid July, and Iwill continue to volunteer at Club events

as time permits. And for my faithfulreaders (all five or six of you?) thiscolumn will continue, aided by the factthat we now only publish bi-monthly.So in the next issue I hope to dispensewith such weighty topics as the forego-ing, and return to my normal formatof opinionated rants, some history orother interesting subjects, the exploits,or lack of same, of Team RRSP, anddashes of my admittedly strange senseof humour, such as

Birthins, Marryins and DyinsI wont be at the Ted Powell week-

end this year, not with the race car (asyou can surmise from the foregoing top-ic), nor without. You see, the SupremeBeing informed me back in February orso that one of her nephews would begetting married in July, and that my at-tendance was requested. When I wasapprised of the date, I replied but thatsthe Clubs race weekend, so I guess Iwont be able to .

Now I have looked into the eyes ofDeath before several times. SomeI dont remember, such as the Germanbombs falling around my mother andme at the moment of my birth, butsome I do.

At the age of four, I watched theshadow of a German flying bomb blat-ting its way across the night sky, and

was whisked down into our air raidshelter by my mother just secondsbefore it landed in the field behindour house. In 1962, on a back roadjust outside of Bancroft, I lost the MGMidget on a deceptive corner andalmost drove off a 30 foot embank-ment into a swamp. Then in 1970there was the Kiki Mk. 6A F5000 cargetting airborne at 130 mph at Hare-wood and going end over end threetimes. And the most recent episode,before the one now under discussion,

was in 1994 when Cal, our yearlingSimmental bull, who had been fairlyeasy to handle up until then, decidedone day to test me to see who wasthe boss. With me alone, on foot,and out in the middle of a twenty-fiveacre field, my options were limited. Iwas reminded then, while trying tomaintain my composure and lookingfor a way out, of two old farm tru-isms. Theres no such thing as atame bull and More farmers havebeen killed by tame bulls than cross

ones. So, I very sternly told him tostop the nonsense, which made himpause to think (as much as bulls can),and took the opportunity to deliber-ately walk away from him, trying toshow no fear but with one eye behindmy back. And desperately trying toremember how toreadors performa Veronica in case he decided tocharge!

Anyway, back to our story. Withmy life beginning to flash before myeyes, and under the baleful gaze ofthe Supreme Being, I managed tosave myself just in time by switchingin mid-sentence from go to thewedding. to go to the race. Sothats why I wont be at the Ted Powellweekend this year. As for next year,Im going to send a copy of the raceschedule out to all family members,on both sides, with a notice that birth-ins, marryins and dyins will not bepermitted on race weekends..

Parting ShotIt seems to me that over the last

few decades, some pop psycholo-gists have made lucrative careersout of analyzing peoples personali-ties from what they do or how theyapproach things, either consciouslyor subconsciously. You know what Imean - if you do Xthen you must be

a Ypersonality. Well, I was replac-ing an empty roll of toilet paper theother day, and it occurred to me thatsome people hang it so it unrolls fromthe front, and others so it unrolls fromthe rear, and this sort of set me towondering .

Wanted:Datsun Roadster U20 motoror parts car....any leadsconcidered. Please contact

Al Boettcher613-830-7961 or [email protected]

Until recently my brotherwas restoring this 1976 FordMustang with GHIA trim.However, he has decidedthat he no longer wantsto complete the task andhas decided to sell it in itspresent condition. He isasking $7000. If you areinterested, please call ReneHarps in Cornwall at 613-937-3098.

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Alan Ritche visits the land of the rising sunto take these pictures in the twilight hours.

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