What happened?

A team who shall remain nameless, but drive expensive German rear-engined sportscars, used a loop-hole in the regulations to maintain a high 'regularity' score without any of their cars being on the track during the last, wet 90 minutes of the event. They only completed about 2/3 of the laps most other teams did and to most people there, they didn't deserve to win. There was an official protest against the result on the grounds of the 'Spirit of the Competition' but because the Regs were deficient, the results stood.
The organisers have undertaken to tighten up the Regs for next year and they will be presenting a special award to the VMCI team who came second, as the Moral Victors of the event.

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Curly
'64 Cooper 'S' (Group Nb spec)
'67 Mini Marcos GT www.mm7056.wordpress.com

Ahhh, so it was run as a regularity event. That leaves it open for abuse!

When I was running in the Winton relays they were run as a race with an outright winner and a handicap winner. We were always after the handicap win. In two of the 24 hour relays we finished second less than a minute behind the winners.

One year they gave us forms to fill out to give to the commentators so that they would have something to talk about during the race. They asked all sorts of silly questions including "What is your ambition in Motorsport" So I wrote "My ambition is to hit a Porsche at Winton"

G'day all......it was nice to meet you smokie , sorry i wasn't able to speak to you for very long due to swearing and cursing at my car on satuday. well the weekend got really bad on sunday on my "in lap" as i was rounding "the hay shed" heading for lukey heights my engine decided to go "BANG!" at 145km/h @ 5500rpm 4th gear, good oil presure, 60 psi, temp 190 deg F , as soon as i heard that i shut it down selected neutral and coasted to the marshalling piont between the " hays shed" and "lukey heights" anyways after being towed back to the pits, inspected as much as i could, found it had locked up/seized (in gear and rock, engine not turning OH F@$K this is gunna be expensive and the "boss" (aka: wife, minister of finance, war, etc......) is not gunna be happy when i tell her this........thank goodness she was only disappointed that i was unable to "race" it anymore and all the prep for it seems to have gone to waste!!) anyways got another few goes in another team mates mx5 but had to stick to my nominated times, which wasnt had due to the down pour for the last 2ish hours!! That was interesting, could not see a damn thing down the main straight at 180+km/h especially if there was someone anywhere there before you!! Will be there next year with bells on!! bigger, better and stronger (depending on what condition the block is in? its possibly going to be 1310, scatter cam, metro a plus head.....etc.....etc...... hopefully ready for "Watto's Grand Day Out" )
Anyways now its home i have pulled the head off to reveal that No. 2 piston has well and truely hit the head as it has a good imprint of it in the top of the piston... ..so will be pulling the rest of the engine out tommorrow, splitting the block and g/box for what broke . im hoping for a broken rod at the little end but suspect its a stuffed crank. Will let you know what i find.

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Sorry to hear about your motor BALLISTIC. I guess I got out of it easy with just a blown welch plug (which I put a new one in yesterday) and the my motor seems ok so not as an expensive problem as yours..

When the welch plug let go, I was pulling just on 7000rmp in 3rd gear at around 110km/h coming onto the main straight chasing down a Civic. The fastest top speed I got out of the LS at the bottom of the straight when the car was running right was 155km/h flat out.

Hopefully I will be there again next year but probably not in the LS unless I put in a bigger, faster motor. All depends on "she who must be obeyed" letting me spend more money on the car...

I can understand where you are coming from Re: "the boss" when it comes to spending the "hard earned" on cars. Yes it sounds like you did get off lightly, but thats a good thing!
Ive got a leyland speedo in mine and found that when i was going over the "hump" on the main straight "BLISTC" was past the 160km/h and i managed to get it to slide/drift through the right hander at turn 1. i think my best time was a 2:24.something.
hope to see you there in the ls no matter what size motor you have!!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDMkVq1jRGU

You were slightly faster that me in times then BALLISTIC. My best lap was a 2:40 when I had a clear track but I was driving looking backwards more that forwards because of all those fast cars..

I don't care if they say that I was allowed to keep my line in to a corner because it would take a brave man to move across in front of a car that is boring down at you at 250+km/h. Self preservation was my motto.

found my problem with motor not going Not as bad as i first thought looks like the nut on the rod bolt let go, the bearing got hammered 'till the other rod bolt gave way, then slammed the piston (mushroomed it) into the head, the crank came 'round and slammed the big end side of the rod bending it and locking up the crank due to the rod being slammed into the side of the bore chipping about a 5 mm hole out of it. Crank is ok ...... thank goodness looks like time for a hone, new rings, 1 new piston, rod and a full set of arp rod bolts......plus a big valve head 12g940 (tickled slighty yipee!!)
Should be back on the road in the next 2-3 weeks

not sure how to post the pics, so if anyone can guide me that would be good. thanks

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you shouldnt have worried to much about the bigger cars .......except the red commodore that crashed on the first and the bloody supra that broke the min time ......twice.... both of those guys were absolute tools There was a bit of a cheer in the pits when the commodore crashed which i thought was appropriate, the rest seemed ok especially when you pointed to which side you wanted them to pass. the historic blokes in their mustangs, toranas and chargers were the best coz as they were passing me they always without fail waved as they went past at a safe distance.
anyways will be going again next year......for sure coz i had a ball even though i broke my car and in the pooring rain
hope to see more people there next year even if they are just there for a bit of a look see.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDMkVq1jRGU