30th April 2008 Newsletter


Dear Competitor

The entry levels for Pembrey increased in the week leading up to the meeting and we ended up with two 14 car grids. Pembrey is a cracking track and there is always a really good buzz around the Paddock, it really is worth the long trip down the M4.

Congratulations to Will Sharpe, Stratton Mackay, Stuart Plotnek and Simon Byrne who all took two wins in their respective Classes. No new lap records were set.

It was good to see the race debut of the ZS120, it was all a bit last minute and great credit goes to Paul, Doug and numerous others who made the final push (metaphorically speaking !!) to get the car on the grid. It looked great and drew a lot on interest. The performance was exactly as Paul predicted ie. over a second a lap off the front running Maestro pace but there is more to come from it and it will certainly be nibbling away at the front running Maestro’s before long.

The Class A entry of just seven cars was reduced to six when Kevin Broadley’s engine failed in the qualifying session and it was further reduced to five cars for Race 2 when Malcolm Hill withdrew with an terminal and untraceable misfire. As a result of this, Class A were reduced to half points for the first time ever.

The points table on the BARC website was initially incorrect but has now been revised and the attached tables show the correct totals after Round 3.

Qualifying out of Session
As I found to my cost, BARC have changed the Regs in respect of the way the grids are formed on a Double-header meeting. For many years, the grid for Race 2 has been the finishing order of Race 1 - not any more. The procedure is now that the grid for Race 2 is formed from the 2nd fastest lap you achieve in the single qualifying session, this is shown in Clause 3.3.2 of the 2008 Regs.

Red Flag Stoppages
Those of you at Pembrey will recall that the fist of the Class B/Z races was red flagged when Arthur Mackay spun off stalled in the middle of the track. I would like to clarify a point regarding the restart procedure. It an MSA Blue Book Regulation that the driver who is deemed to have caused the race to be red flagged is not permitted to restart the race. It is no longer the case that you can join the restarted race from the back of the grid or the pit lane thus the unfortunate Arthur had to sit and watch his son and heir do the business.

Tyres
As mentioned in my last Newsletter, we had an informal meeting in the Paddock to discuss the tyre situation. The outcome was that an overwhelming majority of drivers want to stay with Yokohama 048’s and having talked it through with Paul, I can confirm that we will be staying with Yokohama 032/048 for the for the rest of this season at least.

In respect of the ZR and ZS, it is apparent that Yokohama do not offer the 205/50x16 as specified in the 2008 Regs in 048’s and those cars have to use the old but still plentiful 032’s. I can confirm that the Regs for ZR and ZS are being amended to allow the use of the following tyres.



Yokohama 032 in 205 / 50 x 16 ( S compound only )
Yokohama 048 in 195 / 50 x 16 ( M compound only )
Yokohama 048 in 205 / 55 x 16 ( M compound only )

BARC will issue a formal Technical Bulletin to this effect in good time for the Snetterton races.

The tyre Regs for all other cars remain as shown in the 2008 MGOC Regulations

Cars for Sale
The list had become swamped with cars that had been sold but very few drivers ever bother to tell us. In view of this, the entire content of the For Sale list was deleted last month. Those of you still wishing to sell a car should contact the Club and have your advert re-instated. You will see from the attached list that a few drivers have already done this, if your cars is still for sale please call MGOC and get the advert re-instated.

Registrations
Anyone who hasn’t registered for the 2008 Championship will be deleted from the MGOC mailing list over the next few days. If you still wish to receive the Newsletters, please call MGOC and ask the girls to keep your name on the list.



After a busy start to the season, we now have a few weeks off until the double-header at Snetterton. This is always a good meeting and I hope to see a significantly bigger entry than we’ve managed in the first two of meetings.


See you there,

Jim

12th April 2008 Newsletter

Dear Competitor

It was good to see you all at Silverstone for the first race of the new season. There were some notable high and low points, a bit like any race meeting I suppose !!.

The MGOC Race Team marquee made it’s debut at Silverstone, well done to Paul, Gabi and others for getting it erected. On what turned out to be a freezing cold wet day, it was good to have somewhere to get out of the elements. The marquee has been purchased primarily for the Race Team but it will occasionally be used for other MGOC events, it’s a good focal point and I’d ask that you all make the effort to park up I the vicinity.

The low point of Silverstone was the poor entry in Classes B/Z, we only have 22 cars registered and the final turnout of just 14 cars was very disappointing. Over the past few months, we’ve made a big effort to recruit new drivers to Classes B/Z but have drawn a blank, the Autosport advert costs us a lot of money and didn’t bring one new driver in.

I’m already getting very concerned at the thought of just 15 or so Class B cars entering for the double-header meeting at Thruxton. On a track that can start 38 cars this will put us in a somewhat embarrassing position with BARC. To maintain our credibility, we need a minimum of 50 cars entered for that meeting.

We had a reasonable entry of 21 cars for the Class A/F race. I spent a lot of time talking to possible new drivers, I know that the ex-Dave Hill Midget, the ex-Steve Lewis MGB and one of Paul Naish’s MGF’s have been bought by new drivers and will be joining us during the course of the season.

With entries at their lowest pint for many years, it was particularly frustrating to see so many damaged cars in the paddock at Silverstone. It was particularly upsetting to see the ex-James Simons MGB of Brendan Murphy heavily damaged on the first lap of Practice. Colin Govey found himself unavoidably involved in this incident and ended up in the barriers as well, Colin’s car is effectively written off and he’s in the process of reshelling it. As well as this, it was little short of miraculous that no cars were damaged when Martin Will’s MGF spun off at Copse on the opening lap. Please all remember that cold tyres and a wet track just don’t go together.

On the bright side, congratulations go to Will Sharpe, Stratton Mackay, Ian Deaves and Gary Smith for hard earned wins in extremely difficult conditions.

As a Class A driver I have to say that I was particularly pleased for Will Sharpe who drove really well in his first ever wet race in the ex-Gary Smith Midget to take pole position. After being badly delayed on the opening lap incident at Copse, I was closing in on Will but he didn’t put a foot wrong and took a well deserved win.

Stratton also declared his intent for the coming season by coming from the back of the grid to win Class B.

Tyres
Many of you will have noticed that the prices for Yoko 048’s have gone up for the first time in 5 years, I would like top make the point that this rise is a result of a supplier increase from Yokohame, it is not a specific Adams and Page increase. I have done some cross checking and Adams and Page prices are lower than Demon Tweeks and both are lower than an equivalent tyre from Toyo. Whilst a price rise after 6 years isn’t unreasonable, the prices of the 16” tyres have risen a disproportionate amount and a number of drivers have questioned whether we should consider returning to a standard road tyre for the 2009 season.

With this in mind, we will be having an informal meeting at mid-day on Sunday at Pembrey to gauge your initial thoughts on the subject. We will have a follow-up meeting on the Sunday afternoon (Day 1) of the Snetterton meeting after you’ve had the chance to consider the implications of this matter.

I can assure you all that any change of tyres will not be taken lightly and will only happen if a significant majority of the registered drivers approve such a change. Once we’ve established the initial views we’ll be sending out a simple questionnaire to all drivers offering a few options for the future.

Double-header Meetings
You will have noticed that BARC are adopting a trend of having the Practice sessions on Day 1 and two races on Day 2. I appreciate this may not suit everyone but it’s one of the problems when there is a mixture of single races and double-headers on the same meeting. Obviously, the single day races have to Practice and Race on Day 1 and this often doesn’t leave enough time to run the first of our races on the afternoon of Day 1.

I can see why some of you don’t like this format but there isn’t great deal that BARC can do about it. As long as there is always at least 3 hours between our races which is enough time to do most of the likely running repairs I can’t really see a problem.

Pembrey
We have two races on the Sunday, I have to say this really suits me as I have a family commitment on Saturday and will miss Practice and start from the back of the grid for Race 1. Before anyone asks, I didn’t ask BARC to put both races to be on the Sunday.

Snetterton – Rounds 4 and 5
For the avoidance of any doubt, I can confirm that this double-header meeting will take place on 25/26th May not 24/25th as shown in the 2008 Regulations. I did mention this in an earlier newsletter and it’s pretty clear on the BARC race entry forms.



I look forward to seeing you at Pembrey.

Jim

19th March 2008

Dear Competitor,

The Mallory Test Day went really well and despite my gloomy forecasts, I’m pleased to say that we actually made a small profit on the day.

I’d like to personally thank all the MGOC boys who were able to make it to Mallory. I know that many more of you were prevented from being there by work and family commitments. We had good support from a number of invited guests, all of who were extremely complimentary about the way the day was run, the amount of track time they got and the friendliness of all the MGOC competitors. This sort of good publicity can only benefit the Championship.

ZS 120
Paul brought along his ZS120 and plenty of you took it out for a few laps to see how it performed.

A number of issues were raised and Paul has asked me to include the following summary of what happened on the day.

First Impressions of the MG ZS120 on track.

I had promised to have a ZS120 at the MGOC test day, Stratton MacKay and Paul Clackett were booked to drive it, and several other people had mentioned that they “wouldn’t mind a drive”. The car which I was preparing as a race-car still has it’s engine in pieces (I bought it with a knackered engine) so at the last minute I reassembled another (you can never have too many ZSs) and took it up to Mallory as a standard roadgoing car, except for a cheap (£40) induction kit and an alloy throttle body.

We put four correct Yokohamas onto the car, and fitted some EBC race pads, and that was it. No roll cage, no race seats - just a basic car.

General impressions were excellent, everybody who drove the car loved the handling – the (Honda) chassis is very well set-up, and the car was lapping consistently in the high 59s bracket over a 15 lap run in the afternoon. A high 59 on a test day (test day times always seem to be marginally quicker than race-day times) would probably equate to a low 60 in qualifying and would typically put a class B car within the top ten, but not on the front three rows.

The class B lap record at Mallory is 57.88 seconds, so the ZS is about two seconds off the pace. Two seconds at Mallory is a country mile (half a lap down in a 15 lap race) and will equate to a much bigger deficit on faster circuits.

The plan for the moment is to keep a watch on what happens. As a first action (reaction?), we will get BARC to issue a formal Technical Amendment to the initial ZS regulations prohibiting any software changes within the ECU. My thought behind this is to isolate changes to the car, add them one at a time, and quantify the result. Nobody suffers as a result of this change, since nobody has so far prepared a ZS. I think that a race suspension set-up will bring a small improvement, though won’t make up two seconds. Beyond that we’ll wait and see, and hopefully we’ll achieve some sort of performance equivalence later in the season.

We will also make a couple of regulation changes regarding the ZS suspension – purely to correct some inaccuracies.

Paul Clackett is building a ZS, and I’ll take mine out a time or two later in the season, look for hordes of ZSs next season.

BTW, I plan to document and publish everything I do to the ZS, as my dream is a class where everything is equal, except the final set-up and the creature behind the wheel.

The proposed changes to the ZS120 regs are as follows.

Suggested Bulletin regarding MG ZS120

Change
6.21.4 to read: Adjustable camber top suspension mounts front wishbones are permitted.
Change
6.21.5 to read: Adjustable Wheel camber rear control arms are permitted is free.
Change
6.21.7 to read: Suspension and rear H frame bushes and engine mounting materials are free.
Change
6.21.9 to raed: Strut braces may be fitted across the front and rear suspension mounts.
Change
6.21.10 to read: The original MG Rover ECU must be fitted and may not be modified or re-mapped in any way. MGOC reserve the right to swap ECUs between cars or to require the fitting of a control ECU without notice.


Championship Registrations
Attached are two sheets showing who has registered for the 2008 season.

Any drivers who haven’t re-registered for the 2008 season will be deleted from the mailing list at the end of March. I would remind you all again that BARC will only send out race entry forms out to those who have registered for the 2008 season

Race Trophies
I know that a number of drivers still haven’t registered but you will see that, at the moment, we are well down on Registrations for the coming season.

Last year we spent approaching £3000 on race and end of season trophies. In addition to this, MGOC have spent over £3000 over the past couple of months on the Autosport adverts and a Race Team marquee.

With fewer registrations and a hike in trophy costs we simply have to re-consider what we do.

For the coming season, we will award trophies on the following basis.
5 or less starters in a Class - trophy to the Class winners only
6 to 10 starters in a class - trophies to 1st and 2nd in all Classes
Over 10 starters in a Class - trophies to 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each Class.

I personally don’t take trophies at race meetings, any that I win are relabelled and used at later meeting. I know that many of the older hands who, like me, have hundreds of trophies are similarly unbothered about trophies. If any of you want to have them “re-cycled” please just return them to me as you see fit. It will all go towards balancing our budget.

Race Timetables
For those of you who don’t already know, the race timetables for all BARC/MGOC meetings are shown on the BARC website. I know that some are still not shown at the moment but they will all be added over the coming months. I must make the point that thee timetables are not “cast in stone” and are subject to change before the event takes place.

Race Team Website
Phil Emsley has given the website an excellent makeover, see www.mgoc-championship.co.uk
Apart from all the usual bits, there is a place where drivers can tell the adoring public who they are, what they do and their racing history. This does get read but very few drivers have entered their details. Spend a few minutes telling your fans about yourself.

I’m off to San Francisco on Good Friday and return the day before Silverstone so please be gentle with me. I look forward to seeing you all at Silverstone for the start of what will, incredibly, be my 28th year of MGOC racing.


Jim

3rd March 2008

Dear Competitor.

We’re into March now and the new season will soon be upon us.

Test Day
We’ve taken a lot of bookings over the past week and have had good support from other invited Clubs, we are still haven’t quite reached the break even point but, as usual, we’ll no doubt get plenty of late bookings. If you intend to come along then please send your booking in to MGOC as soon as possible as there is a limit to the number of bookings we can take, it’s very much first come first served and I’d hate to see any of our own drivers miss out.

Championship Registrations
These are coming in albeit rather slowly. Class A/F is looking strong but Class B/Z as it’s looking a bit thin at the moment and needs a push.

Please remember that BARC will only send out race entry forms to drivers who have registered for the 2008 season. The first race only 5 weeks away and BARC will start sending out trace entry forms very soon so please get your Registrations in as soon as possible

Lap Records
A number of new lap records were set last season (strangely none in Class A !!) , I’ve attached is a list of lap records to the end of the 2007 season, if anyone disagrees with anything on the sheet please let me know and I’ll investigate.

Novices
We don’t have too many Novices registered at the moment, but I know of one or two more in the pipeline. I would remind you all that anyone who has competed in no more than three previous car races with MGOC or any other Championship is eligible for or Novice Championship. Prior to the first race I will give a list of those who I believe to be Novices.

News
Congratulations go to Kevin Broadley who got married to Nicki last month. He has moved to York but still plans to do a full season in his MGB having bought a full spec engine from Trevor Dixon.

MGOC have taken delivery of the Race Team marquee, this will be at all future MGOC race meetings and will be an excellent focal point and gathering place. Once again, I’d like to say a big thank you to Richard Monk who committed well over £2000 of Club funds to purchase this for the Race Team.

I met Phil Emsley in London last week to talk about the Race Team website. Phil is extremely busy with a new and prospering business and won’t be doing much racing this year but he is pushing forward with a revised format for the website. This should be ready to go live before the start of the season.


I look forward to seeing you at Mallory on 18th and remember - get those booking forms in NOW


Jim