New Zealand ShellSport Saloon Series 1978 - 1985

[John McKechnie]

Without getting too involved here-is it the material involved? I understand after a certain recent rally accident, chrome moly cages are a minefield. I recently had my cage built for HMC -seamless steel- and it was homologated within 1 week-I was very impressed with how quickly it was done.

[Russ Cunningham]

A very good friend of mine went through the same crap with MSNZ over the roll cage in his car. What had been acceptable for years suddenly became unacceptable to the twits in Wellington. He has now sold the car and won't race again. This man has been a competitor in saloons, sportscars and single seaters since the 60's.

Crunch sounds like a decent fellow but the others at MSNZ appear to be mindless F...wits intent on destroying motor racing in this country. Time we went our own way and disregarded MSNZ completely.

[Kiwiboss]

Without getting too involved here-is it the material involved? I understand after a certain recent rally accident, chrome moly cages are a minefield. I recently had my cage built for HMC -seamless steel- and it was homologated within 1 week-I was very impressed with how quickly it was done.

First, can someone start a thread on "Rollcages for Historic and Classic race cars" to save this thread.

OK, I shouldn't be getting embroiled in this conversation as i don't have all the facts but going on what i've read here on the RR, why is it that John McKechnie can build his HMC falcon and have the cage homologated and log booked in 1 week when others have issues? what has he done right that others haven't? I've probably built 6 Mustang rollcages in the last 10 or so years and have NEVER had a problem getting them passed, logbooked, stamped, boom bang done, paid, out the door, even with rules changes!! So whats the REAL issues here? because if its about building a cage to the current day specs "at the time" and then trying to homologate and logbook it say "1 to 10" years later well you're just asking for trouble as current day rules in most anything are constantly changing and on the move, is this the problem? if so well im sorry im with the MSNZ tech guys on this.

There are currently other cage issues like MSNZ not wanting to logbook an existing overseas schedule K Historic race car that has its overseas logbook and paperwork and that has been raced overseas since the early 70's because the cage doesn't fit current MSNZ standards, but thats another story.

Dale(im about to get shot down forsure)Mathers

[John McKechnie]

I am having trouble understanding something here -if you do the cage as per regulations in the MSNZ book, why will it not be homologated?

[Rod Grimwood]

John before backing the favorite horse. don't know if you read the story behind this. A quick point - Your cage would have to pass as you only built it a couple of weeks ago, (to present regs I hope) so you know what is expected now. The one in conversation was built to regs over a period of rebuild and when apply for cert. told sorry that changed a "week" ago. After an extensive build of a classic, a week comes into the equation. Also a engineer has backed it, and what qualifications does the person in Wellington have, if like most beaurocrats down there, little but maybe can read.
Classic I would have thought was for previous hard driving, competitve, crazy, hard case drivers along with club drivers, Sunday skidders and gentlemen racers to all get together and enjoy a skid around and look at and discuss each others cars (as they were and are)

This has been discussed on an other thread and maybe we need a new one and get back to shellsport.
Back to Shellsport
As I said before, I parked and walked from sport back in 90 because of official poo, and if it looks like the same will happen, the door stays down and diesel not petrol goes on the card.

[markec]

Ray,You have been sent a personal message via me from Dave Silcock.

[ERC]

I'll start a new thread....

[bob homewood]

I'll start a new thread....

Steve I think to keep things tidy ,you should move the roll cage posts and discusiion over to the new thread and leave this thread as the pure Shellsport thread

[markec]

Does anyone realise what the ramifications of scenario really are, on the one hand you have a roll cage that has been assessed by a registered engineer to be 25% stronger than that model recomended by MSNZ. This roll cage is deemed by MSNZ to be inadaquat so is not accepted.
The way I see it is that all MSNZ recomended roll cages that have passed as being suitable, are in fact going to fail, as they are 25% weaker than one that MSNZ will not pass as it does not fit the model that MSNZ are recomending.
I hope MSNZ have a very good insurance policy, as any resulting serious injuries or deaths will be looked at rather severely by the Labour Department, with all sorts of liabilities aimed at those who have signed and rubber stamped these cages off.
Your thoughts will make interesting reading.

[Rod Grimwood]

Go to new thread please guy's. (Roll Cages) and if you can shift these Steves be good, Ta.

[Steve Holmes]

Guys, all discussion regarding roll cages, please go to the new thread. Unfortunately I can't move the posts on here to the new thread because they're older than the thread itself, but anything you guys think is important, just copy and paste into that thread.

[markec]

The two Findlay cars together

[crunch]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15419[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15420[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15421[/ATTACH]
The two Findlay cars together
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15422[/ATTACH]

In the bottom photo, I know the Findlays Bakeries car is still around, but is the other?
Where did the Rod Collingwood Datsun end up, is it the same car that Tony Marsh used?
Very interesting stuff

[Carlo]

The ex Reg Cook Sanyo Sunny will be seen in action this weekend at Levels.

[markec]

[Growler]

Hi Guys.
Sorry to bring up an old thread but found this site recently by chance. Reading some of the posts in this forum gets me excited – especially with the prospect of getting these cars racing again under an historic banner of sorts.
The Black and White Avenger used to belong to my Uncle. This was raced in Shell Sport quite regularly…however the car is no more.
In the late 90’s we decided to build another car (Talbot Sunbeam – Non Lotus) for the new SS2000 class and we used all of the running gear from the Avenger (As the front half of a Lotus Sunbeam is Avenger!) The old shell was very tired and we decided to cut it up and scrap it (Which I reluctantly did). Once the new car was built I raced it in SS2000 and Auckland Car Club events for around 6 years.
I stopped racing when I got divorced (It’s difficult when your household income drops by half!). I still have the car locked away in the garage. At this stage I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it. I know there are some people who want to get the old cars back out again. If it takes off it might motivate me to get the car out there again.

[Steve Holmes]

Great looking Avenger! Of course you weren't to know that one day there would be an interest in resurrecting old ShellSport cars. Back then they were just old race cars. Many of them ended up in SS2000 in the early years, and many were cut up to keep pace.

Looks like at least one other ex-ShellSport car on the grid there too?

[Growler]

Great looking Avenger! Of course you weren't to know that one day there would be an interest in resurrecting old ShellSport cars. Back then they were just old race cars. Many of them ended up in SS2000 in the early years, and many were cut up to keep pace.

Looks like at least one other ex-ShellSport car on the grid there too?

I believe the original SS2000 rules were based on the Shell Sport rules so cars built for that series should also be elegible?

[Steve Holmes]

Yes you're right, although I know they were very keen to introduce newer model cars.

[worsel]

Well, well, well, look who was at Highlands Park Opening Weekend, the two best cars IMO, I'm not biased!