Latest HMC E-mailout. Dale
Greetings HMC Fans, Guys and Gals Sorry for the delay in getting this mail-out done. Busy, Busy, Busy.
They say that “Rome wasn’t built in a Day” and you could also say that “All roads lead to Rome” and this typically describes HMC at the moment. We have all these cars coming but are very slow in showing up. We have vehicles been built, others undergoing major work, upgrades, and several looking to buy their dream historic racer. This all takes time and then there’s the “Fence sitters” and my god there’s enough of them to field their own group but will we see any? Certainly hope so. I know most are in self-employed business’s and it’s still a battle out there even though we know the economy is looking favourable so new builds have understandably been slow and on the back burner, generally second priority but do keep at it. Some parked up their cars missing the legends meeting for just this very reason but with a good 6 month break until September’s Ice Breaker I am sure we’ll see a couple surface and they need too. This is a good shake down event for the coming summer season, and once the Festival rolls around there will be no time to sort your car, as with those "Hot Shoe" Aussie's over you need it to be turn-key ready for both weekends.
As mentioned in past Mailouts I’ve been experimenting with the Avon 15” CR6ZZ historic radial DOT tyre on my Mustang and have found them extremely good. They are made in England and are a proper historic spec tyre for GT40’s, Shelby Mustangs, E-Type Jags, Camaros and most other larger saloons. Its what they must race on in Europe and England at events like Goodwood. For my Mustang I found them a great medium wet to dry racing tyre and when starting out in a wet race where the track slowly dry’s they work fantastic. They don’t go off like many wet tyre do, so with that in mind this will be our spec wet weather tyre for HMC and this also retains our 15" period wheel size.
So far Gimblett, MacDonald and myself have purchased them, so you should go for it. Lucky we have a Avon dealer here in Hamilton and they can be contacted at
http://www.dold.co.nz/news/avon-ventura.aspx they handle Avon motorbike race tyres but will import the correct saloon CR6ZZ tyres for HMC, so give them a call. If you need some ideas of sizing please contact me.
For myself I also missed having the PDL Mustang at the Legends meeting for this very reason, and it also required damage repairs from the Festival Marque incident last January, so while it was apart I decided to do some upgrades. This will be ready for next season, so there you go guys NOW is the time to get that work done and get that HMC racer ready.
The Legends of Speed, March 2015. As mentioned above we had turn-key HMC vehicles ready to race but for this event their owners were a no show for the various reasons. However this was not good enough because if you want events we need you to turn up. The Legends is one of the premier classic meetings on the calendar and a perfect time of the year, great weather, still warm but not baking hot and daylight savings is still in. So make sure you mark your calendar for next year because we only had 8 HMC vehicles entered along with 15 under 3 litre historic saloons and Sports/GT’s. The racing was fantastic and socially it was a great weekend. On Ray Green’s advice we decide to do two roll up handicap races and this certainly worked a treat, giving everyone a reasonably even chance. The spectacle of this meeting was having Roger Williams newly imported American A-Sedan Camaro with us. What a fantastic effort by Roger and his team, only 2 weeks landed in NZ and he had the car repainted completely in American Airlines colors representing the ex-Joe Chamberlain Camaro as raced in back in 1972/3. Doesn’t it look the part.
Not only that, he refitted the headlights, door glass, bumpers, etc to make sure it was HMC compliant. This is what historic saloon car racing is about so a great effort Roger. But even at this event we didn't lose sight of historic racing values, we want the cars correct and it’s also about remembering the past era of NZ saloon car racing. So, because these old cars have made all the history they’re ever going to make, it makes winning that one extra race not so important and certainly isn’t going to add any value to your old racer! It’s about taking it out and enjoying it and THAT friends and racers is what HMC is about, and what we saw in Rogers effort at the legends.
U3L Historic Saloon Cars: The feedback from the Under 3 litre Saloons has been immense. Many have shown a keen interest to be incorporated in with HMC at the historic race meetings and as many have run with us are already up to MSNZ T&C specs. As they want to race in a more appropriate historic field, we have decide to allow this. It also makes good sense as this was the way New Zealand saloon car racing was run, back in the day. The U3L group still have the option to race in other groups at the same meetings should they so desire. So from this year’s September Ice Breaker meeting we will welcome all U3L pre 78 Historic saloons and GT’s that meet T&C or Schedule K regulations and have a current COD. For further information contact myself or Arther Vowles at
mailto:?subject=&body= , more to come on this.
Certificate of Descriptions(COD's) for HMC cars are now mandatory. The only exceptions would be if you have filed you application and it’s not returned in time for the event. We will consider this acceptable but expect you to have it finalised for the next meeting. Raymond "Crunch" Bennett, our H&C Commission chairman, along with the rest of the H&C Commission committee have a made a big effort in working with HMC in ensuring applications once submitted, will usually be returned promptly. All HMC COD’s will be stamped by an official MSNZ stamp so check that yours is done. As mentioned in the past compliance will be a 2 step exercise for HMC Firstly they need the COD and then secondly they need an audit by a HMC Approved auditor.
By the Howden Ganley Festival, January 2015(8 months away) ALL HMC vehicles will need both these reviews. A COD is not hard and I am happy to help and Tony also has a very good handle on the COD system. Remember, a COD is your vehicles "Technical Passport" to historic car racing so it’s important to have it have regardless of the HMC Audit process. Our Tech auditors David Graham and Keith Hardgraves will handle the HMC Audit, and by the way David Graham is now a full fledged MSNZ COD auditor now, so well done David.
If you do not have a COD please go ahead and start your COD application now
http://www.motorsport.org.nz/sites/default/files/motorsport/manual/35%20App%206.03%20COD.pdf If your vehicle has a COD and you would like a audit pre-event then please contact myself or Tony and we will organise our tech auditors to get in touch. This will make things a lot easier at the race event if your vehicle is pre-audited.
Desirae Cameron, owner of HMC 65 Mustang 389 from Stratford has kindly offered her services to run our Historic Muscle Car Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/historicmusclecars so if you want to add any info please send it to her direct at
mailto:?subject=&body= or maybe just post it yourself, this Facebook stuff is kind of new to me but I guess it’s another way to help promote HMC and old saloon car racing
Other News: We will very soon incorporate HMC as a society. The club will register with MSNZ and annual membership fee’s will apply. The sanctioning of the class with MSNZ to formalise the rules is currently under way. These two actions will help the class with such things as MSNZ recognised auditors, formal published class rules, facebook, magazine articles and promotional events outside the racing.
This is all but done bar the final paper shuffle and has taken a lot of work between myself, Mike(Coory) Steve, Tony, Crunch, and the other H&C commission members so though Mailouts have been tardy, behind the scenes plenty is happening. Health House has kindly agreed to come back as the HMC supporter for the 2015 Howard Ganley Festival. More info on this in future newsletters. Please remember that for all of us this is voluntary, if you haven’t heard anything for a while do feel free to call for a chat.
Australian Trans Am: Its still early yet but now I can confirm that at least 10 Australian Trans Am cars will make the trip to Hampton Downs in January 2015 for the Howden Ganley Festival. This is part of our bi-annual arrangement between HMC and ATA. In working together both ATA and HMC will look after each of their own perspective groups for vehicle compliance, with the goal that on track performance is kept evenly matched. Last time we came together only a fraction of a second separated the front 8 cars so this makes for very close racing. For those that don’t know, the 3 events we’ve done with ATA has been a hoot and even if you only do it once in your life it’s a must.
For the first time this year ATA will be racing at the Muscle Car Masters, Eastern Creek, Sydney, the event date is September 6/7th. So if you want to get away from the winter blues here’s a good change to visit this great event, support ATA and make yourself known! But, please make sure you’re back by the following week for the Ice Breaker at Hampton.
