July 2017 HMC and HSC Newsletter along with Race datesGreetings HMC/HSC Racers, Family and Fans
Our Annual AGM style Seminar on May 20th at the McLaren Workshop, Hampton Downs went down a treat with an excellent turnout. Initially we expected around 20 to 25 people but we ended up with 50 attending so well done and thanks for all those that made the effort to turn up. The weather was terrible but we kicked of at 11am sharp, the meeting was Chaired by MSNZ Executive Raymond(Crunch) Bennett who flew up from Palmerston North.
HMC Director Steve Holmes started by explaining New Zealand’s interesting Motorsport history along with Australians Motorsport History and how this relates and intertwins with HMC and HSC regulations. In fact Steve’s presentation was so superb that you could have heard a pin drop. It was full of excellent detail and not boring at all. I am sure most came away with a better understanding on what HMC and HSC is about.
Crunch then gave a short presentation and took questions from the floor. Bruce Dyer asked for a show of hands about continuing racing both groups together and everyone agreed, after all this is how the racing was in period.
After this I stood up and covered race dates, the direction of the two groups and the current happenings in Historic and Classic motorsport here and worldwide. The meeting ended after about 3 hours and we had a BBQ and drinks.
Also in attendance were our Tech Auditors Keith Hargraves and Dave Graham. These two do a great job keeping the vehicles in check and more importantly helping out new racers to HMC and HSC by sorting out the necessary paperwork. Mike Fiesst and Phil Noble help with photography and run both our Facebook pages, it was great to have them with us as was our class Coodinator Mike Wigmore. Good to see Motor Racing Legend Alan Boyle attend and explain what it was like back in those days, we certainly are spoilt in todays world.
Was also great to see some new faces amongst us, Rally car racer Greg Goudie brings along a V8 Capri this season, Jason Sabin his XA Falcon coupe, Philip Macey a XC Falcon Cobra, Graeme Bagarie 69 Mustang (drove all the way from Levin), and Doc John Elliot building a LX Torana, Craig Hyland HQ Monaro, Karl Sentch Capri V8 were all in attendance, thanks for coming guys. A Gold Coin donation was made to the McLaren Trust as thanks for the use of their workshop, it set a nice theme for the day. I’d say its most likely we’ll have an annual meeting like this after each season.
Next seasons 2017/18 HMC and HSC Race Dates
Daylight Saving Starts, Sunday 24th September
1. 14th October 2017, TACCOC Classic One Day Saturday - Hampton Downs
2. 10/11/12th Nov 2017, Wellington MG Classic – Manfeild
3. 10th Dec 2017, TACCOC Classic One Day Sunday – Hampton Downs
4. 20/21 January 2018, Taupo Historic GP – Taupo (Wellington Anniversary Weekend)
5. 17/18th March 2018, HRC Legends – Hampton (WON’T Clash with Beach Hop)
Daylight Saving Ends, Sunday 1st April 2018
6 7/8 April 2018, Great lakes Taupo – HRC – Taupo
Meetings 2, 4 and 5 are our premier events
Dales Ramblings: I spoke about race dates and driver participation at our May seminar and I asked for driver feedback. I sent an E-mail out the week after our meeting to gauge feedback and most came back with the above dates been the most favourable. Not only do they represent the best spread over the summer, but stacking too many dates together tends to take some racers away from meetings and other summer priorities. The above dates are our official meetings.
On the technical side there has been a change in our brake calipers from Wilwood Engineering in the USA. After 35 plus years they have decide to stop making the Wilwood Grand Nation GNIII 6 Piston Caliper. They have unfortunately replaced it with a modern version of a Forged Radial mount style Caliper with mounting bracket. This puts these new calipers outside our regulations and won’t be legal to use.
In the last month or so I’ve been swapping E-mails with Wilwood’s management begging them not to do this, or just to continue making small batches of the GNIIIs. But of course little ol’ NZ doesn’t have the population to generate sales that a big American company like Wilwood is looking for. Meanwhile Wilwood said it will continue to make all its other calipers including Superlite 6 lug mount two piece caliper which will be the best alternative for the bigger HMC cars.
You can still continue to use your old set of GNIII’s or find some second hand ones. I see they’re still available new on E-Bay in the USA but once current stock is used up that will be it. As an alternative I’ve been in contact with a Australian company that can make brake calipers in small batches and possibly copy the old GNIII, I’m yet to hear back but will keep you informed once I do.
Steve Holmes is in the process of building a new Website that will have more updated information and a new look. For the HMC cars we will have, over time, regulations for every vehicle on the eligibility list and easy to understand updated regs for the HSC cars. It takes time to build all the information required for every vehicle.
For this coming season No COD will mean No entry as everyone has had more than enough time to file their paperwork, or to even update their current COD if out dated. Remember MSNZ event officials don’t except entrees without a Log book so same applies here. It pays to be organised when it comes to sorting out CODs and Logbooks so this is a reminder to do it now.
http://www.motorsport.org.nz/content/certificate-description-cod form T009 for new COD’s and form T010 to update your COD
HMC/HSC Calendars: Some of you may know that Phil Noble, Jim Lester and Allie Hogg have been working on a calendar for 2018. Phil informs me that at this time a selection of images have been submitted and hopefully this week will see some final selections made. Criteria for these selections revolve around a reasonable even split between HMC and HSC, the image quality, a representation of the different tracks/events we raced on last summer and a few of our historically famous cars. Phil informs me that the quality of images to be considered is absolutely outstanding.
Once a final selection has been made, the drivers who are sponsoring the project will get a chance to approve the images used. Once this is done Steve Holmes has kindly agreed to provide the text for the captions. Phil hopes to meet with the calendar people in the next 2-3 weeks to cover off production issues and hopes to have finalised result in about 4-6 weeks. At this stage we have received indications of interest from about 80 people who want to buy a calendar. If you are interested please contact Phil directly via email (below) or Facebook as we need to know for numbers. At this stage we can only consider NZ based supporters, but may be able accommodate orders from Oz if someone was able to coordinate it locally.