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A Day at the Races (two really)
By Metro Maniacs Team Manager -Dave Javes
The plan...
So the plan was to arrive at Snetterton early evening on Friday, practice and two races on Saturday, with plenty of time between to tinker. Put the cars to bed then cook a “Barby” that had been arranged by the Metro Babes (2008 calendar girls?) 100 sausages, 50 burgers and 50 grill sticks, take in a few beers and relax. Get up on Sunday, the 4 hr relay race drivers to do a few laps each in qualifying while I sit around and relax. Lunch, then get ready for a 1:30 start.
The reality...
After a tiresome journey across to Norfolk (when will they bypass those traffic lights on the A11) we had a pleasant evening with the other Metros arriving at regular intervals. Qualifying went well in the morning, with no major problems or incidents. So, this was going to be a relaxing weekend -was it!
Race one was a cracker. The only thing is Richard doesn’t make the “in” lap – I keep telling him to make sure he doesn’t put too much fuel in (oops!). Dick comes in to the paddock with a slightly slipping clutch. A quick check suggested that the primary oil seal had failed, indicated by the amount of oil at that end of the engine bay. Two hours before the next race so heads down to remove the flywheel etc. and replace the offending item with about two minutes to spare. Richard, in the mean time, arrives on the end of a piece of string behind a tow truck with a charred wiring loom. That’s Richard’s car -not the truck. As he revealed later, the electrical short started at Coram and by the time he got to the finish line he had flames toasting his left arm. A little re-wiring and he was ready to go.
Race two got even more interesting in a perverse sort of way. First Dick comes in with a clutch problem. My one good ear directed to the engine reveals a rough tinkling sound. Lifting the bonnet revealed an even louder version of the same. Race over. Next in was Tony. With the chequered flag out, which he hadn’t seen, he crawled up the pit lane with an engine producing the power of a lawn mower. Eventually I convince him to drive up the pit lane to cross the finish line, eventually coming to a stop in the pit exit road after ignoring the marshals standing in his way. But he got the finish. Jon Flanigan, who was seen in the race making some sudden moves across the track, reports a wheel bearing failure on the near side front hub. Richard has no problems to report so at the moment he’s doing the whole four hours!
Back to the garage and assess where we are with cars available for the relay race. Ok. So “Barby” first. And very nice it was too. Many thanks ladies for arranging the food and drinks and specially to Kyla who made sure I had a beer and cut 50 sausages off the strings.
Back to the cars. 8:00pm -Taking the flywheel housing off Dick’s car reveals a fully floating flywheel as a result of a broken crank. Tony offers his spare engine, so eyes down for a late night. While this is going on Tony looks into the cause of his power loss. After checking a few things he decides to change just about everything. In the mean time Jon has joined the melee to repair his front hub. Over the following four and a half-hours Jon’s got his hub back together; Tony’s changed everything but can’t test the car as he needs high revs and the neighbours need their sleep; Dick’s car fires. That’s it! Time to have a quick wash and get to bed. Bugger -still got to make the bed!
Up bright and breezy to finish off the engine change and those little things like a radiator, ignition timing, air filter etc. All goes well and we finish the installation with a bit of time to spare. Tony starts his car with the same problem as the day before -no power. What hasn’t he changed? With a spare carburettor available (no needle) we set about swapping bits over from one to the other. After a few choice words, swap completed, starts up and eureka! Problem solved.
So with about 30 minutes to go we have all four cars running and sounding good. Then , just as he was due to practice, Jon discovered that his gearbox mount had fractured. He practiced anyway and then set about replacing it leaving us with four cars ready and primed again.
I think most of us in the team, and by that I mean all of the people that were supporting and helping, thought that with the rushing to do all these repairs it would be a good result to get a finish and a great result would be mid table. I’ll leave others to describe the race and the result in detail. Just to say we did better than expected.
Finally a very big thank you to the whole Drayton Manor team. This was a team effort we should all be proud of.
Mechanical Breakdowns do not Handicap Metro Maniacs
by Drayton Manor Park MG Metro Cup Co-ordinator -Jean Ellis
“I owe it all to STP and IPA” quipped a delighted Dave Javes, Manager of the team of Drayton Manor Park MG Metro Cup metros which won the inaugural MGCC British Motor Heritage four hour Relay on handicap.
The race took place at the Snetterton circuit on the afternoon of 7th October and the team consisted of Dick Trevett, Tony Howe, Richard Garrard and Jon Flanigan. The STP, or sticky toffee pudding to give it it’s proper name, was fed to the drivers at the Saturday night barbeque. This gave them the energy to stay up until mid-night repairing all four cars and then rise at 7am to complete the task.
The team started towards the rear of the grid with a 25 lap credit. Dick took the first thirty minute stint and lapped consistently until Tony took over. Tony settled into his groove and was clearly having a great race. Richard took over after one hour and drove really well. We received a list of the handicap positions after 1 hour which showed us in second place. Having done the Birkett 6 hour Relay on several occasions, we old hands knew not to build our hopes up and we concen-trated on the job in hand.
Jon followed Richard at the 1½ hour marker and his times came down to 1 minute 29 seconds. He was clearly enjoying himself and found time to wave to the pit wall crew! We had called him in for the end of his 30 minutes, but as he came towards Russell’s on his last lap we saw him slowing and he had his lights on to warn us that he had a problem. The pit crew were ready for Dick to take over and the procedures put in place by the team manager ensured that the least possible time was lost during the driver changes.
Jon’s problem proved to be his turbo and the team manager decided to leave Dick out for an additional 10 minutes. If Tony and Richard could both do an extra 10 minutes, this would take us to the end of the four hours.
Whilst Tony was waiting in the garage to take over, he noticed a young lady standing by his car taking off her race suit. I don’t know who she was but she made an old man very happy! (or should that be a happy man very old?). Unfortunately Tony was held up for 1¾ minutes at the end of the pit lane due to the safety car being out. We were about to count Tony down for the end of his time when we realised that he had not come round. Once again, teamwork saved the day.
Dave had had the foresight to station Brian Goodliffe on the Revitt straight and he phoned in to say Tony had broken down with a transmission problem which later turned out to be no worse than a disintegrated clutch plate. As soon as Tony’s car was off the track, we were able to release Richard and he drove steadily on until the race ended, his second period lasting over 45 minutes. We had had a wonderful day and many of the Championship faithfuls had come along to help both for the barbeque and during the relay. When the final sheet arrived we saw that we were equal on laps with Team Bitty. They had completed 177 laps with no credit laps and we had managed 153 plus 24 credit laps. We were second overall due to Team Bitty crossing the line before us. We could not feel disappointed as we had all had such a wonderful time. We arrived at the prize presentation in good spirits and saw Team Bitty receive the laurels for being the winning team on the track. Imagine our delight when we heard that they could not receive two first awards and that we had been promoted to winners on handicap. Dave received a laurel wreath and cup and the drivers a cup each. All were give a 1st place Snetterton cap. Dave gave me the sixth cap as I had been on the pit wall all afternoon. The end of a perfect day.
A big thank you to all the pit crew and congratulations to the team and manager. I consider relays to be the best day’s motor sport I have had. As co-ordinator I was proud of all “my boys” and as we had 18 on both grids on the Saturday, the relay win made the week-end of my ‘significant birthday’ complete.
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