In my opinion if you want to refer to them Shellsport Cars then they need to comply with Shellsport regulations of the period otherwise they are just another hot rod class in old bodyshells. In saying that I can accept that new cars being built will need to comply with current safety regulations and that we can no longer purchase the control tyres run during the championship years
I agree Carlo, 100%.
I don't know if that particular Halliday Escort ever raced as a ShellSport car crunch. I was only posting that bit of info because a current photo of it was shown earlier in this thread.Originally Posted by crunch
Yes I agree here Carl, and that was my point, personally I am not against building a repilica car in any series such as this, for what you could call retrospective racing, but they must be to the same regs as in the day, and if a new build, comply with current safety regulations, as far as tyres are concerned, they could take a lesson out of the HMC rules to solve that problem.
Roger
Yep agree, as they were in regards to running gear, no big brakes etc. roll cages will have to change for new cars, but should be allowed to stay as they are in older cars.
Have actually shifted some more crap out of garage and can see car now.
Can I ask a silly questionwhen I see a picture of a restored car or for that matter a "xerox" , I see there is holey piece tying in the A piller to the Roll cage. Is this a requirement from the Motorsport NZ or a case of Monkey see/monkey do ? None of orginal cars had this ! Why do it now ?
Strength-how much do you value your life. Check out Geoff Sutherlands E49 Chargers flattened roof from Baypark to see that roof pillars are not strong. Once again racing is dangerous, people can get hurt or killed.They go MUCH faster now.I feel great looking at my holey pieces-more practical than praying to God just before an accident.
A 1978 Shellsport car is now 34 years older than when it was built and the shell will not have improved with age, nor has the speed of recovery of us 60+ year old drivers!
Seriously, this has been covered in previous topics but is worth covering again. The one unquestionable improvement in Motorsport over the last 30 - 40 years has been in the area of safety. The structural integrity of an old shell will have been compromised by the ravages of time and in the case of a historic period car by hard racing and impecunious subsequent owners. Building in modern safety structures should be mandatory, nobody questions the authorities demanding alloy cages being replaced, we should not question full cages where once a roll hoop would have been allowed.
I have said to my son, that i can only thank the almighty i did not have a big accident in my shellsport car. I don't think there would have been much left afterwards. The first year I raced it, there was only a half cage in it. There was a competitor who built a red B110 coupe, raced it a few times and then pulled it apart again.I bought the roll cage, dashboard, fibreglass bumpers and a door from him. My good mate Graeme Hill from school worked at a boat factory, and we spent hours making flares, bonnets and boot lids, trying to make them lighter and lighter. We also did the the other door, more bumpers and spoilers. I don't know how many we made!- lots. Dad took every second bolt out of the car........................and would come back with a bucket of bits he removed. Ha Ha, As I have said many times I don't know if people appreciate how quick these things were going.
Last edited by Steve Emson; 12-18-2012 at 06:24 AM.
Howard-I was at the last v8 Supercar race at Oran Park.Right in front of me on the last corner, an ex Bob Jane Escort rolled and hit the wall while in mid air at full speed..The passenger side and roof was flattened to the floor. The alloy rollcage had bent and broken completely. Absolutely no strength at all.YET the authorities in Aus dont want to compromise the historical value of the car by changing the cage-totally crazy.A roll cage is not a roll over cage, it is the only thing that surrounds you and protects you.And dont get me started about those using exhaust tubing in the early 70s..............
John, no problem with the point of a strong roll cage, but some of these older cars have different mounting points, and configuration etc, and i for one will not be cutting mine up and replacing. I am safety concious and believe my original cage is as strong as any new one (It is steel and I gotta sit in it, and want to be safe).
Must get a copy of regs and see what the go is.
Had a call from John Gobbe this morning who informed me that they have meetings and dates all set in place and that there are quite a few new cars under construction. Best you get hold of him Grimme, hate to see you miss out becasue they were over subscribed with entries
Rod, in my many duties in motor sport, one of these is a Auditor, and sometimes when looking at a older cage, while complying with regs of the I find them wanting, as far as mounting points go, a saloon car is the easiest to put a cage in, and if you are rebuilding a older race car,it is very easy to fit a new Homologated cage, some of the early cages really need careful inspection, but its a bit like crash helmets, if you have a cheap head, buy a cheap helmet, if you value your head, buy a expensive one.they all comply, but some are a lot better than others, safety is all about minimum standards, there is nothing to say you can not go to a higher level.
Roger
With regard to early roll cage regs: At one stage in the past years ( many ) ago I dont think you were actually allowed to 'Tie' the roll cage into the pillars or car structure ( It was meant to be a stand alone feature ) , cannot remember when or if that changed.
A tale of 2 Escorts.
Both built for the start of the 1978 Shellsport season but neither able to legally compete. One Don Halliday the other Bryan Hartley. Both built up to regs that had changed by the time it came to racing them. Can someone fill in the spaces? the only information I have is that it came down to the square flares.
Don Halliday
Bryan Hartley
Wow, really? I didn't know that! Would love to find out more. Both cars have ShellSport decals on them, I wonder how they managed to get around the rules? Looks like both are fitted with flares from the same molds.
I do not know when the Halliday pic is from, at a guess its Bay Park 1978. I as reading through a MotorAction from 78 and it seemed they were unable to race, Hartleys was put up for sale as soon as the regs were changed, not sure what the full story was, the Hartley Escort was a full Zakspeed replica.
Just a comment about current cages and a bit of extra info I find weird.
My long term project car had a basic cage built to the MSNZ regs of the day (2006) but was never signed off - although pics were forwarded to MSNZ prior to painting. All progressed quite happily and the car is now trimmed and painted - but the rules have changed regarding the main hoop - and only the main hoop.
On approaching MSNZ they said they can't pass it as it no longer conforms but an engineer's report will suffice. (The fact that there are 100's of cars out there with the older spec hoops is apparently irrelevant, as they won't have to conform.)
A consulting engineer then came back with what he needed to pass the MSNZ requirements for a freeform cage, because that is what it is now classed as.
There is so much extra steel now required (with 360 degree welds of course) that it is impossible to conform without totally wrecking the car. Now here is the rub.
IF the cage was constructed to the current approved design with the slightly stronger main hoop, IT WOULD FAIL ALL THE TESTS DEMANDED OF A FREEFORM CAGE!!!
I am currently now removing the front cage as it is the one and only option to get the car road legal. Crunch has seen the two designs and can confirm the madness of it all. I wouldn't mind so much but the only reason for putting any cage in at all is for a bit of extra piece of mind in an otherwise perfectly solid 1950's unlightened shell, just in case I want do the odd low key competition in it. It is not a 700hp super tourer but the suggested cage design would suit one.
Last edited by ERC; 01-09-2013 at 04:29 AM.
Sean, that could explain why the Halliday Escort was advertised here fitted with a quad-cam Cosworth V6 for big-bore sedan racing. I wonder if after it had been made illegal for ShellSport, it was re-engined for other work?
I will have a look through my MotorActions and see if there is reference to it racing.
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