No, adrenaline is brown...
Come on, everyone is deadly serious on here.
Some thought I bent the rules once, but it was just interpretation, (there's not mine of course). I still have those 'springs' hanging on the wall.
So would putting the chassis of a car inside the body instead of underneath, or fitting a 1500cc Cortina 5 bearing crank into a 109e 3 bearing block be considered cheating or just getting creative? Funny how the guys with non de plumes cant take anything seriously, now whats a Buckler?
Jac Mac, yes you have been that forever, I am just an Old Fart but nom de plume or just being honest?
I presume that a good South of the Mainland like you is tongue in cheek about Bucklers as there were several from the town on your neck of the woods, and not too long before your time. Kelvin Brown did exactly that crank into block thing you mention(in his Tahuna Beach Ford 8), only rule was capacity class. Is that "cheating"? Is it possible to "cheat" with an allcomer?
A couple of great quotes.
One by Douglas Bader (WW2 Fighter Pilot)
"Rules are for the guidance of wise men & the obedience of fools"
Unknown
"May the best cheat win"
Another funny little story I heard of Harry Firth (the king of bending rules to breaking point) from the 70's after he left Ford & went to HDT. He put in a complaint about illegal parts being used on the falcons. When he was questioned about how he would know about those parts. He replied I put them on!"
Also in the days of the Cortina GT, to qualify the cars to be production cars all parts had to be listed in the factory parts catalogue & available in the local dealer. So Harry would re write the Ford parts catalogue & make a few available to certain people.
A couple of days before the race a crate would arrive at the local ford dealers that no one but Harry was allowed to open. If the scrutineers questioned the parts used on his car, he would pull out his special parts catalogue & then take them down to the dealer & crack open the crate showing that the parts were available at the Ford dealer. Not cheating but cutting it very close.
OK, at the Glenvale 200 in 1973 Jim Richards rolled up in the Norris Miles GTHO (A C Gill menswear) and was lapping 4 seconds faster than Leo Leonards Charger- he was lapping in 64 secs. He was allowed to run in production race. Was that cheating, or is it the fault of the scrutineers and organisers for accepting it? it was described as ... looking more like a Bank of Wales car than standard production .Also was s comment- cars were no more standard than OSCA cars.
Ellis- I dont know, but I do know that Allan Moffat told the world that Leo Leonard had the fastest Charger in the world after it dusted his GTHO at Wigram.
.There was a time in the race when Leo was putting up faster times than Richards, but then he pulled out
.In 72 it apparently was really wet. Jim Richards was driving Escort 1300 GT came 13th
My point is only- when there are no rule or clearly defined rules ,there is no cheating.
That is why standard production and production racing then was so hard to police-look at those running racing tyres in these races- Francivic did at Wigram in his GTHO- the organizers allowed him
Last edited by John McKechnie; 09-05-2013 at 06:54 PM.
I remember hearing the comment made at a B & H race "if you win it drive it into the rubbish tip at the end of the back straight on your warm down lap".
You can hardly blame anyone for getting creative in car racing in NZ, virtually all 'Factory Or Factory assisted ' saloons have mods that many consider outside the envelope, a few examples, The fahey escort & capri, torsion bar rear suspension & coil over rear suspension, but with the original leaf spring still there,only in plastic/nylon leaf material, Mustangs with relocated wishbones, front suspension towers, rear axles & wheel arches shifted, dual firewalls on factory rally cars. You can hardly blame the locals when examples like that were being brought into the country. Those examples were only the tip of the iceberg. Got to hand it to you Custaxi 50, so if Robbie did it it must be all right?