MG Car Club of South Australia
2017 MG CAR CLUBS INTERCLUB CHALLENGE 10 - 12 JUNE
n the Queen ’ s Birthday long weekend ( 10 – 12 June ) the 2017 MG
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Challenge was conducted in Victoria . The Challenge is generally run every year alternating between Melbourne and Adelaide but there had not been one since 2014 .
A team of ten SA competitors journeyed to Melbourne to take on competitors from Victoria ( 32 ), Geelong ( 9 ) and Sydney ( 1 ). A number travelled over together on the Friday and others travelled solo as suited them . In addition to the ten competitors we had great support from Bev Waters , Ian Curwen-Walker , Chris Bray and Faye Edwards .
An early start each day was a struggle with the gates opening at Sandown on Saturday at 6:45am and at Rob Roy on Sunday at the same time . Typically early mornings in Melbourne were very cold , and dark , but the days turned out mild and sunny providing for some great competition and social fun .
The sprint at Sandown was run by the MSCA Vic in conjunction with their Come & Try sprint and it was very well run . MGs were split into three run groups and each had four runs of approx fifteen minutes for the day . Cars were not seeded by times so there was a mixture of fast and slow cars in each group . Each run group was sent out behind a safety car for a warm up lap and when the safety car left the track the green flag was waved and competition started . A noise restriction of 75dBA was set for the day as it was a “ club competition ” day , i . e . road cars , not a “ race day ”, but none of our members had an issue despite some early concerns .
Garry Bolt had some issues with getting the V8 to run well but did put in some good laps . Jason Edwards in the Lotus was the fastest car on the day doing a 1:24.04 lap ( top speed approx 208km / h ) but Non Marque cars do not score in the outright competition . The Fastest MG on the day was Peter Mathwin in the MGB GT V8 with a lap time of 1:27.55 . I wonder how fast he will be when the engine is run in ! Laurie Houghton was second outright at 1:29.67 .
MGCCSA scored three class wins , a second and two thirds in the sprint but it is not all about wins . Wes did a personal best in the 1100 and Karen had her first run at Sandown dealing with some of the fastest cars out there .
Two runs on the day were designated “ Regularity ” and the competition is to be consistent across four laps of each session with the winner being the driver with the smallest variance . The outright winner from Sydney had a variance of 0.95s over four laps ! Most of us just kept trying to go faster . Our best was Karen with 2.62s giving her a class win and seventh outright .
Sandown is an awesome track and it was great to be able to compete there given that it may be subdivided for housing in the not too distant future . Sunday ’ s Hillclimb at Rob Roy started with unloading in the dark and trying to keep warm . The track was very slippery for the familiarisation run and first competition run and a — Continued pg 30
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