The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE
BRITISH FIELD DAY - (June 18, 2022)
at Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
Hosted by British Cars of Utah.
British Cars of Utah as a club does not have regularly monthly club meetings. They do try to have some club activity every month, but often on short notice, which is probably why we have not connected with this club in the past 8 years. This car show is their traditional annual offering, so we were taking the opportunity make the connection and hang out with the club for a day. It was better attended than I may have guessed, so let's start by taking pictures of about a hundred cars, some being more odd or more interesting that the common assortment.
There was a rather sad Morris Minor Traveler looking for a new home, but I suspect it didn't happen today.
There was a very patriotic MG TD with MGB 1800 engine, overdrive gearbox, front disc brakes, and a tag-along "Redneck Hilton" sleeper trailer.
Only loosely arranged in model groups with random cars parked in odd places, it was tough to get a good count on the number of each model. Mostly a social day, no voting, no trophies, but a nice family day in the park, and open to the public.
There was a small autocross course, more of a Funkhana to play with, but more about that later.
Sitting next to the big Jaguar coupe were two Reliant Robin three wheelers. And next to those another Reliant, four-wheeler this time. It is motor home conversion, and as small as it is, it actually works.
One Elva Courier could be parked anywhere to make a class of its own. This one was a fully prepared race car with a temperamental race engine and close ratio gearbox, and you will see more of this on later, trying to race (sort of).
Lots of Austin Healey.
I think that was a Riley Elf sitting next to my MGA.
Then my special find and star of the show. First thought was customized Austin Mini, but wait, that's a fuel cell in front where the engine should be. And it's a two seater, no back seat, so a sport coupe? Then we find the engine behind the seats, a mid engined Mini, an it's a fully prepared race car.
Sorry I didn't look close enough or ask more questions, but it might be a modern GM V6, maybe 3.4 liter with computer fuel injection, which must surely be over 200 horsepower (and civil to drive). And we will see more of this one later.
The jolly fellow is Don Kent from Salt Lake City, UT. He has the very nicely restored MGA 1600 with Vanden Plas aluminum hardtop. We spent the next ten minutes thumping through is photo albums checking out the restoration process. this really is one very good example of the Power of Wishful Thinking.
The other corner of the park was getting noisier as the fun runs were warming up. The autocross course was crammed into a small space about a block long with a cul-de-sac loop in front of a club house. For sure no car would get out of 1st gear today, as this sea of cones wa set up really tight and squiggly. The Morris Minor did okay, demonstrating that there is a definite advantage to being small.
Seems like the long wheelbase Land Rover didn't have a chance, and it was true. He took several runs on the course with different passengers, crushing cones on every run, and having to back up at least once each lap in a very tight switch-back turn.
Then the Elva Courier race car came out to play. It looked and sounded vicious, but it was not going to win here today. High strung engine with no low end torque, and close ratio gearbox with no 1st gear. It could get off the line with some engine revving and tire spin, but would just bog down in the slow corners. He took a rest and came back a few times, but it wasn't going to improve much.
The MGB GT had a really good chance here, but he bypassed 2/3 of the course on the first try, so go back and try it again, go that way.
He did finally get it on the 3rd or 4th try, and actually set a pretty good lap time.
The short wheelbase Land Rover looked like it had a much better chance the its larger brother. He appeared to being fairly well with high seating good visibility, until the zero radius hair pin turn when it turned into a wholesale crushing party. This one had to back up there too, and it wasn't pretty with low ratio steering.
Then the hero of the day appeared to redeem everyone's social values. The MG Midget was built for this kind of course, and maybe the course was also laid out just for this kind of car. He made it look easy (almost), plenty of engine noise and tire squealing, a little throttle steering out of sharp turns, and easy single pass around the zero radius hairpin. And he came back a few more times, just to show everyone how it should be done.
Okay, don't laugh to hard, no way the big Jaguar was going to do this. Aside from several squashed apex cones, he had to back up twice to get through the hairpin turn
Another pass by the same frisky MG Midget, getting even quicker now. Love the body roll in the tight turns.hell of a show.
The Triumph Spitfire took one lap, got lost twice on the way around, and gave it up for a lost cause. The new mini did a pretty good job of it, looking like he was having fun, and not hitting any cones.
The MG TF made it look easy, putting on a good show while carrying several different passengers on demo rides. But keep it in perspective here, because this was the guy who was primarily responsible for setting up the coarse, so naturally it favors his car.
Finally late in the day my personal hero made an appearance in the mid engined Mini race car. It took a couple tries to get a clean pass, after which it just kept getting faster. no problem with outer clubhouse loop, or the inner clubhouse loop, or the zero radius hairpin turn. This thing has such a short wheelbase that it goes anywhere with a flick of the wrist. Ain't afraid of no cones or curbs here.
Last run of the day went to a young fellow driving a Datsun 260Z. Being not specifically British, I suppose it was held until last pending availability of track time. He wasn't very fast but did get a clean run by the second pass. I chased him down later as the course was being disassembled to pack away, and we had a nice chat about the close relationship between Datsun and MG cars. Really good to see a member of the younger generation interested in vintage cars.
|
