WHY WE DRIVE SALE! & SUPERCHARGERS ON SALE ISSUE 2, 2014 LE MANS 1955 DISSECTING A DISASTER Bonneville or Bust www.MossMotoring.com WHY DO WE DRIVE? Motor fest Join us in Virginia this time next year! June 6, 2015—our first ever full-scale event at the East Coast facility in Petersburg. More details coming soon! See the Center Insert for WHATEVER YOUR REASON Savings on Hundreds of Parts WE HAVE PARTS FOR YOU ON SALE Valid 5/19-6/20/2014 Two Roads Power Corrupts? 6-Pack Ponderings Tragic Victory Engine builder, Tom Colby, What do you get when TR6 The story behind Le Mans’ Out of Wendover makes a beast of a Bugeye. guys discuss gender roles? deadliest crash. The sequel to the Salt Flats Mo t speed saga. 8 11 16 tor fes 4 On the Cover: The Pittsburg Vintage Grand Prix traces a stunning and challenging road course. Photo by Bill Atterbury. Read the full story on page 25. Writers and Photographers WE WANT YOU! hare your experience, wisdom and talent with British car enthusiasts across the country. Contributors whose work is selected for use in the magazine will receive SMoss Motors Gift Certificates! Now, since there is no way to print all the terrific stories and tech articles that are sent to us, we will place relevant and first-rate submissions on MossMotoring.com for all to enjoy and benefit. Sorry, submissions that are published online are not eligible for gift certificates. [email protected] The very best way to submit material is via email. Please attach digital photos at full size when possible. Film photographs and handwritten articles may be mailed to: Editor – Moss Motoring, Feels Like Pittsburgh Vintage 440 Rutherford St., Goleta, CA 93117 There is poetry in racing. the First Time And hay bales. Ever wonder what happened $200 Gift Certificates to that car rescued from 25 Three to four-page stories and articles (approx. Katrina? 1800 words). This includes: technical/restoration articles, historic accounts, Club and Event 22 experiences, and anything that will inspire or entertain. Please include pictures for us to choose from—the more, the better. $100 Gift Certificates Editorial contributions to Moss Motoring Published by Moss Motors, Ltd., Cover and main feature photography. General are welcomed, and should be emailed to 440 Rutherford Street, [email protected] interest stories. Medium length tech articles. or mailed to Editor – Moss Motoring, Goleta, CA 93117 440 Rutherford St., Goleta, CA 93117. 800-667-7872 Moss Motors assumes no responsibility Publisher: Robert Goldman for lost or damaged materials. Materials $50 Gift Certificates accepted are subject to such revision as Moss Motoring Editorial Team: required to meet the requirements of this Tech Tips. Cartoons/Illustrations. Humorous publication. Unless otherwise specified, Editor: David Stuursma anecdotes. Odds-n-ends that help make Moss all correspondence will be considered Senior Editor: Shawn Carlberg Motoring great. for publication. All materials accepted Creative Editor: Tamara Cribley become the sole property of Moss Motors, Ltd., which reserves the right to reprint/ Website Designer: Anne Ducale republish accepted materials. Staff Photographer:Damon Schnepf © 2014 Moss Motors, Ltd. Contributors credited individually LOUD PEDAL Robert Goldman THE OFFICIAL “ENGINE PULLING” TREE “Drive my car while I shoot some video.” So said several months ago when an old friend called out my friend, Jim Pesta, at the 40th Anniversary of the blue. Yes, he remembered me sitting there Collier Brothers Memorial Trophy race weekend at in the pits consuming too much libation, and yes, I Watkins Glen. What he had in mind was sneaking remembered helping a crew pull Bill Eberhardt’s in front of the racecar caravan heading to the center MGB engine, using a rope and a tree limb. Don’t of downtown Watkins Glen. Lined up behind us worry though, it was an official engine pulling tree. were all the machinery in attendance for the race The caller, Gary Harrsion, reminded me it has weekend, downtown festival, and re-creation of the been twenty years since that auspicious weekend, original public road based race course. which of course means 2014 will be the 60th Jim’s car was a very well used MG TF, equipped Anniversary Collier Brothers Memorial Trophy with bald tires and a transmission which stayed in all-MG race. Perhaps it is time for a reboot. As luck gear so long as one held the selector lever firmly will have it, THE TC, Al Moss’ pride and joy, will in place. Directly behind us was the 1948 MG be on the eastern seaboard this summer. Sounds as TC of Denver Cornett, and the man himself. He though the planets are aligned. and his car were participants in the 1948 Watkins There are many ways to distract oneself these Glen Grand Prix. Ahead, with lights flashing, was a days, but let’s face it, telling your friends via social sheriff’s cruiser, all set to lead us into town. software that you have just exited the bathroom is The grand prix re-creation is a magnificent only one of them. The old analog way is to actually party. In those days, the Dean of American go somewhere and do something. Speaking of doing Motorsports, Chris Economaki, was the event things, we’ve had folks telling us for years we should emcee. A long time SCCA flagman came over to recreate the old British Car Festival we used to hold give me personal instruction on how he would flag at Monty Roberts’ Flag Is Up Farm. Well, while off the parade drive. After all, Jim and I were first in that venue is not available these days, another one line, so we controlled the entire line of racecars. is. You may have seen the announcement of our But before all that, upon arrival at the original very first Moss Motorfest, scheduled for June 6, start/finish line in front of the county seat, we were 2015 at Moss in Virginia. accosted by the media. Surely, being first in line, Robert (speaking of myself in the third we must have been driving a historic car…we told person) may be a little too old to run around with some terrible lies. During the re-creation, in spite a lampshade over his head, but given the right of an admonition for everyone to stay in line and opportunity, and sufficient encouragement, one not race, we, being “official videographers,” moved never knows what could happen at Motorfest. And freely back and forth among the line of racecars. for the record, Jim wasn’t an official videographer, It was one of those days one can only look back on so much as a fast and convincing talker. For a with fond memories. I hope the media types never little preview of what could go laughably wrong quoted us in their coverage. at the Motorfest, come say hi at Watkins Glen in While the memories of that weekend will never September. Fun and British cars never go out of fade, some of them may have dulled a little, until style. MM WWW.MOSSMOTORING.COM 3 Two Roads out of Wend overBy Chris Conrad 4 MOSS MOTORING Photo by Simon Davidson years ago, an MG Special So here I was, with my wife Kate and Bonneville is not vintage racing. was towed down this road her nephew Nick Martin, towing my This is timed trials. It’s you against the 62from a service station in stock bodied MG Midget down this very clock. The salt doesn’t care whether Wendover, where the car was stored stretch of road. Under the hood was an your car was created through CAD and prepared. The car was the MG EX engine design that pre-dates the world programs or chalked out on the floor of 135. The driver was Goldie Gardner. conquering small block Chevy, a BMC a barn. At Bonneville, what’s relevant is After checking into our hotel room in 1275 destroked to 999cc, tuned to 95.1 what shows up. What’s relevant is the West Wendover on the Nevada side of hp at 8,000 rpm, ready to do battle. time slip. the border, I chose to drive this short I was looking for some MG mojo. We arrived late on Saturday and set stretch of old road to the flats. I wanted Goldie Gardner, George Eyston, Phil up our pit area. This would be the only to get a better sense of what it must have Hill, Stirling Moss—all had passed time we would have to really take a look been like in 1952, when the EX 135 was through this corridor to get to one of at some of the other cars and for Kate towed to the salt. the strangest and most unforgiving and me to catch up with some friends. That experimental car, built on a MG landscapes on earth. Morris Garages On Sunday, Nick and I elected to K3 Magnette chassis, was the first land and Austin-Healey held dozens of get rookie orientation done before we speed racing MG to ever turn a wheel on international records here in the 1950s— teched the car. Normally, this takes the salt. With the support of the factory, many still stand. And while this little about an hour, but part of the orientation and the installation of a XPAG engine to detour was acknowledging MG’s past, is observing other drivers and their demonstrate to the American consumer my quest is not one of nostalgia. My procedures at the starting line. As is the potential of MG sports cars, the Midget runs in the Grand Touring class, often the case at Bonneville, the breeze expertly prepared EX 135 would take and anybody willing to take a Miata, or a picked up, and racing was temporarily the flying 5-mile record of 189.506 S2000, or Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing, halted.