Vol: XXXVIIII NO. 3 JULY 2011 On-Line Edition iintagentage VRACERVVARACARAC MMEMBERSEMBERS MMAGAZINEAGAZINE HHowow I lostlost mymy ballsballs atat tthehe Festival…Festival… Fifty Years Ago… Winner of the French GP James Hinchcliffe It runs in the family… PagePage 1 Dunlop - The most complete line of vintage and historic racing tyres available in North America. Authentic, proper and best of all, fun to race on. &UNBECAUSEOF$UNLOPSHAPPYCOMBINATIONOFSPEEDANDEXCELLENTDRIVERFEEDBACK4HE FEEDBACKISTHEREBECAUSETHESEAREBIAS PLYRACINGTYRES4HEYLETYOURCARDRIFT giving you a great "seat-of-pants" sense of where the car is going. That progressive, predictable drift is eye-opening and more fun than you can imagine. 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VINTAGE TYRES LIMITED They can tell youAvailable what inyou’ve 17” and been 18”. missing. 255 Southwest Cove Road, Hubbards, Nova Scotia B0J 1T0 Tel:(902) 228-2335 Fax: (902) 228-2241 e-mail: [email protected] 6INTAGE4YRES,IMITEDISTHEDISTRIBUTOROF$UNLOP2ACING4IRESIN.ORTH!MERICAANDAGENTFOR $UNLOP#LASSIC2OAD4IRES -737IRE7HEELS 7ELLERAND0ANASPORT2ACING7HEELS In Canada: BRITAIN WEST MOTORSPORT 0LEASANT2IDGE2D 22 "RANTFORD /..4,s4EL &AX In the U.S.A.: SASCOSPORTS INC. "2ACEPLEX$RIVE !LTON 6!s4EL &AX ROGER KRAUS RACING 'ROVE7AY #ASTRO6ALLEY #!s4EL &AX S Page 2 We Are VARAC VARAC, the Vintage Automobile Racing Association of Canada, was formed in 1976 to provide a central organizing body through which Vintage Race enthusiasts could communicate and organize race meetings for eligible Vintage and Historic racing and sports cars. Th e Spirit of VARAC can be expressed as a wish to preserve, restore and race historically signifi cant cars in a form as close to the original specifi cation as possible. Of course, there have been many improvements in motor racing safety equipment, circuits and technical advancements in materials since these cars were built. Th ose restoring and preparing cars for Vintage Racing are encouraged to incorporate and take advantage of these improvements where they can be incorporated without diminishing the vintage character of the car. We feel that Vintage Racing should be enjoyable and rewarding to both the participant and spectator with a minimum emphasis on trophies and awards. Let’s keep the fun in Vintage Racing. If you are interested, call any of the directors listed on this page. VARAC BOARD OF DIRECTORS In This Issue: President Walter Davies [email protected] Thanks to all the VR photographers! Vice President Del Bruce [email protected] My sincere thanks to the people who contribute Secretary/ Treasurer Peter Viccary [email protected] such great photos to the VR. To Vic Henderson, Race Director Del Bruce [email protected] (PicsbyVicsr.com) Radu, (Racing In Focus) Dick Promotions Director Doug Paraschuk fl [email protected] Coburn, (Coburn Photography) Claude Lamoureux (Flagworld.com) and Stephen Minnig. Thanks to Membership Director Walter Davies [email protected] all of you! We have so many great pictures that we Director Don Hooton [email protected] may have to run a late Festival issue of Pit Signals Director Gord Ballantine [email protected] to show more! Director Bob DeShane classics@ Thanks to John Sambrook for the report from littlebritainmotorcompany.info Jefferson, thanks to Robert Searle for his report Director/Quebec Liaison Chris Rupnik [email protected] from Mt-Tremblant, thanks for the Festival reports Director Rick Navin [email protected] from Doug Switzer, Dave Morgan, John DeMaria, Director Geoff McCord [email protected] Bob DeShane, Andrew Celovsky, Joe Lightfoot, Director Joe Lightfoot [email protected] Brian Thomas, to Bob English for his Fiat Abarth VARAC ELIGIBILITY COMMITTEE story, to Cam McRae for his “Lost Balls” story(!) Chairman Joe Lightfoot [email protected] and his Low Tech column. Your contributions are Members much appreciated. If you have a story, a hoto an Gord Ballantine Jon Brett Leon Lok idea, please contact me at [email protected]. Walt MacKay Brian Robinson Stefan Wiesen John Greenwood Jeremy Sale Editor VARAC DRIVER CONDUCT COMMITTEE The Vintage Racer Chairman Del Bruce [email protected] 3076 Ballydown Members Crescent, Gavin Ivory Richard Navin Gord Ballantine Ted Michalos Steve O’Connell Geoff McCord Mississauga ON L5C 2C8 VARAC MEMBER SERVICES E-mail: [email protected] Newsletter Jeremy Sale [email protected] Website Radu Repanovici [email protected] WEBSITE: WWW.VARAC.CA All VARAC all the time. the list may be able to at lolaracer@rogers. PLEASE NOTE Anything you’ll ever want help. com, give him your to know about VARAC or membership number and The opinions and suggestions This is the home of the expressed by contributors to vintage/historic racing is ‘been there-done that’ he will do the rest. at your fi ngertips. Vintage Racer are those of the crowd. Join today and ask It’s only available to club author, without authentication by Need a discombobulator away. members so no spam, or liability to the editors, or the valve for a ’58 Alfonso de To subscribe FREE, send just stuff . A daily digest Directors or VARAC. Credenza? Someone on an e-mail to Walter Davies version is also available. Page 3 Jefferson 500 Race Report Summit Point W.Va. May 13th – 15th 2011 By JohnSambrook We took two cars to the 1.9 mile facility 50 miles fi nishing 4th Saturday 6th and Sunday 8th. west of Washington, DC. The blue car with a new Rick went well on Friday, fi nishing 29th, but on Reg Patten engine for me and the green car with a Saturday the engine broke. We have now had the rebuilt nose from the Sebring shunt for Rick Rose. same problem on three engines over the past year VRG lumps cars into race groups with no class and have not to date diagnosed the problem. breakdown. We were in the 53 car Lola group [2] When not racing we were all quite social. We had made up primarily of production cars up to 1300cc. the ubiquitous Dave Good beside us in the paddock, Spridgets, Spitfi res, Elva Couriers, Formula Vees. this guy seems to go everywhere on this continent. There were sprint races on Friday and Saturday, There was a small bore social on Friday night and a with a feature on Sunday, plus longer distance dinner on Saturday night with Brian Redmund as the novelty races. Competitors thus had ample track very entertaining speaker time. The weather throughout the weekend was showery and cool; and as things worked out The Friday sprint race in the wet suited me actual driving conditions in the three sprint races perfectly, as using only 7K I was able to pick my progressed from wet Friday, damp Saturday, to dry way around a multitude of spinning cars and was Sunday, with me praying for more rain! well satisfi ed with the result. The organizers were less pleased and called a special drivers meeting of With a new engine I used 7K rpm on Friday, our race group to berate us for irresponsible driving gradually increasing to 8200 by Sunday. I went which was over-stressing the corner workers. proportionately faster race by race and dropped The showery weather continued. 45 assembled further back in the fi eld! I started 16th. on Friday on the false grid on Sat. in a damp overcast, only Photos by Stephen Minnig Page 4 to be told to leave our cars, go to the classroom for another meeting; all drivers this time, for a tongue lashing pointing out the folly of our ways. Suitably chastised we returned to the grid and away we went. This turned out to be a terrifi c race for me with a Spit and 3 Vees racing for 4th place. The Vees tenaciously slipstreamed, and we rotated position multiple times lap by lap. I started to over-heat, lost touch with the Spit and one Vee who fi nished 6 secs ahead of me with Mike Jackson’s Vee half a cars length beside/behind me , with another Vee hard in behind him. Hopefully the organizers appreciated spirited high caliber racing by mature fast drivers who lapped some 16 cars in the process. We somehow avoided the immature fast drivers and the mature slow ones during the race! We were ready for the Sunday feature, which not for the fi rst time was somewhat of an anti- climax. It was dry and warmer with ominous clouds building up. Only 26 cars showed up, which turned out to be uneventful. Everyone behaved, the fi eld spread out and I fi nished a comfortable 8th with an 8 second cushion on the Vee behind me. We loaded the cars and then the heavens opened, ending racing. We now look forward to two consecutive weekends of racing in June. The Festival at Mosport, followed by Mid Ohio. Hopefully Rick will have resolved the engine problem by then. Page 5 Mark Doust’s 1959 Fiat Abarth BByy BBobob EEnglishnglish car enthusiasts – at the age of 20. As the Second World War closed, he campaigned to free Dr. Ferdinand Porsche By the mid-1950s, tuner Carlo Abarth had built from French incarceration and was later awarded the fi rst a reputation among Italian enthusiasts by turning Porsche distributorship in his newly adopted country of diminutive 22-hp Fiats into snarling 43-hp street fi ghters, Italy, where he was known as Carlo. but when he linked his name with that of Elio Zagato’s He created Abarth & C.