At this stage of development and competing in various races, we believe that the Saker concept is working very well.

To produce a sports-car that performs well both on the road and in competition, looks the part and is affordable, has been a challenge.

The recent change to Subaru boxer turbo type engines has been the correct one in my view. The envisaged advantages of low centre of gravity, lightweight, good power output in standard form and availability. The higher crankshaft centre and deep sump design of the boxer engine enables us to avoid the necessity of a complicated and expensive dry-sump system. We have not suffered any oil pick-up problems during high G-force cornering.

Another important consideration is that the engine, tranzaxle, halfshafts, rear hubs with vented discs and efficient handbrake calliper are all Subaru and bolt together. This works well and avoids adaptors and special axles etc, being required.

We use a Link management system to run the engine. These are used extensively on Subaru engines, they are easily installed, fully adjustable and reasonably priced.

The Saker SVS uses all Japanese hubs, stearing and brakes etc. A change from the earlier SV1 which were fitted with Torana - Sunbird components. The brakes we are using in competition at present are all production parts, (apart from pads), these are quite a small diameter to fit into a 13" wheel and are working extremely well in a sprint race situation. For maximum braking the discs and calipers are able to be replaced with larger competition units, in conjunction with larger diameter rims.

The SVS space-frame chassis differs only in minor detail from the well proven SV1 unit. It features an improved geometry, fabricated suspension which is now fully rose-jointed. The roll-over bar has been redesigned to meet MANZ requirements.

The change to front radiatior has proven successful. We are using the side air intakes for liquid intercoolers etc., at present.

The fibreglass body has changed very little apart from an air outlet in the front. A new front under-tray is being evaluated currently. A revised rear wing and under body is planed in the near future. These changes will be suitable for both road and track.

With our local orders plus the first Saker to Europe is due to start off-season track testing, the future for Saker Cars looks rather exciting.

The Whittaker's Classic meeting at Manfeild is always an excellent event, run by the Wellington MG Car Club.

We ran the Saker Sprint in the Super GT and High Horsepower class, so were able to run race tyres. (The only change from road trim.)

With this type of event, the competition varied greatly, everything from Porsche 911 GT2, Viper, TVR Tuscan, Tranz-Am Camaro, Mustang's and many more.

Our placing's weren't to bad for this type of field, a 2nd. 4th and 5th and a best lap time of 1m13.18sec. This time was 4th fastest out of about 250 entrants. (Not official.) The cars that were quicker were the Porsche 911 GT2 by 2 seconds and the 2 Tranz-Am type Camaro's by less than 1 second.

I believe we can improve our speed considerably when we start developing our engine to produce more power than its current standard form.

We had made some small aerodynamic changes for this meeting, but with so much traffic in each race, these being mainly reversed grids and handicap races, I only had 2 or 3 clear laps and was not able to fully evaluate these changes. Perhaps a little more grip in the rear would make the balance pretty damn good.

I thoroughly enjoyed the close racing and have postponed retiring from racing for at least another year.

We gave the Saker Sprint a run at Pukekohe on 23-9-01 at the Formula 5000 Festival.

This was the first outing since replacing the RS Legacy engine with a WRX EJ20 Subaru motor. Still in standard form.

We were assigned races with the F5000 cars, along with a Can-am McLaren, Formula Brabham and Formula Pacific Ralt RT4's., etc. As the only road-going car (apart from slicks), we were a bit out of our depth.

As I hadn't driven at Pukekohe since 1981, I was keen to check out the changes to the circuit and found very little difference apart from being much less bumpy. I believe we could run the car considerable stiffer at this track.

We finished as expected in this field, well down and as we had a boost loss problem, (this would happen 3 or 4 times down the back straight). Although our lap times were not great, 1m8s, I did enjoy driving on one of my favourite circuits for the first time in 20 years.

I do enjoy racing on the tricky little circuit at Taupo. This was a 2-day event run by the TACCOC group, and the weather stayed dry.

I was racing with a group of F2 sports-racing cars and clubmans cars.

We continued to improve our lap times on the Saturday, finishing in the top 3.

On Sunday morning, my son David, engineer for the day, decided to make some fuel mixture changes, with the result of an instant drop in lap times. In the first race I managed to get to the lead on the second lap, then opening a gap and winning the race. YAHOO!

In the last race while near the front, I suffered an attack of concentration fade and spun into the gravel trap at the end of the main straight, I missed a down-change. BUGGAR!
I managed to get back on the circuit after loosing a lap or 2 finishing well down. Our best lap time was set in this race however, at 40.9 seconds.

Overall, a good weekend. I think we gave those F2 sports racing guys a bit of a surprise. Not bad for a road-car. RAPT!

We received our new rims & rubber at last, 13x10 Front & 13x12 Rear with Formula Holden slicks.

Competed at Taupo circuit, a very short curcuit, average 39 to 45 sec lap times. Easter meeting 14-Apr-01 in Formula Libre class, a mixture of various single seaters & 2L F2 sports racing cars.

First lap, fell into the first corner cold tyres trap and had a spin (most embarissing, should have known better). A most enjoyable meeting, placings were 2x 4th and a 5th including spin, our best time was 42.6s.

We ran the sprint at Manfeild again on 28-Apr-01 at an Inter-Marque sprint meeting. Car went very well and acheived a best lap time of 1m 15.03s. Fastest time of the day, the next best car time, a 944 Porsche Turbo was 1m 19.07s

We now feel that a power increase from the standard RS Legacy would be worthwhile, perhaps a change of turbo.

Will update on this development later.

We have had our first outing at Manfeild with the Sprint and are very pleased with the results. Fourth fastest out of 23 entries in the class, 1m17.67 sec a lap. The correct wheels and tyres were not available at the time so we had to make do with what we had. The car ran faultlessly all weekend and did not even require any fluid top-ups other than fuel.

At this stage we haven't made any suspension adjustments, not even shocks and bars, as the car felt good and the driver,(myself), hadn't driven competitively for some years and was a bit rusty.

We will be competing again at the MG Charity Classic meeting at Manfeild on March 4th 2001. I'm really looking forward to that meeting.

We expect to be doing more serious testing after that when the correct rims and rubber arrives.

Bruce Turnbull driving in the support race to Wellinginton Mobil 500 in 1993 (at the time this was only the 2nd Saker ever built).  Little did Bruce know this was the start of what was to become a highly succesful race car and an international brand.