Race Report

A year has past since we last competed at the excellent MG Whittaker's Classic meeting. The 2002 event was the enjoyable, well run meeting that we have become used to. The busy year producing cars at the factory meant that there was no time this year for further development on our Sprint, other than altering the roll bar, to meet "Motorsport New Zealand's" height requirements.

The weather for this event was cold with some rain. Our qualifying sessions were in 2 groups. Mine was slightly wet and on slicks. Saturday, I qualified 16th on the grid for our 1st race with a dry track. After the first lap I had improved to around 8th. With 2 laps to go I caught up to Philip Mules in the Viper. We had a good tussle but I lacked the outright grunt to make a pass. Towards the end of this race we were both passed by Ray Williams in the spotty 700+ horsepower GT2 Porsche. Ray had started from the back of the grid.

The 2nd race was also dry. I started in position 2 but had a bad start, (stalled). I got going last and the length of the main straight behind but managed to work my way back up to around 6th.

Sunday's 1st race was wet and all were on wet tyres. From grid 3 I got another bad start, 6th into the first corner. I managed to progress up to 2nd behind the Viper when he had a loose. This put me in the lead, only to be blasted back to 2nd by "Racing Ray" in that awesome spotty GT2 Porsche.

Race 2 on Sunday was dry but cold, another bad start. I suspect that standard engine mounts need replacing with more solid ones. I worked my way back up to 2nd behind the Viper, were we finished. Ray did not start in this race.

Over all this was a good result and a lot of fun for us. I am looking forward to the engine upgrade due in the new year. 165 kilowatts is just not enough.

The official results for this meeting are due out soon. These can be seen on www.mgcarclub.org.nz