Hi All
After spending a very enjoyable day messing around in a field for the Gill Morrell PCT and talking to a few people. I talked to Mike Hayward about his Escort which currently a Class 7 machine as it has been modified beyond permitted limits. Fair enough it is a FWD Escort with Mk2 running gear but it does have a 5 linked coil sprung rear end. It has always seemed a touch unfair to put this particular in Class 7. As it is on 13 inch wheels could it not be reclassified to Class 3, even on a temporary basis to see how it fares. I know that the modified Pops do very well in the higher classes but they have much larger rear wheels and probably not as useful for Autocross!
I personally have no problem with it in Class 3. Does a RWD Mk3 Escort really have a greater climbing potential than a normal RWD Escort? I realise there is potential for the "One rule for one, one for another" syndrome but on one off cases could a panel reclassify a car on a temporary basis. Lands End 2002? As long a Michael does not strike gold on the Exeter!
Does anybody else have any other thoughts for or against?
Mark
Posted on behalf of John Aley I`ve just been reading about the Ford which has been put into class 7 when the writer feels it would be more fairly placed in class 2. Without entering in the rights or wrongs of this particular case may I remind everyone that in the MCC there`s a rule which allows a car to be reclassified individually on its merits. This has been applied in several cases where vehicles have been "Over" modified or in the case of aged specials which we like to see still in action but are totally outclassed by modern class 8 machinery. There`s still time before the Lands End for this to happen here if the owner applies now giving all the relevant details. Write to Mike Furse, our general secretary, care of me at 20 Old Shipyard Centre, West Bay, Bridport DT6 4HG. Incidentally Mike and Sheila will soon be taking up residence down here but are busily getting the new place ready - don`t go near or you`ll be handed a paint brush. Best wishes John
ReplyDeleteThanks John Down to the two Mikes to try to sort something then! Class 2 is probably a bit ambitious - typo Michael!- but I hope that Mike acquires a white disc. Really looking forward to the Exeter. 11 weeks away!! Mark
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support Mark. A letter is on the way to Mike Furse. Mike
ReplyDeleteBeing a class 3 competitor when finances allow, i find it hard to comprehend your support for this mk3 escort to be re-classified in class 3.If i wished to remove the rear leaf springs from my car,modify the axle and fit coil over shockers then i assume that i would have no problem??? .Nobody would have believed an overweight pop could have been competitve until Clive and Tommy started to work their magic on these cars.So i am sure with some work this mk3 escort should be able to be competitive in class 7(for kit cars and MODIFIED cars as per the ble book)
ReplyDeleteHi Jason I think that you have missed my point a little. The Mk3 was not modified with trials in mind and the Pop was. Most cars could be modified to be competitive Class 7 machines but it is doubtful that they would be much good at an Autocross event! Does a person who wishes to compete in both events have to have two cars? It is also about this particular car and not all modified cars. If it starts "cleaning up" in Class 3 then throw it straight back in Class 7. Fairly simple! As to the reason for supporting its cause. Why not! I go trialing to have fun and to see if I can meet the challenge the club sets for me. It is a personal point of view and as John Aley has pointed out there are already guidelines for this event. As to four, or five link, the rear end I am not sure it is a good move anyway. How many competitive Class 7 or 8 machines have a 4/5 linked rear setup? The Kalber Pop I believe to be the Tucker-Peake Pop (Runner Bean?) and based on a Capri chassis. I have memories of an article Micheal did about the car probably in the Classical Gas Archive by now. I have to say the Pops are one of best images on the events. Great to watch, awesome climbing ability and skilfully driven. A favourite with the crowds at Bluehills as well. Something different and interesting to see for the public and us. Have fun with the Escort and are you doing the Exeter? Mark
ReplyDeleteI have just been looking at the MCC website and reading the news of the week http://www.ukmotorsport.com/MCC/MCC_Intro.htm John has summed up better than I have. Mark
ReplyDeleteA bit of record straightening required here, I think! The Kalbers have two well-modified Pops. The green one is indeed John Tucker-Peake's Runner Bean, built around 1972 using a Capri engine but not a Capri chassis. (I don't think Capris have a chassis, do they?) I enjoyed competing against this car with my much-modified ex-Cliff Morrell Hillman Husky. On a very good day I could just about keep up with it, but of course it has a great deal more power now. The black one was built by Angus Stewart as a road car and subsequently modified by the Kalbers for trials. As for the RWD Mk3 Escort, all I can say is that the relevant MCC sub-committee is considering it at the moment. My personal feeling is that we should try it and see what happens. If it is as competitive as some would have us believe, it's Certificate can be revoked after a year so little or no harm will have been done. The MCC has been running this scheme for several years now and there have been no problems with any of the vehicles which have been reclassified and their owners have benefitted and have found the MCC trials more enjoyable as a result. When is the ACTC going to adopt a similar scheme to level the playing field for those with cars which are not particularly suited to the present class structure used in classic trials at the moment? I was asked to raise this subject at a recent Council meeting and was firmly put in my place, wherever that is. No open minds on this subject there! Mike Furse.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons that the Hayward Escort is not in class 3 is identified in one of the early messages. The car is not that well prepared for trials. It is currently a dual purpose car. If it were well prepared, which someone else might do if the car were to be classified in class 3, it could go very well. In answer to the question "how many competitive class 7's & 8's have 4/5 link rear axles?", the answer is "most of them" The Vincent, all the Trolls, Many of the Cannons, one or two Dellows, my Giraffe to name a few. The Hayward Escort, as captured on Lands End 1999 video didn't even have spare wheels on the boot. If the owner chooses not to prepare his car competitively to the class in which his car fits, that is not the problem of event organisers. He must accept that his performance will not be as good as those that go to the edge. I think that Mark accepts this and that his purpose in competing is not to win pots, but to have fun with a car he enjoys owning. ACTC has a system in which CARS are alocated to classes. The MCC system allows the allocation of car plus driver to classes. This works because the MCC entrant competes not against the other members of the class, but against the club. Coming second or third in a class is not relevant on an MCC event, but it is on a one day event. If ACTC choses to reclassify a car on the basis of its owners performance, this can put at risk the class placing of someone who has gone to the trouble of getting the right car correctly sorted for the right class - even if it has only pushed them down from fifth to sixth in the class. That person then has a legitimate greivance that the car has been wrongly reclassified. My vote is that the car stays in 7 for one day events, but I would support its reclassification to 3 for MCC events if I was asked.
ReplyDeleteSee what I mean! The ACTC seems only to be interested in the effect changes might have on its championship, which very few people contest seriously, and not on the effect of their rules and attitudes on those of us who do it for fun. Of course it doesn't matter if someone is pushed down from fifth to sixth in a class by the inclusion of a non-competitive car from another class. No doubt he'll speak for himself, but I don't think Mike (not Mark) does accept that he should always be at the tail-end of a class simply because he chooses not to stretch the performance of his car to the limits. Personally, I have my doubts whether the car could be made competitive in Class 7, no matter who owned or drove it. It could, of course, be a threat in Class 3 if fully prepared for Classics, but the beauty of the MCC system is that if changes are made to the car's specification the certificate automatically becomes invalid and the process has to start again. Mike Furse.
ReplyDeleteDo spare wheels on Escorts have to be carried on the boot? My two spare wheels are in the boot. Makeing the car look as normal as posable and less atractive to the boys in blue. Mike
ReplyDeleteFirst I must declare an interest. Mike and I are buddies and I passenger for him when he drives his Escort and he passengers for me when I drive my Beetle. Personally I think the MCC should let Mike into class 3 so he doesn't have to do all the re-starts, which is really the issue. When (lets be positeive and not say if) he gets a gold on the Exeter and Lands End he should be re-classified into class seven before the Edinburgh to make it harder to get a triple!! I can see Simon's/ACTC view (and Jason's) about the potential of the car. Certainly if the car had been built that way to try and win against mk1 and mk 2 Escorts there is no way it should be let into class 3. However, it wasn't. Mike built the car for Autocross and when he gave that up for many reasons it was a shame to leave it in the garage to rust away. There are a lot of intesting (uncompetitive ?) cars in a similar situation. We have to find away to let them take part otherwise we will be left with only class 7 and 8 apart from the few events that are kind to class 2. Michael Leete
ReplyDeleteOwners choice I guess about the spares! Personally mine are in the boot too. Black plastic sacks at the ready in case of a change! It does not seem to hamper progress and it comes out of the car wash without any problems. The vast majority have the spares on the boot but neither the Turner BMW or David Heale's Escort have. So you pay your money and take your choice. Weight higher up and further back or lower down and a bit further forward. I think that Simon's summary is very position and a defnate step in the right direction. I also know now more about the Class 7&8 specials and stand corrected about the Kalber Pops by Mike. Thankyou both. Exeter is looming fast isn't it. Mark
ReplyDeleteHaving read Simons argument, I can see the case to let the mk 111 escort to enter class 3, as it is the competitor vs the club. But doesn't the programe the mcc as a club state class 3 as one for front engined rear wheel drive production saloons!! How clear is that! Only now to confuse many knowledgable spectators with what most people will recognise as a much modified fwd car. My point with the pops are that if a top heavy , agriculturally constructed car can be made as competive as they have been against kit cars and dellows that weigh probably nearly half as much then may be mark should try some more modifcations . A touch hard may be , but people build cars to the rules(hopefully) you don't make the rules to fit the cars.
ReplyDeleteNot following this! Why isn't it OK to make the rules fit the cars (and their drivers)? The rules are not cast in stone. The ones we use now are the result of many alterations over many years. Each time they have been altered it has been to take into account changed circumstances. For example, Big-engined Imps were separated off from the others at one time and ran in what is now Class 6. When it became obvous that they could not compete fairly against the big-engined VWs they were grouped with the others back in Class 4. That was changing the rules to suit the cars, wasn't it? Given room and enough time, I could quote you many other examples. One of the problems the Classic Trials world faces at the moment is one of stagnation. What is needed is a bit of "give" in the system! The rules should be about encouraging the widest possible variety of vehicles into the events. Any class where one type of vehicle is dominant must be considered a failure (Class 6 is a good example of this and Class 3 is nearly as bad!). I have found, over the years, that building a car to the limits of the rules in trials means that it is totally useless for anything else. (Mike (not Mark) uses his car for grass Autotests and PCTs).
ReplyDeleteNot following what? Which came first? The chicken or the egg? The rules are made by one group - the organisers, in conjunction with each other. The cars are built by many different individuals without reference to the other drivers. (or not much anyway) The purpose of the rules is to control the cars, not the other way about. But, the rules are not cast in stone, neither are the cars. That is the basis of this debate. Once there were (probably) no rules, but as cars evolved, the rules changed and they continue to do so. There have not been many rule changes recently, but this does not mean that the sport is stagnating, it means that it is stable. You only have to look at the relative entry levels between Classics, PCT's and Sporting trials to decide if we are stagnating. Stagnation is what happens when the event formula no longer suits the majority and they all go away and play somewhere else. This is what happened to autocross. (Just a minute, isn't this where we came in?) If we were to classify cars on a purely subjective basis then we would spend our entire time debating the merits of one person's car against another. A dangerously subjective argument that is not fair on the people that have to make the decisions. Are we proposing that two identical cars should be in two different classes just because one is driven by someone with a natural flair and the other by a w*nk*r? That is what could happen if one took the reclassification system to its natural limit. Where do you draw a sensible line between the tyranny of no reclassification and anarchy of total subjectivity? I think we have done this well with the existing system by keeping it to the less individualist competition of the MCC. Mike F says it does not matter whether he comes 5th or 6th in his class. I'm sure it doesn't. He is in the sport for fun. But who is to say it might not matter to someone else. It is not the organisers place to decide that, it is the organisers place to consider the possibility when debating the rules. All the trials that I have organised have never included a No13. It is not that I am superstitious but I do not wish to give that number to a person who may be so. I did not mention championships. Some people derive pride from their positioning on individual events. It perhaps becomes more critical when a pot is at stake, and it is no consolation to someone who has lost his trophy for, say, 3rd place to be told, " I sorry, we made a mistake, he will be moved out of your class next time". (Works OK for the MCC, because both drivers still get their medal). Our esteemed site manager says, "There are a lot of intesting (sic) (uncompetitive ?) cars in a similar situation. We have to find away to let them take part" This is surely the basis of the new Class 0. It requires no changes to the existing rules, but allows drivers to "run what ya brung". If this class is inundated with old trials cars coming out of the woodwork then there might be justification in reviewing some of the rules. The cynic in me says that part of the problem is that the owners use this as an excuse for not getting themselves in gear. I hope someone will prove me wrong. NO, more than one, I hope lots of people prove me wrong, and that it give us scope for a new "catchall" class that is better at encompassing oddballs vehicles than the current class 7. BTW, before someone says "No class 0" in one day events, MAC has had a class 0 since 1994.
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