The Definitive Report on the HSCC Finals
Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:53 am
Regular readers of this column will be pleased to hear that there were Morgans racing at the HSCC Finals meeing at Silverstone over the weekend, your unworthy scribe has, therefore someething to write about. whether anyone is interested is another matter.
There were nine races on the card and Morgans figured in just two of them - the first and the last!
In race one interest centred around the car of Richard Plant, sole representative of the marque, and he did not let the side down, no hopeless plunges into the first corner for Richard and drive through penalties! The race became an epic struggle between 'LEO' and a Porsche 928 driven by Paul Anderson, and mighty was the battle with the winner in doubt right up to the HSCC tablecloth being waved at the finish, where the Porsche made it home a mere 0.4 secs ahead of the intrepid Richard. Well done and 'hard luck'.
Morgan aficionados were now faced with a long afternoon until the next outing for the Malvern manufacturer, and with only races for other cars to fill in the gap, these were for cars with mudguards, with roofs and mudguards and cars with neither, so not much to hold one's attention, however!!!
Luckily for the watcher, but very unlucky for Mark Shears, help was at hand.
During his qualifying session the man from Pilerton Priors was suddenly confronted by an errant MG Midget whose bewildered pilote decided he wanted to return from whence he had come and the resulting close encounter left Mark with considerable bodywork damage and badly awry rear suspension, his race looked in doubt.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and in this case it was the inestimable Phillip Tisdall who saved the day. The HSCC's wisdom in it's race timing now became apparent as it left plenty of time for repairs to be effected, and Philip spent most of the time underneath Mark's car with a huge array of spanners, hammers and assorted othe tools scattered around (courtesy of the aforementioned Richard). The driver himself displayed an unexpected artistic talent with gaffer tape and loving recreated a facsimile of the original pristine bodywork the end result being that the assembled onlookers, including the writer, broke into spontaneous applause as the last bolts were fitted. Mark Shears you shall go to the ball.
The race proved another cracker with 'Noddy' getting stuck in with a TVR Griffiths and despite giving away well over a litre in engine capacity lead for much of the race and spending the bulk of the rest side-by-side. Unfortunately James lost time in lapped traffic and came home second just 2.5 secs in arrears, and first in class. Tony Howard came home an excellent fifth while Master Oliver Phillips brought his 'Custard Tart' to the flag in eighth place from 13th on the grid after a mysterious electrical malady had curtailed his qualification efforts, and Mark Hoble took 17th. spot. All-in-all not a bad day for Morgans, but what, you ay ask of the bold Mark Shears? Sadly after Phillip's trojan efforts Mark called it a day after 5 laps when a 'graunching' noise made him decide that valour should take second place to discretion.
On a personal not I would like to thank all of the above named for making me feel so welcome and not minding in the least my shameless scrounging of tea and cake (tell Mandy it was delicious).
While one could not fault Richard's hospitality, one could not help but wonder about just how close knit is the family when it was revealed that his son, far from standing on the sidelines urging Dad on spent the entire morning asleep in the family motor home! Children! Don't you just love them?
So hero of the day Phillip Tisdall, best catering Richard Plant, stray onlooker award, John Clarke, although personally I did not think it was that cold!
I hope I have not missed anyone out and that all deeds of derring do have been faithfully recorded, if so I apologise.
Anybody going to the Birkett or the Hayes. Hope to see you there.
Cheers, Bob the Reporter.
Bob
There were nine races on the card and Morgans figured in just two of them - the first and the last!
In race one interest centred around the car of Richard Plant, sole representative of the marque, and he did not let the side down, no hopeless plunges into the first corner for Richard and drive through penalties! The race became an epic struggle between 'LEO' and a Porsche 928 driven by Paul Anderson, and mighty was the battle with the winner in doubt right up to the HSCC tablecloth being waved at the finish, where the Porsche made it home a mere 0.4 secs ahead of the intrepid Richard. Well done and 'hard luck'.
Morgan aficionados were now faced with a long afternoon until the next outing for the Malvern manufacturer, and with only races for other cars to fill in the gap, these were for cars with mudguards, with roofs and mudguards and cars with neither, so not much to hold one's attention, however!!!
Luckily for the watcher, but very unlucky for Mark Shears, help was at hand.
During his qualifying session the man from Pilerton Priors was suddenly confronted by an errant MG Midget whose bewildered pilote decided he wanted to return from whence he had come and the resulting close encounter left Mark with considerable bodywork damage and badly awry rear suspension, his race looked in doubt.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and in this case it was the inestimable Phillip Tisdall who saved the day. The HSCC's wisdom in it's race timing now became apparent as it left plenty of time for repairs to be effected, and Philip spent most of the time underneath Mark's car with a huge array of spanners, hammers and assorted othe tools scattered around (courtesy of the aforementioned Richard). The driver himself displayed an unexpected artistic talent with gaffer tape and loving recreated a facsimile of the original pristine bodywork the end result being that the assembled onlookers, including the writer, broke into spontaneous applause as the last bolts were fitted. Mark Shears you shall go to the ball.
The race proved another cracker with 'Noddy' getting stuck in with a TVR Griffiths and despite giving away well over a litre in engine capacity lead for much of the race and spending the bulk of the rest side-by-side. Unfortunately James lost time in lapped traffic and came home second just 2.5 secs in arrears, and first in class. Tony Howard came home an excellent fifth while Master Oliver Phillips brought his 'Custard Tart' to the flag in eighth place from 13th on the grid after a mysterious electrical malady had curtailed his qualification efforts, and Mark Hoble took 17th. spot. All-in-all not a bad day for Morgans, but what, you ay ask of the bold Mark Shears? Sadly after Phillip's trojan efforts Mark called it a day after 5 laps when a 'graunching' noise made him decide that valour should take second place to discretion.
On a personal not I would like to thank all of the above named for making me feel so welcome and not minding in the least my shameless scrounging of tea and cake (tell Mandy it was delicious).
While one could not fault Richard's hospitality, one could not help but wonder about just how close knit is the family when it was revealed that his son, far from standing on the sidelines urging Dad on spent the entire morning asleep in the family motor home! Children! Don't you just love them?
So hero of the day Phillip Tisdall, best catering Richard Plant, stray onlooker award, John Clarke, although personally I did not think it was that cold!
I hope I have not missed anyone out and that all deeds of derring do have been faithfully recorded, if so I apologise.
Anybody going to the Birkett or the Hayes. Hope to see you there.
Cheers, Bob the Reporter.
Bob