"Equipe"GTS 2009

[Jim Lowry]

Here is some content from the most recent "Equipe"GTS newsletter.

( and just to quickly explain, cars in this class under 900kg must use Dunlop Historic tyres and those cars over 900kg may use Avon ZZs )

Further comments would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Jim.


Class 5 Regulations

Thank you to those competitors who added their own views towards any change of regulations as suggested in last month’s newsletter.

In response to having received feedback from several Morgan car drivers, you will recall it was suggested to lower the current tyre regulation weight limit in class 5 from 900kg to 850kg. Several Morgan drivers pointed out their cars weigh around 840 - 860kg and in their own single marque series Avon ZZs are the control tyre. Therefore in their current specification these cars are ineligible to race in“Equipe”GTS.

In contrast most Triumph TR3 and TR4 cars weigh between 900 and 960kg and Austin Healey 100 cars are slightly heavier and usually very close to, or over 1000kg.

Three obvious ways to solve the problem are: Firstly every Morgan driver could go out and buy a second set of wheels and tyres. Secondly, 40 – 60 kilos of ballast could be attached to the cars or thirdly, we could change our own regulations.

Interestingly at the recent Bentley Drivers Club meeting we had a very good back-to-back comparison between different cars racing on Avons and Dunlop Historic tyres in other races. Firstly, Mike Thorne raced in “Equipe”GTS with his Austin Healey 100M fitted with Avon ZZs and recorded a best time of 1.14.39. Soon after the car was racing in the AMOC 50’s series on Dunlop Historics and recorded a best of 1.14.8. - therefore resulting in a 0.4 second difference. Additionally, Keith Ahlers in his Morgan Plus4 recorded a best time of 1.12.8 on Avon ZZs in the Morgan challenge and then a best time of 1.13.28 in the “Equipe”GTS race on Dunlops which again results in a similar difference of 0.48 seconds.

As we all know, Keith Ahlers is a very experienced driver and his very famous Ex Le Mans Morgan is raced in many series including mostly those races which are strictly to Appendix K FIA regulations. I think it would be a safe bet to presume this car is compliant to those regulations and would be running a 87mm bore - 2188cc engine. It would be my opinion that a similar car running with an “Equipe”GTS legal engine with a larger bore size of up to 92mm would be convincingly faster and possibly more than a match on Dunlop Historic tyres for Tom Smith and Mark Ashworth who were achieving lap times of around 1.11 secs.

The regulations as they stand have previously and consistently achieved a very fair compromise and when you consider current “Equipe”GTS lap records are shared between Tom Smith and James Cottingham’s MGBs, Mark Ashworth and Malcolm Johnson’s TVR Granturas and most lap records remain Neil Howe’s who was near invincible last year in his Triumph TR4, we can presume nothing really needs to change.

To conclude we think in the best interests of all drivers, the current regulations concerning vehicle weights should continue unchanged, however and unfortunately some Morgan drivers may be discouraged.