Hey Gang,
Well, Las Cruces' 1998 British Car Days has come and gone... Cars
participating pretty much ranged the British Car spectrum.
As expected, the Boot Sale (Saturday, April 25) was mainly a chance to paw
through the other guys' jun... er, treasures, and schmooze a while.
The Rallye Picante--billed as a "time and distance rallye" but really more of
a fun run--got off promptly at 1 PM Saturday with over 30 cars out of the
blocks at one minute intervals. Only 28 cars completed the Rallye, a number
apparently having gotten hopelessly lost amid the maze of pecan orchards and
barrios that comprised the venue. Tigger was the only Sunbeam in the rallye
and performed flawlessly from the moment we "gave the folks a thrill" at the
starting line 'til we rumbled back in, half-a-lifetime later.
This was top down motoring at its best, at least on the stretches where road
surfaces were good and there wasn't a stop sign every 300 feet. There were
lots of good stretches where the Tiger growled a-plenty. While the car
performed flawlessly, one real problem--not a mere concern--did emerge...
This was the waves of engine heat (not just radiant heat off the firewall)
blasting the driver in the face at speed. It is really quite uncomfortable
even running top down and I gotta change that. (This is kind of in keeping
with the current thread running on engine cooling. My Tiger has yet to go
over an indicated 100 degrees C and has never puked a drop, the coolant level
is staying constant when cold. BUT summer is not yet here and summer here is
REALLY summer.... Wonder what'll happen when the ambient hits 102?)
Turns out, when they scored the rallye that observance of speed laws was not a
factor (thank you, Jesus). Nor was time to complete considered. The factors
considered were total mileage reported AND "whether you answered the
questions right." Hey, I aced the questions... But my total mileage was off
by about 3/4's of a mile, just good enough to put us in fourth place with only
three trophies awarded. Winner of the Rallye was Albuquerqueite Kevin
Sullivan (navigator, Leslie Sullivan) driving a beautiful 1960 MGA roadster.
Kevin's recorded 66 miles against the "official" 66.382 miles. (Who has an
odometer which reads to thousandths of a mile, you might well ask... Only a
Rallyemeister with a good imagination...)
I did note, however that Kevin's reported average speed for the event was 39.8
mph while my reported average was 56.7 mph... Not bad, considering that only
8 miles of the course had a speed limit of 65 mph... everything else was down
in the 45-55 mph range. I suspect that my average speed crept up there
because we took a couple of short detours and sidetrips (thank you, my loverly
navigator of 33 years) that I wanted to make up time for.
Sunday's car show got off to a great start with most of the cars parading
across town to the show venue at tree-studded Young Park. Jaguar was the
featured Marque this year so we had tons of the classy little cats. Best Jag
was voted to a 1954 XK120 roadster. Lots of Austin Healeys competed with Best
Healey going to a great 1954 100-4 BN1 which was driven down from Albuquerque
(240 miles north of here) for the show. Best MG went to Rallye Picante winner
Kevin Sullivan.
We wound up with 4 Sunbeams in this year's show, as compared to zero Sunbeams
last year.
C.A.T. member John Smallwood drove his great British Racing Green '65 Tiger
down from Santa Fe, a distance of about 300 miles. John has owned this 289
powered car since his days as a college student (he looks so young, that was
probably only two or three years ago) and it is very, very nice, indeed.
C.A.T. member Ron Koerner brought his recently restored '67 MKII down from
Albuquerque and this bright red car is truly immaculate. Ron brought this car
back from a rusted tub and if he decides to make the trek to Big Bear, you
California boys will face a serious challenge from this New Mexican car which
is complete with a genuine Car'l She'by autographed glove box.
C.A.T. member I, of course, entered my own black '65 Tiger. (I commuted about
16 miles each way...)
The fourth Sunbeam was Robert Abernathy's red '67 Series V which Robert drove
down from Socorro, NM (over 100 miles north of Las Cruces). Robert, now a two
Alpine man, just bought this car last month and is still sorting it out. His
presence was really appreciated as he really rounded out the Sunbeam class.
Not surprisingly, 1st place in the Sunbeam class went to Ron Koerner's MKII, a
well deserved trophy. Second place, however, went to my '65 Tiger which came
as a real shock to me. Clearly, John Smallwood's car was more deserving.
Normally, I would say, "well, it was just a popularity contest" but the fact
is that John is, himself, quit a bit nicer than I am... Really, I think it was
a sympathy vote. But, whatever it was, I am keeping the trophy!
(Of course, there is one other thing I had going for myself.... ORIGINAL
RIVETS!)
There was no third place trophy for the Sunbeam class because we had only four
entries.
Unfortunately, the wind and rain arrived concurrent with the burritos and
pizza just before noon... Quick like a bunny eating Tiger, I jumped into
Tigger and headed out... Remember, I have two tops... Unfortunately, the
hardtop was home in the garage and the soft top was home in a box in the
kitchen. (I just gotta find somebody to install that thing.) Actually, I
woulda stuck it out if I had a tonneau cover with me but my tonneau cover was
also at home in the kitchen in the other box.
Anyway, we hustled home with the Tiger then went back to town in the minivan
for the awards ceremony.
It was a great event, again, even though we lost a couple hours off our show.
I really thank Ron, John, and Robert for coming down.
Sometime in the next day or so I will be posting photos of the Tigers and
other neat stuff at
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/cobmeister/BMCSNMphotos.html";>
http://members.aol.com/cobmeister/BMCSNMphotos.html</A>.
Oh, yeah! We--the British Motorcar Club of Southern New Mexico--also managed,
despite the wind and rain, to collect about 70 pounds of food for the
Emergency Food Bank here in Las Cruces during our truncated show. We will
also be making a cash contribution to the food bank as soon as we can figure
how the club did financially.
Next year I gotta figure a way to get twice as many Tigers entered....
Cheers!
--Colin Cobb, Strokin' His Trophy Under Clear, Calm, Sunny Skies Outside Las
Cruces, NM
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