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TEAM-LCR REPORTS |
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- Photo by
Victor Newman |
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LE CIRCUIT MONT-TREMBLANT
- Le
Sommet des Legendes |
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Mont-Tremblant was a first for us this year. We were really looking forward to this event in the mountains of Quebec: the second annual 'Le Sommet des Legendes,' organized by Murray Smith and Pierre Desmarais. In fact, we had planned on taking three cars to savor the views at high speed from Le Circuit. In the end, however, various conflicts reduced our presence to just one participant - Ed Mettelman in his faithful Lotus 47, supported expertly by our Crew Chief, Bill Pedersen. |
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Having never visited the
Laurentians, we really didn't know what to expect, except that the place was
supposed to be spectacular and the track great, with wonderful race groups
and an extraordinary assortment of thoroughbred race cars -
all of which proved to be absolutely so.
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Ed's weekend started off ominously on test day and even on the first day of practice with ignition problems that caused the car part-way through each session to suddenly die and fail to re-fire. Changing various parts got the car to start, only for the same problem to reoccur part-way through the next session. Needless to say, this was frustrating; but Ed now has a new friend! - he and the tow-vehicle driver are on a first-name basis. Wonder-Boy Bill finally sorted out the problem (which had completely baffled some of the best brains at the track) first thing Saturday morning. Ed did miss his own group session, but managed to finagle his car into one of the other groups, so making sure that he had a recorded time for the qualifying race on Saturday afternoon. The car was again running faultlessly (something Ed had gotten used to since ditching the "P" cars in search of reliability). |
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Even as Ed was assured of first place overall in his own race group, the fickle finger of Murray Smith unfortunately appeared and signaled "sorry mate" as he moved Ed up a race group. Not to be deterred, however, Ed improved his lap times by over 4 seconds in the race and brought the car home a very creditable 8th overall. (It's worth noting here that all of the cars in front of Ed, save one, had engines at least twice the size of his.) |
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The car continues to intrigue paddock strollers, perhaps because of its rarity - it is the only Lotus 47 being campaigned at "race" weekends on the east side of the country. For whatever reason, it never ceases to draw a crowd around it. Well done Ed! Now we're looking forward to Lime Rock on Labor Day! |
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HSR Virginia
Historic Races - Formula Car Festival |
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Again, we had only a single entry for this event - our latest charge, Robert Allred in his beautiful Lotus Super 7. The weekend started out as very much a test weekend. The first race of the year had been at Roebling Road, Savannah for Robert and the 7, and, whilst on the pace, the car had suffered from over-heating - a problem which had apparently dogged it for some time. Running out of ideas, we redesigned the cooling system, fitting a new aluminum radiator and associated bits and pieces. |
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VIR
was hot
from the word go, but the car ran cool.
With much smiling in relief, we then set about tuning the chassis to
Robert's taste. After achieving the balance he liked, Robert
set about destroying the opposition. Every time he went out and
improved his time, however, the pesky G4 Ginetta of Lee Talbot clipped off
yet another second from his time. Victory was not to be in Talbot's
grasp, though, as his engine exploded during the Endurance race prior to
Sunday's sprint races.
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Robert was pretty much assured victory in Group 2. However, Groups 2 and 3 were amalgamated for Sunday's feature sprint races. Robert was 8th on the grid of combined Group 2 and 3, giving some idea of the speed of Group 3. However, at the start, Robert was 4th into the first corner, a position he maintained for the first lap. He then moved his car up to 3rd and looked set to make 2nd place, as he was literally right on the bumper of Burdettes 2-litre Porsche 914/6 GT. |
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Then a full-course yellow
was thrown and the pace car came out. Next time around, the green
was thrown again; but on the restart Robert lost his "tow" down the front straight. With two laps to go, he could not make up enough ground
on the two lead cars to effect a pass. All he could do was hope they would take each other out of contention, but that was not to be. Robert
did close up enough at the checker
to be less than a second from the first-place car. So -
we have another winner in our midst! A fine podium finish from our new
star, Robert
Allred
- first overall in Group 2 and 3rd overall in the race. Well done Robert! (despite trying to start
backwards off the false grid a couple of times....) |
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