Murphy’s Law or
Trisha’s Luck
South Africa –
Rétromobile – International Motor Show – Pomeroy Trophy
2004 – January and February
Reports on the above events all follow each other below.
The trip to South Africa was made enjoyable by the
excellent three day Safari we did before heading for Johannesburg to race at
Zwartskop. Chris Wilson was to share
his Ferrari 308 with Richard, but Chris developed tummy problems severe enough
to make him and Sandy fly home on the first circuit day – a huge disappointment
for all involved. However, they did
manage to miss some of the problems caused by lack of communication by the ISP
(Piper and Knight) organisers and the start of Trisha’s Luck.
A chance meeting with Mike Knight in the car park of the
hotel elicited some very late information – Richard P. and Roger Deans, who was
sharing his McLaren with David Ham, had missed the whole of Thursdays’ ‘free’
circuit practice. And by the time we
saw Mike we had also missed first practice on Friday. Worse was to come! All
racing on Sunday had been cancelled – this information was only known by a few
people and was pretty important to us as it affected visiting friends and our
flights - JoB is not a place one would choose to stay without serious reason.
Richard said that the racing and practice which did take
place on Friday and Saturday was very enjoyable and there was as much circuit
time as he wanted with more available.
Actually it was not bad to watch, despite the searing heat. The car went well and he did better lap
times than last year but Roger Deans’ McLaren suffered severe over-heating
curtailing some of their racing although David did manage to put in an
impressively fast lap. There were, of
course, plenty of other cars of mixed ages and race including the ‘other’ ISP
cars and lots of friendly South Africans who are very keen for a TOPS group to
go next year - girls promised!
We managed to change our flights and flew to Cape Town on
Sunday (the cancelled race day) to celebrate our wedding anniversary in
slightly more style! However things
were not to work out the way we had hoped as dinner in a recommended restaurant
resulted in severe food poisoning (Trisha’s Luck) – but we had four days
to recover which was good as the first morning was spent trying to change our
hire car (not easy!) before we headed for Boschendal to buy one of our
favourite wines - to be told that it had been so popular they had sold
out! (Damn that Murphy!)
We did manage some enjoyable ‘tourism’ before arriving at
Killarney race circuit where the temperatures were up to 39º. It must have been over 50º in the corrugated
roofed pits. After checking the car had
arrived safely by road from JoB we headed for the Cullinan Hotel in Cape Town
which had been booked by ISP for everyone, only to find that several of us had
no rooms and as the hotel was full and we had to find somewhere else. (Murphy’s Law)! A barbeque with Dickon Daggitt and friends,
including Spike and Trish Milligan who were there on holiday, revived our
spirits and the next three days at Kilarney circuit provided more good racing –
and plenty of it. At this point my digital
camera broke down – exactly one week out of guarantee – could it be deliberate
timing or just ‘Trisha’s luck’ instead of the wretched ‘Murphy’ who
had dogged this trip? We spent the next
couple of days lolling by swimming pools and watching fantastic sunsets before
flying home, to leave immediately for Rétromobile in Paris.
Rétromobile
Rétromobile this year was under new management.
Unfortunately the modern motor manufacturers still had a heavy presence, which
disappointed many of the historic enthusiasts.
You could have been forgiven for thinking the show was for Citroëns,
mainly in Safari guise, as they dominated the hall. Stands of luggage,
pictures, model cars, books, spares and autojumble were interspersed with car
traders showing their wares and the occasional impressively nice car. Fewer event organisers and car clubs seemed
to have stands this year but it was still a good show and absolutely full of
people you knew. Christies had an
auction - their stand was staffed by over-zealous security gorillas who were
quite a deterrent which perhaps had something to do with the fact that they
only sold a few cars.
The Show
lasts ten days and attracts some 200,000 visitors. A good show to ‘see and be seen’!
We rushed home after three weeks
away to find that the very full deep-freeze had thawed
Damn Murphy again - Trisha’s Luck was not improving.
International Historic
Motorsport Show
Despite the problem, a few days later we headed north to
Coventry for the new International Historic Motorshow. It was really good with the presentation of
the stands at a higher standard than we had expected. Hall 1 had the most interesting exhibits for us including
precision engineering – pistons, camshafts, castings etc. even a demonstration of lazer guided machinery
- very impressive. A large number of
car and engine restorers were there which enabled lots of people to chat about
the work they were having done. There
were also car displays by various Clubs. A centre of attention was Tom
Wheatcroft’s BRM V16 on the HGPCA stand which also displayed member Stephen
Curtis’ HWM. Hall 2 was mainly for
Rally cars whilst Hall 3 was for Automobilia – this Hall was freezing as the
heating had broken down - one felt very sorry for the exhibitors.
The Show deserves your support – they had 16,427 visitors
over the three days – don’t be surprised if they get that in just one day next
year. H&H held an auction and sold
70% of the cars which was a pretty good result in the aftermath of the Coys
debacle.
If you didn’t go this year do try to visit next time – February 25 –27, 2005.
The Pomeroy Trophy – VSCC Silverstone
The next day was Saturday and The Pom – always a bitterly
cold event and this year was no different with a biting wind. Nevertheless a very large number of VSCC
members turned up to compete and despite this event really not being a
spectator sport, there were plenty of them. It must be one of the most eclectic
groups of cars ever seen competing. We
were there to support daughter Alex who was entered in her Alfa Romeo 1750 - it
was suffering from over-heating – hard to understand when we were all so jolly
cold!
From Silverstone we headed home
– again. This time there were no dramas
and we are actually here for two weeks before going to the Rallye de Paris with
ten TOPS cars. Why aren’t the rest of
you entered or are you afraid of being infected by Murphy? He has returned to
Ireland to bring us good luck at Phoenix Park on July 17 and 18.
Extract from the March TOPS NEWS sent to
members
PGP