Vintage Racing Club of BC

The Spirit of Westwood Lives On!

November 21, 2011

VINTAGE DRIFT cover courtesy SOVREN and Martin Rudow – Paul Bonner photos

Three long time VRCBC racers are featured on the cover of the November issue of VINTAGE DRIFT, SOVREN’s quarterly magazine. Paul Bonner took the above six photos at the Columbia River Classic at Portland International Raceway over the Labour Day weekend. The three VRCBC members are: Gunter Pichler (1964 Jaguar XKE), Evan Williams (1963 TVR Grantura) and Tim Pickstone (1963 Porsche 356C). The other three drivers on the cover are: Tom Lee (1969 Brabham BT30), David Phillips (1957 Austin Healey 100-6) and Clayton Sturge (1970 Crossle 20F).

Thank you to Editor / Publisher Martin Rudow for permission to post this image. For subscription and other information, check out the VINTAGE DRIFT web site here.

 

 

November 17, 2011

VRCBC member David Ledlin hosted the Club’s November General Meeting at his Auto Restore shop in Vancouver. As you can see on its web site, (http://www.autorestore.ca/), Auto Restore specializes in all forms of vehicle restoration. The few photos here do not do justice to the fascinating projects that are underway. A big thank you to Dave for the invitation – we will be back!

(more…)

November 14, 2011

Mighty Mini Leaf Blower - Paul Bonner photo

If you would like to purchase a Paul Bonner action photo of your favourite ‘hero driver’ or of yourself – probably the same person in most cases – contact Paul directly. Check out some of his BCHMR 2011 photos here and some of his Turkey Chase Weekend (Oct 9th) photos here.

Contact Paul by phone: (250) 544-2233 or email: phbonner@shaw.ca

October 31, 2011

The Gearheads - except for Larry Payeur who took the photo

The VRCBC hosted a day trip of both members and non-members to the fabulous LeMay Family Collection Foundation ( www.lemaymarymount.org/ ) in Tacoma on Saturday, October 29th. Many automotive collections have a few very high value cars displayed in what seems to be an art museum – you think you must speak softly. In contrast, the LeMay has endless numbers of ‘real’ cars displayed in ‘real’ conditions. There were rows of Model T’s and Model A’s, Chevrolets, Dodges, Buicks, countless Cadillacs, probably the largest collection of Packards anywhere, a Tucker, a Franklin, ‘Fire Truck Alley’, a DeLorean, a Bricklin, Studebakers, early ‘brass cars’ and farm tractors, a gas turbine powered kart, Pierce Arrows, aircraft engines, Lincoln Continentals, Rolls Royces, Kaisers, and on, and on, and on. And it seemed around every corner, there was also another collection of toys or dolls, or even hose nozzles!

There were constant comments like: ‘My dad had a car like that!’ – or even more frequently – ‘I tried to convince my dad to buy a car like that!’ It really was Gearhead Heaven! Highly recommended. A big thank you to the Lemay folks for the excellent tour and to our own Al Reid for pulling the trip together for us.

Tour organizer Al Reid is amazed by the brass hose nozzle collection.

VRCBC Pres. Stan Guy presents our lead tour guide (and VRCBC racer in 2012), Pierce Issacs with some BCHMR 'swag' as a thank you. Al Reid is still amazed.

And another big thank you to Larry Payeur, President of the Fraser Valley British Motor Club ( www.britishcarclub.ca/ ) for most of the photos you see here and below.

(more…)

October 24, 2011

Greg Campbell, Hugh Archer and Tony Campbell change the Elva's Porsche 4 cam - Hugh Archer photo

Long time VRCBC member Hugh Archer has sent us some photos of his trip to the Porsche Rennsport Reunion IV at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca over the October 14-16 weekend. Well-known BC vintage racers, Art Conner and Greg Campbell did very well in the Group 2 Eifel Trophy race, which had a field of 43 cars. Art won with his 1964 Porsche Platypus Spyder and Greg finished fourth in his 1964 Elva Porsche. Greg’s dad, Tony (seen in the above photo) was a very successful Porsche ‘chauffeur’ in his day as well. He was inducted by the Greater Vancouver Motorsport Pioneers Society (GVMPS) in 2010. You can read about Tony’s career – and see a photo of a very young Greg – in Vince Howlett’s GVMPS story here.

Kelowna’s Kees Nierop also attended, meeting and greeting enthusiasts together with many (50!) other long time Porsche drivers, such as Hurley Haywood, Derek Bell, Brian Redman, and Rob Dyson, and he also drove a 1976 Porsche 934 Coupe in the Group 4 Carrera Trophy race. The Mazda Raceway site (here) has a lot of Rennsport Reunion information – including links to videos and the full race results.

Check out the rest of Hugh’s photos below. Note that according to Porsche, their 2008 ALMS car is ‘Vintage – eligible’! Hmmmm ………

(more…)