The Spirit of Westwood Lives On!
VRCBC members Manny and Linda Zumm are long time volunteers at all of the road racing events at Mission; Manny as a Track Marshall and Linda with Driver Services. Linda has always been a great help with Driver Services at our BC Historic Motor Races. Linda recently retired and wrote a story about her motorsport experiences for her previous employer’s newsletter. You can read it here. Great story Linda – see you at the track!
VRCBC Members were among those invited to attend the unveiling of a beautifully restored 1938 BMW 327/328 at Jellybean Autocrafters in Surrey, on February 23rd. This BMW model is generally acknowledged as one of the most significant automobiles in history. It had leading-edge performance and handling for its time, with its tubular frame and 2 litre, inline six cylinder engine, featuring triple carburetors and hemispherical combustion chambers.
Intermeccanica's main shop with current work in progress
The Club held its February General Membership Meeting at Intermeccanica Custom Coach Builders in Vancouver ( www.intermeccanica.com ). Paula Reisner gave a fascinating presentation on the history of the company that she built with her husband, Frank, who passed away in 2001. Intermeccanica was founded in Turin in 1959 and eventually moved to Vancouver in 1981. The company’s first projects included speed equipment and one of the first rear-engined Formula Juniors. Over the years, they have produced a wide variety of specialty vehicles; many of which, such as the Apollo and the Indra were immediately recognized by Club members. In recent years, production has been focussed on their Speedster replica, in its many forms. The entire company story is well told on the company website.
Henry Reisner, the president of Intermeccanica, then walked us through the entire process of building their very impressive, high performance cars. A big thank you to Intermeccanica from the VRCBC!
And if you want to see another story of the tour with some really excellent photos, check out our friend Carl Jarrett’s blog on the SpeedHunter site here.
Ben Manning Sr. passed away on December 3rd. Ben was a past president of the Sports Car Club of British Columbia and was very instrumental in the building of the Westwood track in 1959. All those who attended the Westwood 50 Reunion Banquet in 2009 will remember his very entertaining reminiscences of those early days. Ben was inducted into the Greater Vancouver Motorsports Pioneers Society in October of last year. You can read his GVMPS biography here.
The River’s Edge Vintage Series (REVS) is the VRCBC’s awards system based on the racing events sponsored by the Club and held each year at the Mission Raceway Park road racing course. Points are awarded for participation, rather than finishing position. The Club has presented their awards to the top three finishers in each of the REVS Race Groups for the 2010 season.
Mark Brown is the Overall REVS Champion for 2010. Congratulations to Mark and all of this year’s participants. And thanks to Paul Bonner for the excellent photos.
Overall Champion: Mark Brown
1st Place: Peter Valkenburg
2nd Place: Ivan Lessner
3rd Place: Tim Pickstone
1st Place: Mark Brown
2nd Place: Jim Latham
3rd Place: Glen Gibbons
1st Place: Al Harvey
2nd Place: Dennis Repel
3rd Place: Geoff Tupholme
1st Place: Tedd McHenry
2nd Place: Lawrence Green
3rd Place: Ken Butler