Maclean's Bridge Sports Car Day 1998

Leon Percy

I had already had a hard weekend by that Sunday morning (Mothers Day), so the bright sunshine and the din of the insects did my hangover no good at all. As usual the front paddock at the park was full and festivities were in full swing by about 10am. There were the usual array of interesting cars to be inspected. Robert Howlett's Beat was disguised in the line of a dozen MX5s, he had to bargain to be let in. Raymond Barlow was not so fortunate, he took Shane's CRX down for the day, to line up beside Robert and give us a club presence at the day. He was told at the gate that "There was no more room" (when in fact the rear paddock remained less than half full all day) and "There isn't a Honda Car Club anyway" so he had a quick look around and went home. I am writing a <please explain> letter to the Triumph Sports Owners, to try to figure out what their 'citeria' are. Given that there was a Rover SD1, early Capris, Subaru WRXs, and the Nissan Special Vehicles guys, I can't make out their policy. Having since spoken to Felix at our meeting, his Zephyr Zodiac and Consul Club have never been welcome either, which is crazy.

While I'm on my hobby-horse -- the event is getting smaller, both spectators and entrants are fewer each year, there is very little publicity, and clubs are not even invited to participate. If they don't do something about it, the owners will not bother turning up with the cars that we would never get to see up close. How often do you get to see under the bonnet of a Countach, a Viper, a Testarossa, a Jensen Interceptor, a Stratos or a '59 Corvette?
On a brighter note, I met John Slater (who had no trouble getting in) with an immaculate Coupe 9, he moved up from Sydney, but didn't think our club would be able to help him, due to his contact with the HCC NSW where the members he spoke to didn't know what it was. I told him there are a few Coupes around, so he will join and I'm sure we'll see him from time to time.

Jason Trevethan was also there with his Fiat 850 soft top (he still has S-cars at home), he spent a couple of years in London where he was a member of the very active S800 Sports Car Club, they have about 80 cars on the road, from one end of the old country to the other. The S600 was never sold in England, so they are nearly all S800s, and Jason has some magazines that I will try to take excerpts from.

We should have a few S-cars ready for next year, and there's no reason about eight other models in our range shouldn't be eligible either, we'll eagerly await a response from the Triumph club.

Update -- A year on, we have reeived no response from the Triumph Sports Owners -- look for another article on the 1999 event elsewhere in these pages.