The final round of the 2014 Morgan Three Wheeler Club Challenge Series
Cadwell Park was the place to be and it seemed everyone was there! It was a glorious weekend of lovely weather, great racing and social chit chat. The paddock was packed so full that George Gould had to change into his leathers in a garden shed on the edge of a field. There were about 300 entries and of these 17 were Morgans.
The Circuit:
The Words:
From Pete Clews – Competition Secretary:
The MTWC Challenge Round was combined with a Watsonian Sidecar Championship resulting in a full grid. Tim Gray was as usual a late entry and found himself as reserve; fortunately for him, though unfortunately for Dave Hodgson, Dave’ s Racer decided to become an oil pump and store it’s sump oil in the catch tank as soon as it was started and Tim took his grid slot. Chas Pilbeam also suffered a bearing failure in practice and didn’t race.
The front of the field was a race between Hamish Bibby, with Maggie Tuer beside him, and Tim Gray wagging his wheels at every turn. One spectator was heard to remark, “His wife is very brave sitting in there” to which a MTWC member replied, “That’s not his wife, that’s his mum.” Hamish won with Tim just 4 seconds behind leaving the rest of the field in their wake. Neil Smith with new passenger Jayne Morris was third after a close battle with Greg Bibby followed by Chas Reynolds in fifth place. Making up the rest of the racing Class were the two pump fuel cars of Tony Quinn, freshly returned from his layoff, and Pete Clews in the F-Type.
Touring Modified was a runaway victory for Danny Hodgson and Hayley Capewell from David Poplar. The Pearson family, Tony with daughter Verity beside him and wife Charlene and daughter Bronte cheering from the sidelines, came home ahead of George Gould while Cathy Quinn who only needed a finish to win the TM Challenge Class completed the field.
The B3 races were in essence little different from the Challenge race as they were full fields of the same competitors. Race 17 was won by Greg Bibby and Paula Heaney just 7 hundredths ahead of Bill and Maggie Tuer with the Grays only 8 tenths of a second behind after a very thrilling race. Neil Smith was over 20 seconds behind and the rest of the field over half a minute later. A cracking performance.
On Saturday evening Cathy Quinn organised a get together with lovely cakes and bubbly for Phil Bridge who has passengered for her for several years as he is retiring from competition.
The Photos:
From Sue Clews and Jonathan Garside.
The results:
Challenge Round, click on the image. For the full results, click here:
