Vintage Racing Club of BC

The Spirit of Westwood Lives On!

May 20, 2012

Getting ready: the VRCBC Booth before the gates open - VRCBC photo

Updated: May 23, 2012

The 27th edition of the All British Field Meet (ABFM) – ‘The Greatest Show on British Wheels’ – was held on Saturday, May 19th at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens. The weather was perfect and all of the cars looked great. The VRCBC display was in its traditional location, right inside the main entrance, greeting the very large crowd of visitors as they entered Memory Lane.

The VRCBC was very well represented by Mark Brown’s two time REVS Champion Lotus Seven, Al Harvey’s MGB, Al Reid’s MGB, Ralph Zbarsky’s MGB GT, Nick Woodhouse’s Austin Healey, Ivan Lessner’s multiple REVS Champion Austin Healey, and John McCoy’s Lotus Cortina. There was a great deal of interest in the cars and in Vintage racing at Mission Raceway Park Road Course.

Update: The winners of the many awards and prizes are now posted on the Western Driver / ABFM website (here) soon. Our congratulations to VRCBC racers, John McCoy and Nick Woodhouse who took first and third places respectively in the Race Cars category.

The following few photos give you some idea of what was a very enjoyable day.

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May 17, 2012

Auburn Speedster Boattail - VRCBC photo

The VRCBC held its May meeting at the fabulous Johnson Collection in Aldergrove. The eclectic variety of vehicles on display is obvious from the following photographs.  Many thanks to our host, Terry Johnson.

In March, Alyn Edwards wrote a very informative column about the Collection in the Vancouver Sun. You can read it here.

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April 21, 2012

Editor in Chief Tom Johnston has just published the Spring 2012 edition of Vantage – the VRCBC Newsletter. This time, Robin Fairservice tells the story of the post war 500cc motorcycle-engined, Formula 3 which started the careers of so many subsequently famous drivers and constructors. Mike Tate has some more personal reflections on last year’s Goodwood Revival, and Tom Johnston tells the story of the circa mid-50’s Jones Lake Hill Climb. Check out the very ‘attractive’ spectator and entrant fees in the SCCBC Event Notice re-printed on page 15. Those were the good old days!  Tom also explains some of the background to the Snell and SPI certification bodies.

You can find this and all of the previous Vantages under the About VRCBC menu, or download it directly by clicking here.

April 18, 2012

Fine Italian Art - 2004 Ferrari F1 V-10 Crankshaft - VRCBC photo

The VRCBC’s April general meeting was actually a special visit to Ferrari Maserati of Vancouver (website). The Club members and guests who attended were too distracted by all of the beautiful new and pre-owned high performance cars on display to actually focus on any regular business agenda – so we didn’t even try!

The few photos below don’t do justice to these fabulous machines and the state of the art, multi-story facility on Burrard Street. It was a very enjoyable evening. A big thank you to General Manager Mark Edmonds and his team for hosting us.

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April 17, 2012

The first three in-car videos from the 2012 REVS season at Mission Raceway Park Road Course have arrived. You can find them in the right hand column of this web site.

The first video is from inside Gunter Pichler’s 1964 Jaguar E-Type as he wins the first Vintage race on Sunday, April 15th. The second video is the view from the lower right front wishbone of Mark Brown’s 1969 Lotus Seven S-3 as he comes second in the same race. The third video is again from Mark’s Lotus as he wins the second race, after first Gunter and then Dennis Repel’s Camaro succumbed to tire issues – most noticeably in Turn #1 and Turn #9.

Look for the track improvements, particularly the much better sight line through Turn 6.