Vintage Racing Club of BC

The Spirit of Westwood Lives On!

October 21, 2011

Ian "Knees" Wood works on his Rawlson's plumbing - Jim Moody photo

The Classic Sports Racing Group (CSRG) held its annual Charity Challenge at Infineon Raceway (formerly Sears Point) in California over the Oct 1st-2nd weekend. Veteran VRCBC racer Glen Gibbons and his wife Karen, and the club’s good friend and frequent photograph contributer Jim Moody and his wife Colleen went down and have sent us this report.  (Thanks folks.)

VRCBC stalwart Ian Wood was there with his Rawlson and had a very good weekend. In Sunday’s Group 6 race, he placed third ahead of the big block Can Am cars of Tom Malloy (McLaren M8E), Jim Stengel (McLaren M8F) and Fred Cziska (Shadow DN4A). Fellow VRCBC member Keith Frieser won the race with his Lola T290 with second spot taken by R Smith in his Chevron B-19.

Rides for Charity were offered with a wide selection of race cars to choose from, and it looks like these were the highlights of the trip for Glen and Jim. Glen being a devoted Alfa Romeo aficianado (fanatic?) took three laps around Infineon with Jon Norman and his ex-Trans Am Alfa GTV. Jim chose three fast and furious laps with Tom Malloy in his McLaren M8E. Were you able to hold the camera steady Jim?

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October 20, 2011

Grand Prix Ferrari cockpit - M. Zumm photo

META stalwarts and VRCBC members, Linda and Manny Zumm had a great time at this year’s Goodwood Revival. They sent us the following ‘trip report’ and many photos which really capture the atmosphere of this event. Check out their photos under the Gallery / Photos menu or click here.

The Goodwood Revival was on the Bucket List and friends in the UK made it possible. The tickets were purchased, a cottage rented just 5 miles from the Goodwood estate and the clothes put together by various means. The 3 day event exceeded all expectations; the track, the people, the racing, the atmosphere, and the legends of motorsport – even the weather didn’t disappoint. All typical English weather, a little bit of everything. Even the parking lots showed the passion, love and money of Vintage Motorcars. Lastly, the patience of queuing every morning to get into the grounds, at least 1-2hrs each day.

This is an event even for the non-motor racing people; people watching, shopping, fair grounds, eating, drinking, and lots of walking. The track, all 2.38 miles, is visible from all areas, lots of flushable portable toilets! So clean. Of course the countryside and villages are idyllic for the event.

There were special events between races, Ford UK 100th anniversary parade, Sir Stirling Moss’ 82nd birthday celebrated by Bunny Girls delivering the cake, a Battle of Britain air show with a Lancaster and 10 Spitfires ( the ones the Germans didn’t get), Motorcyclist champions and the 50th anniversary Jaguar Race.

Goodwood will be remembered fondly forever.

 Update: Linda has just published their story on the BMO CyberPensioners website (here) as well.

October 17, 2011

Glen Gibbons (Alfa Romeo GTV) leads Stanton Guy (in Al Reid's MGB) - Karen Gibbons photo

Update: The Final Results are now available here.

The Thanksgiving weekend ‘Turkey Chase’ was the Sports Car Club of BC’s last event of the 2011 race season at Mission Raceway Park Road Course. The VRCBC’s own Vintage racers were out on Sunday, doing their part to run down any stray gobblers that happened to also be ‘racing along the River’s Edge’.

It is very easy to see from these photos – a big thank you to Karen Gibbons – why Vintage road racing is popular with so many. Vintage racing cars cover the whole spectrum of type, size, age and potential performance on the track. It is this variety that makes it so much fun for everyone. The cars really are the stars.

The weather was perfect and the racing was excellent. It was a great way to end the VRCBC season. Thank you to our hosts – the SCCBC.

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October 16, 2011

Nick Woodhouse in his beautiful Austin Healey 100-4 - Paul Bonner photo

Thanks to Paul Bonner we have a great selection of photos of VRCBC members ‘chasing the gobblers along The River’s Edge’ in the Vintage races during the SCCBC’s Turkey Chase Weekend at Mission Raceway Park Road Course. The photos below have been compressed for the web site. If you are a big fan of one of these ‘star’ drivers or (more likely) are one of the Turkey Chasers yourself, you can get larger, high quality versions by contacting Paul Bonner directly by email at: phbonner@shaw”dot”ca

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October 15, 2011

Mike Gee (Cooper Climax) chases Tom Johnston (Lola Climax) at Westwood in 1967 - Courtesy M. Gee Collection

Mike Gee, a long time member of the west coast road racing fraternity, passed away on October 5th. Tom Johnston has written the following about someone who was initially a fellow competitor and then subsequently a good friend.

 In recent years, we in the VRCBC knew Mike Gee as that ‘older guy’ who came to our races at Mission and occasionally wrote articles about our races for Victory Lane and similar magazines. But there was often talk about his racing at Westwood in the 1960’s.

Mike Gee in recent times

I first met Mike when I raced against him at Westwood in 1967. I then re-met him years later when he was putting together a series of video tapes from collections of other people’s Westwood movie film collections. I then met him again when I was writing my first book: ‘Sports Car Road Racing in Western Canada’. Mike helped me with all of the information he had collected, and also gave me at that time the above photo from his files of our 1967 race. Mike had an amazing collection of transcribed newspaper reports on Westwood races culled from the archives of all of the local newspapers.

As I got to know Mike better, we worked together to find the history of his unique Cooper racing car; the one shown in the photo. The trail led from the Island of Jersey to Monza, then to Westwood, being lost for a number of years and then recently discovered in a Kamloops backyard. It is currently being restored.

Mike gave me some information about his background; a MA in English who taught all over the world, a pilot, a former railroad telegrapher, a photographer, a writer, a RCAF member and a militia volunteer; a very interesting guy.

A private memorial was held for Mike on October 13th. It was my pleasure to meet his loving family and his friends from all aspects of his long and interesting life.

– Tom Johnston