We came back north for the final round of the NZRC in 1977 and en-route seriously rolled , bowled and a#^*holed the 4 door car that had served us so well the prior weekend at Doctors Hill which is a great Northland hillclimb so we were in serious trouble when once again Bruce Pullman came to our rescue when he arrived at the workshop with the coupe he had just purchased off Ray Jordon. This was a car that Rotorsport had first built for Alan Carter and it had not done much work as no one could get it to handle, stop or go. Typical Bruce, the comment was when you get home sell off as much as you can, work hard, make some money and pay me back at the end of the year. We dropped my engine into it and made it to the final event with Rowan McLean co-driving but the car was in better shape than I was. Over the summer during the repaint found out the biggest issue was that the car had a very poor structural repair that had been bogged over so once rectified it was a magic car. 1st photo taken in the Rankleburn Forest during the 1978 Gore Rally and the remainder on the 1978 Motogard Rally of NZ. We ran this car with a stage 3 engine with a modified original equipment carburettor, 4.9 LSD, fitted top links to the rear suspension and Bilstien shock absorbers all round. Still with Std brakes it had about 6 real good stops per event so you made them count. Barry Robinson had a similar issue with his Viva GT brakes and worked on the theory that a locked brake generates no heat and as we were all on Sherpa retreads the tyres never lasted anyway. Had some great times with this car and it taught me a lot about accumulating and then maintaining corner speed.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 07:29:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015