The Garage: Your daily dose of automotive news, reviews and motorsports coverage
At some point on the evening of October 3, some dirtbag stole a grey 20′ Haulmark trailer from Woodstock, Ontario. Having a trailer stolen is bad enough, but inside that trailer was Dino Micacchi’s red Bugeye Sprite. Seen above at the 2010 VARAC Festival, #02 is a vintage race prepared Sprite.
The license plate on the trailer is D26 44W. If you see this trailer or car, contact Dino directly, by email at dino@vmswca.com or by phone at 519-788-2227.
Friend of The Garage, Mike Adams, recently became the recipient of a collection of vintage racing photos that had been taken by Clint Laurie. Among the shots was this pic of my Dad, Bud Tucker’s MKII Sprite. This is the car in which Bud raced in 1967, when he won the Alitalia trophy for sports cars in Ontario. At the right of the picture is Bud, his greasy jeans showing the reality that most racers did it all themselves back in those days. Bent down polishing something or other is my Mom, Gloria. I’m guessing this shot was taken in the paddock at Harewood Acres.
As a side note, there were two Alitalia Trophies that year, one for sports cars and the other for sedans. The sedan winner was non other than Bill Brack.
Mike Adams races the recently restored supercharged MGB that Al Pease raced back in those days, a car that is a star in its own right.
Editor’s note: thanks to Tom Johnston who informed me that the track is the Macdonald Airport which was Winnipeg Sports Car Club’s racing circuit in the 1960s.
Long time readers will recall the video we posted years ago of a 3 rotor Bugeye Sprite attacking an autocross course. I still go back and visit that clip often, as I just love to hear the wail of the wankel!
Today we have Jeff Kiesel in his Bugeye that has a turbo rotary that puts out a whopping 370 horsepower at the rear wheels! For those who don’t know, curb weight on a stock Bugeye was around 1,800 lbs. Factor in the light weight rotary and I’ll guess that this car has a floppy bonnet, Jeff’s ride might weigh somewhere around 1,500 lbs. That is a pretty wicked power to weight ratio!
Sit back, crank the volume and hold on to the chair.
While attempting to convey the glorious sound of a big Healey that won the heart of our man Allan, we showed a quick video yesterday of a short drive in an Austin Healey road car. Some of us found that video a bit less than inspiring. Gary Faules went hunting and came up with this incredible segment of Mark Schmidt in his Healey 3000 Mk I.
This is no country drive mind you. This is the first 2 laps of the European Historic Grand Prix at Zolder in 2005 and Schmidt absolutely decimates the field when he starts from behind. Off the line, listen to the incredible revs needed to launch the car with its full race clutch. You can actually see the front end lift and the car squirming as it fights for traction while it leaves all the small bore cars standing still. Talk about asleep at the switch. I swear a couple of them hadn’t even moved when Schmidt went by them. Then, keep an eye out for the Fiat 500 that almost runs him off the road, followed by the Renault Alpine that nearly does the same. Wake up guys, when a faster car starts behind you, you had better be ready for him to go by. At the end of the 2nd lap, no fewer than 29 cars have been passed!
Now this is the sound of an Austin Healey!
In his Love at First Sight segment of Shutter Speed, Allan De La Plante tells us how the sound of that old Healey added to his infatuation. With all the cool race car sounds around here these days, Allan thought we should bring a little bit of the Healey magic into the place.
Somehow I don’t think that Allan’s white Healey was ever driven as carefully as this one as he blasted around North Bay!
Before my old man got rid of his Biscayne during his mid-life crisis, I got something I had longed for from the time I first drove his Buick…my driver’s license! It wasn’t a simple task for me to get that special piece of paper. When I went for the 90-day learner’s permit, which was what they gave you as a minimum in those days, I had to take an eye exam. They found one eye lacking. They found I had very little vision in my right eye. Over the years I had never had even one tiny speck of dust that would have forced me to use my right eye only. I just thought everything was normal. It explained a lot of things in my sporting life. I was continuously being blind-sided on my right when I played hockey. I was poor at slalom in skiing. Catching a football was also a problem even though I was a starting wing back on our high school team. Depth perception didn’t exist for me. I believe it also impacted my professional life when I grew up. I saw mono and not in stereo vision as normal people do. I would see exactly what the camera did and what was going to be put down on film. Back to getting the driver’s license. I decided to take the test in a small town south of North Bay where I expected it would be easier. It was. When they asked me to cover my eye for the eye test, I looked through my fingers when my bad eye was needed. The examiner didn’t even look at me. He looked at the chart! It was all manual then and easy to get through the exam with a little cheating. I then did the driving portion of the exam. It was even easier. No stop signs, no traffic lights, no pedestrians. If I could keep it on the road, I had the green light to drive on my own! Needless to say I drove home with my Mother in the passenger seat beaming.
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The Fourteenth Annual Greenwich Concours d’Elegance was held on June 6-7 at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich, CT. Founders and co-chairs Bruce and Genia Wennerstrom hosted an impressive variety of marques, featuring rare, classic, unusual, exotic, and one-off production and race cars.
It is a pleasure to share this delectable mix of devastating machinery with you. So as to not overwhelm you, gentle reader, we will show the cars in separate installments by the car’s nation of origin. Enjoy!
If there are two cars that define the spirit of the sports car racing in the Sixties more than any others, they must be the Austin Healey Sprite and the Triumph Spitfire. It might even be safe to say that more racers got their starts in these fun and affordable cars than all of the others combined.
Friend of The Garage, Paul Chenard, was recently commissioned to create this wonderful piece by Mike Gee from British Columbia. That’s Mike leading the way in his Spitfire at Western Speedway on Vancouver Island in 1964. Chasing him, with the inside line, is Dan Sherwood in his brand new Mk II Sprite.
Absolutely the essence of North American racing in the early Sixties!
If you’ve got a favorite photo of your car in action or you’d like to pick up one of Paul’s existing works be sure to visit Automobiliart.com
Like so many other racing addicts, the fever was started with a Bugeye Sprite. In my case though, it wasn’t my own car but my father’s first race car a full 2 years before I was born. The seed was planted though and that propelled Bud on to race with some success over the next few years.
The car is obviously an Austin Healey Sprite, which us North Americans call a Bugeye, while the Brits feel it is more of a Frogeye. It looks like the shot was taken on the pre grid at Mosport, prior to the Formula 1 garages being built. I believe the year was 1965. A bit of success with this car led to the Mark II Sprite that Bud won the first ever Ontario Sports Car racing championship in 1967.
Unfortunately this photo isn’t in the best of shape, but I believe it is the only one of this car.
