Ex-Courage M4A took first single-seater win for renowned manufacturer<\/b><\/p>\n
In his day job Mike Flewitt is chief executive of McLaren\u2019s road car business, but in his spare time he drives the company\u2019s very first single-seater racing car.<\/p>\n
Flewitt, who has competed in a Lotus Elan and Elite in recent seasons, has added a single-seater to his racing plans after falling in love with the ex-Piers Courage McLaren M4A Formula 2
\ncar from 1967 \u2013 which was on display at last month\u2019s Motor Sport Hall of Fame awards. \u201cThere were two M4As originally built by McLaren for F2 in 1967: one for Bruce McLaren and one for Piers,\u201d said Flewitt. \u201cThey had Cosworth FVA engines for the first year of the new F2 rules.\u201d Prior to the M4\u2019s launch, McLaren had only produced sports-racing and Can-Am cars.<\/p>\n
Flewitt\u2019s car is M4A chassis 2, one of the two original works cars. Around a dozen customer cars were built as M4Bs by the Trojan company in Surrey.<\/p>\n
\u201cPiers and Bruce both drove this car in 1967 and Piers then took it to the Tasman Series and it won its first race late in the season at Longford in the pouring rain. That was the first race win for a McLaren single-seater,\u201d said Flewitt. \u201cThis car has a nice history with a consistent lineage. Piers crashed it a couple of times, once famously at Brands Hatch in 1967 when he managed to go off right under a Courage beer sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to Flewitt\u2019s ownership, the McLaren last raced in 2010 with former owner David Coplowe. \u201cI bought it last year and over the winter Mike O\u2019Brien and the team at Speedsport prepared it,\u201d said Flewitt. \u201cI\u2019m doing three races this year and Michael O\u2019Brien is doing three [first time out, the latter scored two wins at Cadwell Park]. We wanted it to be right and have gone through the car, getting a fresh engine and rebuilding the gearbox. I\u2019ve also returned it to the original McLaren red, from before they went to orange in 1968.\u201d<\/p>\n
Insurance issues have forced the cancellation of one of Britain\u2019s longest-established closed-road events, the Mull Rally.<\/p>\n
The special stage rally on the Scottish island pioneered the use of closed public roads for competition by achieving a specific Act of Parliament in 1990. Since then, it has put \u00a31 million into the local economy in mid-October every year, but the 2017 event will not take place.<\/p>\n
MSA chief executive Rob Jones explained the situation: \u201cThe Mull Rally runs under a private Act of Parliament. It has emerged that the private closed-road legislation raises very significant insurance challenges for Mull this year, which was first thought to render the Mull Rally uninsurable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MSA has been endeavouring to find a solution with its brokers. While the brokers have offered a potential solution for 2017, this is unfortunately totally impractical as each and every claim under the policy would be subject to a very significant excess payable by the organisers, and it\u2019s one they cannot afford.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone involved in the rally is hopeful that the recent Act of Parliament permitting motor sport on closed public roads across the UK will open the way for the 2018 Mull Rally to go ahead. <\/p>\n
However, that is unlikely to move forwards until the conclusion of the fatal accident inquiry regarding deaths on rallies in Scotland in 2013 and 2014. If the Scottish Government then quickly adopts the new legislation passed in Westminster, the Mull Rally could return in its closed-road format in 2018.<\/p>\n
Organisers from the Isle of Man, which hosts several closed road rallies each year, confirmed that September\u2019s Rally Isle of Man would go ahead as planned. \u201cWith the Isle of Man being a self-governing island we are not affected by the current situation,\u201d said John Gill, chairman of the organising committee. <\/p>\n
The Austin Healey 3000 registered \u2018SMO 746\u2019, one of the most famous racing Healeys of the 1960s, has finally returned to competition this season after an absence of 45 years.<\/p>\n
The ex-works rally car was raced extensively in period by John Gott MBE, the chief constable of Northamptonshire. In 1972 he suffered a fatal heart attack while racing the Healey at Lydden Hill and the car went into a private collection. It was bought at auction 18 months ago by Healey racer Martyn Corfield and has been prepared for competition by Jeremy Welch\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taken us a year to get it right,\u201d said Healey expert Welch. \u201cIt\u2019s been restored to early 1960s trim after Gott developed it for Modsports use later in the decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had been sitting in Arthur Carter\u2019s collection for 40 years,\u201d said Corfield. \u201cIt was all in Modsports state when we bought it. The car had spent more time as a race car than a rally car so we\u2019ve put it back to a pre \u201965 state for racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has the original doors, shroud and bonnet and new wings,\u201d added Welch. \u201cThe Modsports wings were fibreglass so it wasn\u2019t a matter of modifying them, we had to replace them. We took the suspension back to period and refitted wire wheels and suitable hubs. We did our usual complete overhaul of the suspension and safety components. It didn\u2019t have a roll cage in it because that wasn\u2019t necessary at the time, so we\u2019ve had to fit one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corfield added: \u201cI\u2019ve always had a passion for Healeys. I\u2019d tried to buy this car a few years earlier from the owner, so when it came up in the auction I was ready to do something. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was built as a rally car but spent so many years as a race car that I think it needs to be raced. You can tell the authenticity of the chassis because there was some damage from when Pat Moss was rallying it. But there was next to nothing in terms of accident damage from Gott\u2019s last race at Lydden. Most of it was to the fibreglass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":735,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"tags":[167],"issue_decade":[121600],"issue_year":[121674],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue_content"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223479,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54342\/revisions\/223479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54342"},{"taxonomy":"issue_decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_decade?post=54342"},{"taxonomy":"issue_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_year?post=54342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}