Classical Gas
www.classictrials.co.uk
December 2001 - Part 3 (added 1 January 2002)
A Touch of Class
Mike Hayward's Falcon Clubmates help him change the diff after Beggars on the 2000 Lands End. Hey! I didn't know Mk 3 Escorts were Rear Wheel Drive!
As some of you may know this is not the only Classical Gas. There are two more on the Internet, plus a printed version which is distributed with The Falcon Motor Club magazine. This is the main Web Site, which contains much of the material in the printed version, an archive site where lots of old material is stored and a "Web Community" which anyone can join and post pictures and messages.
The heart of this is a message board and sometimes there are some quite long "debates". Mostly they are pretty un-eventful but following The Gill Morrell Trial things heated up.
It started with Mark Rosten-Edwards putting forward the view that it was unfair that Mike Hayward’s ex-Autocross Escort should be allowed to run in class three. MCC Chairman John Aley chipped in, reminding us that the MCC allows cars to be reclassified "on merit" and suggested that Mike wrote an application to Mike Furse.
Mike thought this was a great idea, responding to say that a letter was on it’s way. This prompted a post from Escortier Jason Daniel putting forward the argument that if Mike was allowed into class 3 he should be allowed to modify his car by fitting coil-over shocks. By now we were into the intricacies of five link rear suspension, Panhard rods and comparisons with the Kalber’s "Runner Bean" Pop.
Simon Woodhall donned his ACTC hat and explained that although the MCC re-classified cars the ACTC certainly did not! This prompted some a series of posts getting into the different philosophies of the MCC and ACTC which got quite exciting at times but stayed just within the "permitted rules of engagement". It was then pointed out that Class 0 was another route, although only the MAC is the only club to run this class in one day events.
We had 16 messages in all, the longest debate so far on the web community. It was all good clean fun and fully justified the Web Communities existence as a forum for un-edited debate. Me, I’m looking forward to passengering Mike up Bluehills without a re-start!
