|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
  |
|
|
The UK's leading tuning specialist for "A" series engines |
News Archive Page (1)
 Bill's
Race report for SEMSEC's Lydden Event - added 20/07/02
However a clutch problem meant that the mini stalled on the line. Quick driver reflexes (with the marshals quickly approaching to remove the car) allowed Bill to start the race third from last, BEHIND the BMW minis! Quickly cutting through the field with the grunt of the new 8-port and using all his experience he managed to pass all but Warren and Alan Maynard without the use of a clutch. Hot on the tail of Warren he was constantly under pressure allowing Bill to take a faster lap than Warren in his Peugeot 205 GTi. The Metro was dominant during its qualifying session passing a majority of the other contenders. Despite having trouble to get a quick lap in the Cosworth Metro was on pole again alongside Alan Maynard in his Fireblade powered Caterham. The Caterham out dragged the Metro and lead the race for a couple of laps. The Caterham was under immense pressure from the Metro and he eventually conceded with a few aggressive manoeuvres from Bill. Bill continued on to win the race with ease conscious of being mechanically sympathetic to the tired BDH engine
|
Qualifying
revealed the mini had a big flatspot and that the suspension needed to be
softened up all round. However it still gained a very respectable
qualifying time on its debut, despite a hair raising spin caused by the
flatspot, putting the mini in 3rd place on the grid alongside Nathan Mills
in his Mk2 Escort and behind bitter on-track rival and friend Warren
Johnson.
|
The
8 Port Project - Latest developments 05/07/02
Bessie, our Cosworth Metro was tested on the rolling road this week and continues to demonstrate youthful horse power despite her advancing years, come and see both cars performing at the SEMSEC's Lydden festival weekend (13th/14th July 2002) |
Our
'Blue Meanie' race Mini is undergoing a heart transplant at the moment ! Bill
and the team are developing an exciting new 8 port engine. This engine uses a
set of motorcycle flat slide carburettors to pass fuel to four forward facing
ports. The new head is now fully built and the 'carbs' are in place - the engine
idles beautifully but (as expected) will require a little more fettling before
it will it will rev cleanly through to full throttle. The car is scheduled to
run on Pete Baldwins rolling-road at Cambridge next week where the new jets and
needles can be tested on it's carbs.
|
BRSCC's
Race meeting at Lydden, Sunday 16th June - 18/06/02
|
It
should have been an easier weekend with only one car racing instead of
two - Our Mini was given the day off and racing duties were being
handled by Bessie ( our Cosworth powered Metro ). Although so far this
season she has remained entirely trouble free, Sunday was her day to be
dogged by problems. During qualifying she was plagued by an electrical
problem - this gave intermittent problems and resulted in some fairly
erratic lap times. Despite electronic component changes prior to the
race, Bessie almost stalled on the start-line and had to be content to
follow the pack for the first three laps of the race. The engine picked
up sufficiently for it to be on the pace again later in the race and
Bill was able to charge through the field to finish 7th overall and 3rd
in class.
|
Sprinting
- Latest News 11/06/02
Both drivers suffered with front suspension springs being too soft and as a result found that the inside front wheel was trying to tuck itself under the car which caused a violent bucking action which nearly caused the car to roll. Even with these problems they still managed
to be quicker than various single seaters, Cosworths and Lotus Elises. EVO
magazine were also covering the event and the Mini has managed get some coverage
in this months issue. The weekend just gone (8th June), Lee and Dave were at North Weald, they achieved a first and second in class with Dave narrowly missing out on a best novice award. The Mini was running with new stiffer springs but it was difficult to work out if there was any real improvement due to the bumpy nature of the track and the weather conditions. Yet again the Mini was quicker than various hot hatches, a Jaguar XK8, various kit cars and it equalled the time of an 1800cc BDA powered Mk2 Escort. The Mini is fast becoming a giant killer and a favourite of both crowd and marshals with its dramatic and spectacular two-wheeled style
|
On
the 19th of May Lee and Phil drove the car at Hethel, the Lotus Cars test track
and did well finishing 3rd and 4th in class being beaten by Terry Browns Lenham
Le Mans and Tony Stains indecently fast Vauxhall Nova. Both Drivers had their
’moments’ with Phil hitting a cone and Lee having one of his runs red
flagged due to ducks nesting on the track.
|
Bill's updated
racing report for Lydden (01/06/02)
"Qualifying this weekend, the Mini was back on form, splitting the pack of Cosworths by 1/100th of a second.
It was part of a titanic battle with the Cosworths during the race and was able
to "Your next opportunity to see the Mini will be at the family fun day at Lydden Hill and she'll be sporting a development engine (1460 cc eight port). It will be run for the first time on the 14th July."
|
Bill
Reports, "Since the Mini's last race, it underwent severe
suspension diagnostics to investigate the ill handling. We run an
adjustable bolt through the rear sub-frame which acts as an anti-droop
buffer, this bolt became de-adjusted resulting in the almost un-drivable
handling of the mini."
pass them on lap seven by exiting Chessons carrying more speed than they
were. We were able to drive between the two loosing my door mirrors on
the way. The Mini finished a very credible fourth overall"
|
SEMSEC
Race Meeting, Saturday 1st June
|
Webmaster's
report: After
a particularly unpleasant days racing at BRSCC's Brands hatch event last
week (torrential rain and races spoiled by red flags and multiple
accidents) it was good to return to Lydden again. There was a sprint
event event in the morning organised by TWMC followed by an afternoon of
racing organised by SEMSEC. Bill's Cosworth Metro was third reserve for
its race due to a late race entry - a start line incident disposed of
two of the entrants
but Bill eventually ended up sitting that one out. The
Mini was on great form - a huge relief to all after all the recent
suspension problems, it finished in fourth after some epic battles with
some of Henry Ford's finest. The race was won by a very quick Westfield
Fireblade with the Peugeots of Warren Johnson and Craig Dawson taking
the next two places. The team were very pleased with this result, all
helped of course by a decent helping of Kentish sunshine with seemed to
cheer-up
|
May Day Bank Holiday races at Lydden - 06/05/02
|
It
was good news and bad news for the team on Monday - The Metro won
its race after an exciting battle with Ray Barrow's turbo Ford
Escort and one of the Westfields. The Mini was less successful and only
finished midfield after suffering problems with its newly installed
'coil over' suspension set-up. The team haven't had chance to test with
this new configuration so it was hard to work out spring rates and
damping etc - it certainly wasn't right on the day although Bill is
confident that further development will reap rewards in the future. The
car seemed to be very unstable and it must have been very hard to keep
on course - especially as we subsequently found that one of the dampers
had failed - very well done for bringing it back in one piece under the
circumstances !
|
This website is Miniworld Magazines's site of the month - 27/04/02
|
This
website is built for fun - we do not produce the kind of products which
can easily be sold over the internet but we do hope to be able to keep
in touch with our customers, race fans and Mini enthusiasts via our
website. It's really nice to see our site win yet another accolade by
being selected as Miniworld Magazine's site of the
month. The June 2002 issue makes a few criticisms
about our web presence but the feed-back was generally very positive -
please rest assured that the site is constantly evolving and we will be
addressing points raised in their review. Please note that 'Opuss the
cat' will remain on the site as he is a legacy from the original site
built by our good friend, John Morrow. If you are visiting this site for
the first time we hope you enjoy your visit please explore our pages and
we hope you will find something to interest you.
|
|
| Bessie
victorious, straight out of the
box - 06/04/02
The
Mini fared less well, it suffered quite a lot of damage during the
winter |
Our
first race of the year was at our local Lydden circuit, it was a
bright and clear day but the wind was bitter and most people looked
frozen. Bessie the Metro had been rebuilt over the winter and looked
fresh and crisp, it's always surprising to see how battered race cars
get over a full season of competition. Bill qualified well and found
himself in pole position next to the beautiful Mk1 Escort of Ray
Barrow. Ray's car has been developed over several seasons and now
sports a complete Cosworth Turbo powerplant which allowed him to
out-drag Bill from the start line. It took several exciting laps
before Bill finally slipped past at Devil's Elbow and romped home to victory, but it
was great to see the ancient Metro triumph over modern turbo power.
series and it's taken a lot of work to straighten out the front of the
car. It was running very well on Saturday but a front suspension
failure didn't allow Bill to extract the best from our little Blue
Meanie and it didn't finish as high as we would normally expect (
although she was still the highest placed Mini - 2nd in class and 5th
overall ).
However Bill and the team have plans to modify the front suspension
which would avoid this kind of thing happening again - watch this
space for news of the latest developments.
|
Bill goes Mini-cross ! Ron on Tarmac !...Whatever next ? - 05/04/02
|
Encouraged
by Bill Richards to have a go at circuit racing Ron Watson took his
recently developed Mini-crosser along to SEMSEC's practice day at
Lydden. Bill turned up to take the car out for a 'shake-down' and to
set some target lap times for Ron to aim at - this looked like quite a
tall order because although an experienced racer, Ron had never used
slicks and they do take a bit of getting used to. Fortunately Ron was
up to the task (as was his Mini !) and produced some very creditable
and consistent lap times. Everyone seemed very pleased with their
progress, many thanks must go out to SEMSEC for
organising an excellent practice day - even the weather was sunny,
what more could you ask for ?
| Latest
Sprinting News
- North Weald 24/03/02
The final results were; Phil won the class by three seconds and Dave was fourth out of a class six which included Vauxhall Novas and Lenham Le Mans. The Mini was also in the top three fastest saloon cars over all, of which there were Ferraris, Porches, TVRs, Subaru's, and a host of hot hatchbacks, the Mini also beat a lot of the single seaters. |
The
Bill Richards Racing Sprint team had an excellent day at North Weald
over the weekend, Phil and Dave were driving and both did very well.
After the first practice run Phil was leading the class by six seconds
and Dave was second. The course consisted of a long straight which lead
in to a chicane. We were sure that the Mini could go through the chicane
flat in top gear. During their first runs both Phil and Dave had a very
small 'confidence lift' going through the chicane and afterwards
declared that it was flat in top gear. To the teams dismay the
organising club decided to alter the chicane due to the fact that there
had been two nasty crashes involving single seaters (caused by them
going airborne through it and loosing control). The Mini was one of only
a small number of cars to be able
to go through it flat out and have two drivers brave enough to try it
which gave them a huge advantage in the class times.
|
Lydden Marshals Training Day
|
|
Nigel Hutchinson and Geoff O'Nion have just completed the HERO Winter Trial from Maastrichts in Holland to Monte-Carlo (10th to 15th Feb). Geoff reports:
however, the very last regularity was fast with a very clever catch on the last junction, it caught most people out, some more than others. We lost 3 minutes on indecision, but still went up to finish 9th overall, however, the others in our class were not caught out quite so badly and we dropped to 3rd in our class. In all we were very pleased with the result and with an added bonus of winning the marque team prize (Prices Prodigies BMC) with the Appleton's in their Mini Cooper S and Roger Byford and Willy Cave in a MGB GT. As for the car, I feel that you may have done too good a job on putting this car together as it ran to perfection and seems to get better every rally. We had no mechanical issue and the only intervention on the rally was an electric fault which was attributed to a poor connection on an in line fuse I installed." "Again my utmost thanks on a superbly prepared car the performance of which is credit to your workmanship" Congratulations to Geoff and Nigel for an excellent performance, well done to all concerned ! |
"This
was quite a hard rally with two night loops, one on Tuesday and the other on the last night upon reaching Monaco. We were around 12th
overall and second in class (cars up to 1600cc), for most of the rally and
this is how we started out on the final night loop in horrendous storm
conditions. Eventually half the night section was cancelled due to fog and snow,
|
Monte Carlo Rallye Historique 2002 etc.
John Morrow and Tim Woods competed as part of the five member Cooper Car Company Team organised by Peter Barker (pictured above) see the Rallying page for more about their adventures. Ken and Phil Baynton came first in the 1000cc class and 7th overall on
the Winter Challenge to Barcelona |
Renowned Belgian
crew, Alain Lopes with co-driver Joseph Lambert in a Cooper S won
the 1300cc class (for cars built up to 1965) and was 18th overall on the
Monte Carlo Historique. Their 1293cc engine was prepared by Bill
 |
"Very few cars can stand up to the punishment of hot pursuit by an A-Series BMC engine" Peter Egan has written a lovely article about his adventures in a Mini in USA's Road & Track magazines website click here for a most entertaining read |
|
Winter Series The 2001 BRSCC 'Winter Series' consisted of three rounds, two at Brands Hatch and one at Snetterton. This series is always a challenge to any driver as the track conditions are always difficult - cold damp tarmac and poor light making tyre choice and chassis set up tricky for all concerned. In this years series, Bill's Mini was up against some unfamiliar machinery. His class included some quick modern Fiestas, Clios and Peugeots as well some more exotic fare like a highly developed racing Anglia which he hadn't encountered in any of the years Lydden events. Bill won his class overall despite crashing out at the final round at Brands.........this is where things get complicated - the race never actually got run due the number of red flags and restarts but Bill's qualifying position (8th out of 36 starters) ensured that he was awarded enough points to clinch his class overall. The Mini is currently getting a new front end as a result of the Brands Hatch incident but all the mechanical bits survived fairly intact - Bill, however was a bit bruised but otherwise OK. Another fine job by the team with another class win - well done all. |
|
|
Mad Dog Racing U.S.A is about to set up a rally team to include
|
We won the Championship !
Bessie the Metro was running beautifully too
- with the So what about our other representatives then ? Steve Luscombe had a very good day in his Bill Richards engined MG Midget, Mary Grinham's Maguire Mini looked quicker that it had been recently. Alan Rawlings in his Ashford Coachworks sponsored Mini posted his fastest lap yet - it's his first season and he's looking far more confident as the season progresses. Thanks must go out to our excellent pit crew, helpers and supporters who have made this season such an success - it just wouldn't be the same without them ! |
This weekend
saw the last
rounds of this years SEMSEC championship races at Lydden Circuit in Kent
( 
race, Bessie was seen to be smoking a little but this was found to be an
overflowing catch-tank rather than anything mechanical . Bessie can be
seen competing at Brands Hatch next 
week-end
and the Mini will be competing in the Winter Warmer series.
|
Luxembourg
|
Bill has just returned from a hill climb event in
Luxembourg - the Mini won it's class and came about 50th overall. He
experienced a few problems with brake pads that required too much
warming up before they became useful, but the car is usually employed as
a circuit racing machine and this would not normally be a problem. Bill
would like to send thanks to the members of the
|
Castle Combe Track Day 2001 This year Team Bill
Richards Racing once again took the |
race mini to the MiniWorld
Action Day at 
twenty five clients and friends around
the circuit in full sessions. The Mini was quite spectacular with
it's rear wheels in the air and was the subject of many photographs
( we'll show some here when I finally get my hand on them ! -
Webmaster). Bill
and his Mad Dog team would like to thank everybody who took the time
to turn up and was patient in waiting their turn in the car.
|
Geoff O'Nion & Nigel Hutchinson in car No. 49, a Morris Mini Cooper MkI prepared by Bill Richards Racing have completed the 2001 Classic marathon. They were 10th overall with a total of 9 minutes and 28 seconds worth of penalties. This excellent result gave them a first in class (Classic Class 4) but to run up front with the likes of Mustangs, Bentleys, Alfa, Lotuses etc. has got to be a credit to all concerned - congratulations to all everyone involved ! |
Classic Marathon
2001