L'histoire jusqu'ici......
| Rolls-Royce,
the ultimate road machine? Debateable. Rolls-Royce the
ultimate Banger? Without question! In fact so few
Rolls-Royce have found their way
onto the Banger racing scene that it is possible to track all of the
cars
that have appeared so far (ie 15/12/98).
The first car to appear was the
Silver Shadow of No 167 John Chambers of the "Bad Boys" at the "Mad
March TV Tear Up" on March 12th 1995 at the Angmering track near
Worthing. The appearance formed the basis of a Discovery TV
programme which I believe still has the occasional showing.
According to "BLITZ!" magazine the car was spotted in a breakers yard
and took a great deal of work to prepare for its swansong. No
pictures of this one I'm afraid so if you can help fill the gap please
let me know!
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Il devait passer encore deux ans et
demie
jusqu'a la prochaine apparence d'une Rolls Royce a Firecracker V1 a
Arena
Essex pour être précis.
Cette fois ci c'était le No
196
John Hendy conduisant une Silver Shadow superbement
préparée
qui - n'étant pas surprenant - a volé le spectacle durant
la
parade de préparation. Cela n'a pas duré bien lomptemps
une
fois que la course a commencé par contre! Cette voiture est
montré
sur les photos du haut. La voiture retournaa l'Arena pour Firecracker
VII
en Novembre 1998 comme source de pièces pour la seconde
Rolls-Royce
de course de John Hendy. La photo la plus a droite montre la voiture
explosée
d'une année précedente.
John Hendy n'était pas le seul
a
faire la course avec une Rolls Royce a Firecracker VII. Il a
été
joint par trois autres voitures (No 754 Dave Nicholls, No 600 Lee Wells
and
No 760 Terry Roberts) fesant un total de voiture a faire la course a
six
et pour commencer la journée la première course de
Rolls-Royce
seulement était tenue!
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This was a pretty tame affair with the two cars using Ford transplants
being well outpaced. Fittingly it was John Hendy who won the race
from the Suicide Squad's Dave Nicholls. This meeting attracted
considerable TV interest. Not
only did it feature on LIVE TV's regular weekly programme "Bangers and
Smash"
but also on BBC2's "Top Gear". Top Gear's Vicki Butler-Henderson
actually
drove car No 760 in the Rolls-Royce race finishing in fourth
place. |
|
The "Top Gear" programme on 10 December
featured the Firecracker meeting and the in-car commentary
[/description] of Vicki Butler-Henderson makes quite entertaining
reading!
| "My choice of car for
today is this Roll
Royce. But its a Rolls Royce with a slight difference because
basically
it's a Ford Granada. Its a 2.8 V6 Granada engine and running gear
and
it is the noisiest Rolls-Royce I have ever been in. There is no
power
steering and there aren't even any windows. What am I doing
here?.
Finally my moment arrives, the extra special all Roller race.
These
four are Silver Shadows but I'm in one of the two with Ford workings
inside
which are pitted against two genuine Rollers. My car may not have
the
chrome of the Real McCoy but its certainly got the attitude.] Oh
my
God! Oh my God! Oh I just got hit! Oh my
God!
Oh no! I'm in last! I don't believe it! What a
disaster! The brakes are so spongy, the handling's all
over. Ohhh! I definitely wouldn't take this out on a
run down a supermarket because
you'd hardly get round the first bend of the roundabout. Its all
over
the shop! Oh two laps to go! I just want it to end!
Jolly
good fun. Excellent wheeze. Never do it again thanks very
much!" |
|
My
reaction - and I suspect along with most others who saw the TV
programme - was "Wasn't
a pity she didn't drive it in the real race with more than 30 other
competitors!"
The real action took place in the
meeting proper when all of the Rolls-Royce came in for very close
attention
from fellow competitors. It was John Hendy who performed best,
dishing
out as good as he got, as shown in the pictures below.
The seventh Rolls-Royce to
appear on the race tracks was the No 16 car of Kevin Scott at the 1998
Spedeworth Banger Championship of the World meeting on 15 November 1998
- see pictures left and below. After partaking in the Best
Presented Car Award Scotty lost control early-on in his heat ending up
stuck on the centre. Surprisingly he did not appear again.
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A few weeks after the meeting Dave
Smith (Chair of the South West Banger Racing Club) explained what had
transpired on the night. It seems that having lost control and
ending up stuck on the grass in his heat Scotty returned to the
pits. At this point he was approached by a Belgian Rolls Royce
dealer who purchased the car there
and then for display in his showroom!
| Les photos finales
ont été
prisent au Birmingham Wheels le 8 Novembre. J'ai entendu dire que cette
voiture
en particulier devait être préparée pour la
réunion
de Noël 1998 a Mildenhall. Le point assez évident a
faire
est qu'il semble manquer un effroyable montant de pièces et
qu'un
travail de titan va être requis pour avoir la voiture
prête.
Je pense que la touche sympa était l'herbe qui poussait dans le
coffre!
En faite cette voiture a concurru le 27 Decembre a Mildenhall. |
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Cette page a été
crée
en utilisant le texte et photos deDave Carter
Throughout this website
Rolls-Royce logos, model names and other designations have been used
for identification and illustration purposes only. These names are the
property of the trademark holders as this is not an official
publication. The trademarks 'Rolls-Royce', the 'R-R' Logo, 'Spirit of
Ecstasy' and the 'R-R' Badge are the trademarks of Rolls-Royce
plc.
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