Buckminster Tethered Cars

Looking back at last year's reports, weather largely dominated every event. The Spring Gala lived up to its name with the area by the track seriously hot, and without a spot of rain since late February the site was in perfect condition. What was also immediately obvious was the huge amount of work the volunteers had accomplished over the winter. The timing hut and kickboards at the track had all been painted, the area outside the cafe has now been finished with a gravelled area and a lawn area newly seeded. All the stables have now been secured with just the roofs to be completed before the final conversion of these to accommodation units. It is not generally appreciated just how much work goes on to maintain and develop the site making it the fantastic facility it now is. Also noticeable that a number of refugees from Old Warden had made the trip, some for the very first time.

We have been in the habit of making Buckminster a long weekend, but this time it was an exceedingly long one as two extra open days had been arranged for the previous Wednesday and Thursday. Five of us took the opportunity to burn some fuel and try out the results of the winter's labours. Mike Francies and Nigel Bathe have been hard at work on new cars as well as producing wax masters for bevel drive gearboxes, engine mounts and suspension components. They did have some of the prototype castings to look at, and with the other components they are producing are well on the way to self sufficiency for chassis and running gear. Gerry Best had delved into his wallet again to add a very original Wilma 3b to the Junior car he bought last season. Also new was another Lev Shprints derived 2.1 junior car, untried having been obtained second-hand and unrun. Attempts to get it started highlighted a fault in the induction system that need to be fixed before the next meeting.

Lots of new engines being run in on the bench and in cars with some very impressive speeds, especially from Mike with his 2.5cc car that put up the fastest non FEMA run we have seen to date. He has also produced a very tasty red fade spray job on the body of his latest 2.1 car that garnered many admiring (and envious) looks. Sadly the Canon camera died at the very instance a photo of this was being taken, proved to be an electronic problem in the lens, so all is not lost. The very high air pressure was an added bonus as the OTW Junior car broke 100mph for the first time, ending up at 104mph, all helped by a clean track with plenty of traction. Oliver and Aaron Monk have been hard at work grinding off some of the minor high spots that aided the quest for speed as well as figuring out what further levelling work needs to be done.

No sign of anything other than sun as the SAM contingent began to arrive on Friday and a change of emphasis with the accent on 2.5cc diesels and retro style cars. John Goodall had two example of the new Vanwall castings that has been added to the Oliver range of castings, a car that did not exist when the Olivers were in full swing. It is a lovely looking car, and with the addition of the prominent four branch exhaust and wrap round windscreen makes a lovely model. Casting are available from John on the Market Place page. Part of the Redfin trophy judging involves 'design innovation' and so far, no one has gone left field or produced any real lateral thinking in terms of design, but I was really impressed with an alternative solution to the problem of giving a twinshaft a bit of rear suspension. Ian Harper had bolted a long titanium plate in to the bottom of the car allowing the motor to move both vertically and in torsion, adjustable by the thickness of the plate and where in the car it is secured. With a damper at the rear of the motor, this seemed a really neat solution. He is now figuring out how this might be applied to the front wheels, but an idea with lots of mileage.

John Goodall has beaten that with a modern Slabang car on a FEMA track, breaking 100mph, but surely we should be doing better here. The suggestion was that some basic maths was undertaken to see what revs the motors were pulling to see if the speeds matched in any way where the motors should be. A most important technique with FEMA cars, but a rough calculation showed that a Redfin on 2 1/14" standard wheels should be good for 100mph allowing for 20% wheelspin?

Andy Soars has been busy over the winter producing a fabulous pattern for the pan and gearbox of the Ian Moore #12 car, so now castings can be produced for both the 5cc #11 and 10cc #12. Traditionally the pan handle or bridles were on the left of the car for anti-clockwise running, which actually puts the fuel feed on the wrong side for most engines, so Andy has produced two patterns so that both cars can be had in either ACW or CW running directions. If this seems odd, Warren and Clarke who produced Ian Moore's castings and those for other published designs would often cast tether brackets and lugs on both sides, leaving the builder to remove the ones they did not want.


Andy's two twinshaft cars one on a ZN cast pan	Superb resin pattern for an Ian Moore #12

The new rules for aircars seems to have have a deleterious effect on numbers, leaving Roger Gedge's electric version now the fastest with a very modest battery pack and fully automated run sequence from the programmer. Roger also had his electric wheel driven cars, which he claims are simple to build, with easily obtainable components. With the current dearth of parts, this does offer a realistic alternative, unless the smell and noise of an IC motor is what drives you on. Roger's ex OTW Redfin performed faultlessly as always in the mid 80s, where it has been since its very first run. Plenty of speeds on the chart to carry forward to the Retrofest where the next element of judging for the trophy takes place.

Sunday is swapmeet day, now promoted by the BMFA. One new innovation was the one way system Gill had instituted for the cafe making it a 'free flow' facility. The hall and car parks were full of hopeful sellers and queues of ready and enthusiastic buyers were lining up well before opening time, but it is clear that there has been a massive change in the market of late. The recent auctions have shown that engine prices have plummeted, apart from the rare items, but as more appear on the market, so they are also experiencing the downward trend. At least three traders commented that 'they had not sold a thing all day', which ought to give food for thought?

Something we fail to understand is why traders pay for a table, turn up with boxes full of stuff and then fail to sell anything? However, something we came across last time and was even more evident this time were tables with items that 'were not for sale', well, why bring them. One trader in particular had two tables but not interested in selling, using a variety of excuses. At the other extreme was a person with a small selection of items that were sold in double quick time simply because they were 'priced to sell'.

It was refreshing to see so many tethered cars and related items for sale with John Goodall having a selection of desirable cars and engines including a nice Rowell MkI. Ian Harper had the full range of Oliver castings along with the Vanwall (see Market Place for details). Another stall had a pristine and unrun original Wilma along with a selection of castings, parts and related literature.
Right: Oliver castings

Earlier in the week, the forecast for the Sunday indicated that the weather was due to break, possibly accounting for fewer outside traders, and whilst it did look a bit threatening at time, it stayed dry, if a trifle chilly. Sadly, the amount of aircraft on sale far exceeded the potential buyers, yet some of the vintage models on sale were lovely, but what do you do with them nowadays, too big to display, too old to use competitively, just exercises in nostalgia that need a lot of room. Engine wise, there are just far too many of them and ever more coming on to the market. Keep an eye out for the biggest ever BMFA auction in the Autumn.

By midday it was all thinning out so it was back to the track for the last knockings. One car going into an honourable retirement after many hundreds, if not thousands of laps, one headed for the workshop and the prospect of plenty of work for some of us before the next event, the BTCG meeting on 2nd-4th May for all wheel driven cars.


British version of the 2.1 car	Unrun Wilma with OS motor	Real Pusher


John Goodall's Vanwall	Titanium plate rear suspension	'Old Mother Gun' Bentley


John and Paul Goodall	Pristine Wilma Monza	NIB Oliver Tiger MkII twinshaft


Jaguar powered BRM	Redfin kit 'Ferrari'	Series 1 Oliver Tiger Two-Five