Gardos F5000 - First time in anger since the 80's
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- Took up the challenge to get the Gardos F5000 running at Hampton Downs. Every race it got quicker as changes were made, this was the last race of the weekend where everything came together.
It's cut short as I was physically flogged (hence shuffling the wheel) as I was also running my Swift DB4 at the same event, so I just sort of coasted to the end and nothing much else happened.
I started the race from the back as I was a DNF for the first race where I brought it in to double check everything was ok (ignition randomly went away and then came back), pretty sure I just bumped the ignition switch so made cockpit adjustments so as to not let that happen again.
That's a great spirited drive. I love the outside passes ! I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Is it your father who owns it ? I sold the car to Max Walker in about 97 in virtually rebuilt ready to go condition with only the engine to be assembled. ( All new pistons / Carroll's even new heads. I also purchased all Don Halpin's remaining Repco F5000 bits including top casting and other things. Had spare wheels and suspension, chassis had been done by Brian Shead although he said it didn't need much. Few rose joints and not much else. He fitted new new bladders and a few other things. It all went with the car. I was disappointed to hear that he had just virtually stripped all the good and new stuff and the spares and delivered it to you in a fairly down state. Great to see it going and being driven well and energetically !
Thanks for the comment. Yes it's my fathers, the plan was just to dust it off for a weekend and see what it had. Its turned into quite extensive work following this video as there were quite a few problems that stopped me getting 100% from it, for this reason a second time out may be in order once I conclude the work.
@@swiftdb4 Good effort anyway. And yeah I've never heard tyre squeal from a F5000 before but it looks promising here
When C And C autos in Adelaide bought the car it was pretty ordinary looking in sor t of as developed condition. They wanted to tidy it up and get it looking good prior to running it. Keith Poole was to drive it and on the first trial he said it was horrible. Completely undrivable and said it had tried to kill him. So one of them ( I think it was Craig ). Rang Jamie and was going off his nut saying what an evil thing it was and so on. Jamie asked him what they'd done in since they acquired the car. He said th they'd really done nothing. Upon more questioning about their exact moves with the car he said that they'd just tidied it up and mentioned that they had taken all the suspension off and had it all chromed. When Jamie questioned him he said of course we did the wheel alignment when we put it all back together. So Jamie got on a plane to Adelaide. Sure enough they had done the wheel alignment. They had just forgotten to check that the car was actually in the middle of those nicely aligned wheels ! After Jamie correcting it the car showed really well. Keith Poole was a very competent driver. Things went badly for C & C autos and so the car fell into disuse. Along with the OR1 it was damaged in a fire at C & C. The business collapsed under a bit of a cloud as I remember it and I think one of the partners actually did a bit of time in the old grey bar hotel. Both Gardos cars were acquired by Barry Singleton and that's when Barry Lock's involvement began. Repairing the cars initially and later converting to ground effects. Car didn't run with ground effects beforehand the cut off date for historic F5000 so can't do so now unless the rules have changed. The other thing about the car is that it can run with either Chev or Repco power having used both way back then. Maybe that's not an issue any more either ? Kevin Bartlett told me " Don't get involved with the Repco engine..it'll break your heart ". I'd spend too much money on the engine by that time but I understand none of it was showing when your father got the car. Are you running Chev or Repco ?
What a beautiful little racetrack. Looks like a new surface...
Welcome back old girl. I remember seeing you at AIR back in the day.
Driven at AIR by Keith Poole.
Yellow car at the end had serious grunt on the straights, lovely driving
Awesome, simply awesome (and I'm only a couple of minutes in). Thanks James!
Dont know how you ran 2 single seaters in one meeting James. I was buggered just watching that! Well done
the Lola seems to have a few more BTU's, best Chris gets a new engine for you.
A couple of things;
1. Man those laps fly by fast...
2. I know you said you're tired, (and explained why you started at the back) but oh to have started further up the grid...
yeah, what could have been, still a huge success of a weekend where all the work put in paid off
Why Angry?
Just a saying 😉