MG Car Club of South Australia
MGC NEWS
MGC conversations by Richard Mixture, June 2017
An Understeering Experience
ner in the middle of the main straight, it
keeps the interstaters guessing. Then
there’s turn five, the northern hairpin.
Well this turn was a “double dozy” ac-
cording to that nice young fella. “I’m not
sure about the rest of the track as it al-
ways took time to recover from the
northern hairpin” he said.
H
ello again, it’s Richard here with
some exciting news. MGCs un-
dersteer! Oh, you already knew that?
After many years of reading the under-
steer comments by journalist both old
and new (yes both the journalist and the
articles) that nice young Register Co-
ordinator now knows from his Easter
experience at Mallala.
So the key here is brake late and brake
into the turn in order to bring the tail
around, but not too much mind you.
When he got this technique right in the
southern hairpin he gained 5 mph by the
time he got down the straight and ar-
rived at the northern hairpin. But then
there was another problem, he ran out
of brakes and the car just kept going in a
northerly direction and off into the dirt.
Road pads are a wonderful thing for the
road.
He competed in both the Motorkhana at
Pt Adelaide and at the speed event at
Mallala. He told me that on the last run
of the day at Pt Adelaide, while doing
the slalom, he worked out how to turn
and head in the opposite direction
around the flag at the end of the line.
“Coming to the last flag you head out
wide,” he said, “touch the brakes and
then floor it.” This manoeuvre brings the
tail around and took 2.2 seconds off his
time, wow, that’s almost a 10% saving.
If only he knew that when he started!
His major competition was Jason Goff
from WA who had three SU carbies, a
mild cam and a bit of head work plus a
heavier sway bar at the front and one at
the back so his car handled a lot better
than that young fella’s ‘C’ GT. In fact it
was about 7 seconds better.
Many years ago our esteemed ‘C’ Co-
ordinator raced a historic clubman at
Mallala and after some 30 years of not
competing he reported that his right foot
was as heavy as ever. “ Turn one was
easy” he said, although he had an inter-
esting chat about the best line with that
Formula Three champ, Dean Hosking.
“Turn two was hold your breath, ah just
managed to keep it on the black stuff”
but turn three, he said “was a dozy.”
This turn is the southern hairpin which
opens out on exit and just as well.
When you enter the turn, you head in a
southerly direction and then turn quickly
to go into a northerly direction but the
MGC wants to take you in a westerly
direction. Turn four? Well, I always
thought it was a good idea to put a cor-
Did you have a look at that very nice
MGC Roadster? The Melbourne mob
call Allan Fabry a polisher and they are
right but what a fantastic polisher he is.
Allan has won five outright concours
wins in six years in the post MG TF pre
1980 class. He competes in all the
speed events and still manages to keep
his MGC looking beautiful. Mind you
he’s only done 6,317 miles since he first
registered it in 2010 after completing the
restoration.
Ron Hutton brought his green ‘C’ GT all
the way from Wagga and Mike Green-
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