Photos by Richard Abey, Martin Stubbs, Bill HunterMain story with kind permission of Graeme Raper   Altogether, there were 60+ cars entered for the Club Challenge event at Rob Roy Hillclimb in midwinter 2011. Cars varied from a Mini Moke to a brand spanking new Fiat Abarth (Ab4th) 500 in glorious Italian racing red.   As usual, a good number of Austin 7s showed up. The evergreen Trevor Cole was in car 93, Martin Stubbs ( car 182) Peter Ward (car 43) John Marriott (car 50).  All were fitted with skinny tyres that, generally speaking, did not like the cold wet track.   Cold wet weather was good for some and bad for others. Tony Kaefer (Below)  in the yellow and black Ford Escort, explained why the  supercharger fitted tohis car performed well in the cold air, but the racing tyres fitted to his car did not. Click here to see video.

	Tony Kaefer - Supercharged Ford Escort

 

Peter Ward - Austin 7	Adam Coakley - Mini Moke Ute	Tony Kaefer - Ford Escort s/c	Peter Bartold - Fiat Abarth

Tony Kaefer (Ford Escort - car 76)  talks to Bill Hunter about his car on Youtube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMqOFIY42_c

	Buchanan Special

The lovely little Buchanan (above) was caught out later in the afternoon -  its tyres losing traction on the cold wet track. The car went off the road and became badly damaged, and the driver required ambulance attention.   The big bangers - power and glory Jim Russell’s fabulous Ford V8 (Testa Plata)  roared up the hill in its usual style.   There were a few other big banger Fords present at the meeting, including Graeme Raper’s ex-Frank Walters/ George Reed-built SoCal Special - Car No 41, seen below.  

	Above: Graeme Raper warms the engine of the SoCal special

    Car No 41 (above) represents a quality that typifies  the early post-war days of Australian Motor Racing. It was was written up in the "Sports Cars and Specials" magazine of November 1956 (Price 3 shillings)   The writer - John Bartlett - described it as one of the best-known and most consistent cars ever to race on Australian circuits. It was strongly built, could easily run at 120 mph, and often beat some of the most expensive imported cars.   SoCal was never a non starter, and never retired, in the 70 odd races that owner-driver Frank Walters entered during the two and a half years he owned the car. And in those races -- averaging one a fortnight -- Walters usually managed to finish in the money.   What is more remarkable still is the fact that he always drove the car to every meeting he competed in. He used the car as a personal transport around Sydney between meetings, and did all his own maintenance work on the SoCal in his home garage.   George Reed, Jesse  Griffiths, Frank Walters  &  Alex Xydias    George Reed built SoCal in 1948 using a Ford chassis, a Mercury V8 engine and a standard four box as a basis.   Jesse Griffiths took it over and put in a Wilson preselector box. This was not particularly unusual. Tom Sulman had one on his old Maserati.   Griffiths, who was not at the time a member of the Australian Sporting Car club, took the car to Mt Druitt. But since he was not permitted to race, he offered the car to Frank Walters to drive in the last race.   The cars were already going into the grid. Frank hopped in and drove to the end of the airstrip and back to the grid. That was all the practice he had in it. And SoCal won the race.   Frank was clearly impresed with the car, and managed to buy it. Soon after, he got in touch with an American V8 specialist, Alex Xydias, who ran the SoCal speed shop in Burbank, Southern California.  From then on Xydias actually developed the car by correspondence.   Xydias first sent out the Edelbrock head which was regarded as the basic step.   That worked fine but the stock ignition wouldn't handle anything past about 4200 revs per minute. The American sent out a Kong Guild ignition set up.  With this system Xydias said, the engine could go to 8000 rpm. Frank never exceeded 5500 rpm, and at that speed the engine was as 'clean as can be'.   With the Kong ignition such a success, Frank decided that a special camshaft would be in order. he drew a map of the Mountt Druitt circuit a and marked the rises and falls,  making a note of  the engine’s rpm at various points, the change points -- the lot.   Then he wrote a long description of every move he made during one lap of Mt Druitt. He posted this information to Xydias.   A new camshaft was made specially to match the car to Mt Druitt. Then Xydias completed the job by sending out an Edelbrock triple manifold setup.   All done by correspondence !   Reliabiity   One time, Frank drove the car to Bathurst, took off the windscreen, fitted the aero screen, turned the headlights around and went on the track.   He won one event and came third in the main event after leading up to the last lap, when the brakes failed at the top of the last straight and he had to coast down the straight round the corner and over the line. Two other cars passed him in the process.   He fixed the brakes in the pits, drove to Orange the next morning, ran sixth in his event and drove home to Sydney that night.   In all the SoCal took part in about 70 or 75 races . Frank won the Racing Car Championship at Mount Druitt.in 1954.