54 Chevy 383 Healey 100 - Cartoon Channel

Thanks Ian, he(we) have no intention of polishing the washers so may take you up on that.

I was slightly concerned strapping it onto the trailer, I think it would have been easier to break into parts and load into the van. Still he has had it for 37 years and never driven it, I may start a thread when there is something to report.

spine tingling array of engine notes in that le man stye drive by. oddly yours goes WOOOOOHOOOO

is it the back pills kicking in, or did i see a DMC-12 go past ?

p.p.s i want to be driving fast cars when i'm 82 !!

Just sat and read the last few pages with my four year old lad who remembered your car from the gathering. Great trip and a great story.He`s seen the goddess now so we`re going to have half an hour reading through that before he goes to bed.
If theres a sticker left could he have one? He`s getting quit a collection on the window in his bedroom.I`ll pay for it and the postage if so.

Part 3 - The Junketing - Wednesday night / Thursday

After the Fish Fry party I got the message that the old nail had been selected as one of four cars to be displayed at Government House that evening at a party for the Speed Week plus the cream of Bahamian society and government ministers. So that meant washing the car again and I'd have to wear a tie . Try to find cleaning stuff in the Bahamas where they wait for it to rain to remove a few layers of encrusted dust. There was a guy with a bucket and dirty rag always hanging round the paddock but we slipped him a couple of dollars a day to watch the car and NOT wash it.

Turned up with SWMBO at the appointed time and it was decided that I'd go last in the 4 car convoy, not because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to keep up but because I had the only set of reliably working tail & stop lights. We had police outriders to clear the road and make sure we didn't take the long way round ;D

As the Chief Marshal had been angling for a ride, SWMBO made not much of a sacrifice to not co-pilot me driving at high speed through a city centre and let him have her seat. We then waited ten minutes for the C-type to sort out a fuse problem and my offer of a 5/8inch bolt to solve the fault once and for all was politely turned down. You can see in the video my self-appointed guardian angel held us up by pointing out that I hadn't put my lights on either!



Cars selected were the Devin, the DB5, the C-type and amazingly the Healey. Who said the organisers had no sense of humour?





This was certainly the only time the Healey has been protected by a Prime Minister's bodyguards. I did ask them that if there was an incident they didn't point their UZi's in the car's direction if at all possible. They said they would try



Thursday - The 007 Island Tour

I've had to 'borrow' some pics of Keith Blumel due to driving and talking rather than snapping. His full article can be seen here

This is the high speed blast across the island to go to Lyford Cay for lunch (If you are just a plain multi-millionaire then this place is probably too expensive to live there. We were more worried about which fork we should use to pick our teeth with and other matters of etiquette!). The route would have a stop at the Sir Harry Oakes Memorial (co-founder of the original Speed Weeks and general good guy) and at a Shell (one of the sponsors) garage before the stop at Lyford Cay.

A Bahamian Retro Ride. This was parked outside the paddock and had been used for selling Skyjuice before Hurricane Sandy. Skyjuice is a typical Bahamian drink with no official recipe but is usually made of coconut water, gin, condensed milk and sometimes coconut flavored rum. A bad Skyjuice session is a favourite local excuse for all sorts of misdemeanors



First stop, the Oakes Memorial



As I burn as soon as I look like going out in the sun, I decided to wear the flying helmet and goggles that are always in the car as a homage to the original owner, a US Airforce pilot. Thank God I didn't take the flying Jacket in 30 degrees



Stirling (yes, he has roads named fter him here) had another method of keeping cool but for the life of me I couldn't persuade the Speed Week girls to take up the same option









Next stop Shell garage





Nice support vehicles. I had a choice earlier in the day to either take the Healey or ride in the fire engine operating the horn (170Db). It was a tough choice.



Meanwhile the Healey was not enjoying the ambient temperature and was running at about 110 degrees C. There was also a suspicion of a fuel leak. Taking the bonnet off at the stops helped the temperature.



The drive to Lyford Cay was not as fast as last year due to the number of touring cars let go first in the convoy. The usual trick is to try and lose the police outriders but they were getting wise to the tactics being used. Max speed I saw was 95mph on an island with a max speed limit of 45mph but still the DeLorean didn't disappear

Lyford Cay Concours D'Elegance

This was a proper concours as the judges voted on those cars they thought were the most beautiful. They admitted that everything was subjective but you could understand that unlike the sort of concours where the judges measure the stitching pitch on the underside of the seat squabs. I was happy come come away with the unofficial 'Car Most Likely to Offend' title ;D

Welcome by Peter Vlasov (remember the name)



You can see it rained. In the Bahamas! I want my money back.



Winners



Champion - and my favourite







Fiat Jolly ( remember this car)







Certainly Mr. Bond



After a jolly nice lunch with not too large a fork selection, the whole day turned into a world of woe. With the car nice and cool at the start of the return journey, the fuel leak smell was beginning to be more prominent. SWMBO noticed that first and then that you could watch the fuel gauge drop. The high speed run of the return to Nassau was out and we had to pull out of the convoy to find some local fuel as there was no way in hell I was going back on a truck without a fight. We found a local petrol station but as the only 98 RON on the island was back at the paddock we had to settle for 86 RON which was not going to help the cooling. Thinking that the fuel leak was the old problem of sh1tty float valves I had SWMBO operating the fuel pump switch and monitoring the Air/Fuel gauge so we were running only on the contents of the float chambers and not on constant pressure. THis combination of mechanical and electrical co-pilotry was not popular with little fragrant flower as it left her with little time to criticize my driving. Now we had to get back to the paddock but there are no road signs on the island as everyone knows where everything is. Narrowly missing a BIG tailender and using my phone's compass plus dead reckoning we found ourselves in a traffic jam on the main road back to Nassau at school finishing time. The water temperature hit 130 degrees at times but we did not boil over however the engine was having a horrible time. After an eternity we came to the top of a hill leading down to some traffic lights and I made a bad judgement call to cut the engine and coast slowly in the jam down to the lights where I could do a bump start. It didn't work and the battery was so depleted running the fans and the water pump that we had to push the car up on the pavement and call the tow truck. The Bahamian people are lovely and I had many offers to get gas, come in my taxi and one of 'I'll give you a grand cash for that piece of sh1t'. The tow truck finally turned up and a quick application of jump leads and we limped back to the paddock.

Racing would start in 36 hours and I had only one spare float valve assembly and the nearest Weber parts shop was in Tampa, Florida. Friday, I had to fix the car or everything was down the toilet. I'd only come to race and the social stuff was an experience but not the reason I was there.

More to follow.

So, Friday morning arrives and I catch the bus to the paddock with some trepidation. I only had a small toolkit with me and virtually no Weber spares, the US Ferrari boys would chip in with tools and the locals with banter and beer but I hadn't slept a lot the night before worrying. Got to the paddock to find Jodie Lowe, E-type driver and my current nemesis but the go-to guy on the island for classics, attempting to fix a broken valve spring on one of the Speedsters. He'd been at it since dawn and had the cunning plan not to remove the head but to bodge a spark plug adapter to pressurize the cylinder to keep the valve in position and then fiddle a new spring on.

Working Speedster



Sacrificial head



Working blind



In the end it didn't work as building a reduced access spring compressor out of screwdrivers, bits of wood and beer bottles was not successful so I moseyed over to my problem and started work. My modus operandi in these cases is to do everything apart from the simplest thing first and having eliminated the improbable and then the impossible I find it is something basic. This time was no different as having 4 carbs apart to check the float valves and the fuel height was wasted time when I finally found that three of the fuel feed banjo bolts had vibrated loose, not enough to be bleedingly obvious but enough to weep copious amounts of fuel. DOH!

Time to wash car for the Bay Street Roadshow that evening

Invite



Once again we had a police escort to the centre of Nassau where we parked up for a street party











We parked ourselves on the balcony of a Greek restaurant along with most of the marshals, who could always sniff out good beer and in 27 degrees you needed to keep dehydrated



The girls were out in force ;D



The girl third from the right only wears 1" heels so she's nearly the same height as the other girls wearing 5" heels. She's nearly 7 foot tall


An early night was agreed as tomorrow was the hillclimb. YAY!

Brilliant story! Thanks for taking the time to tell it and I am giddily and impatiently waiting for the next installment!

Rysz.

i hear that ! its why i always pass on airfield track days, so irritating.

top draw write up, vids and pictures again, enjoyed that

A few more professional photos are dribbing and drabbing in and so much better than my poor Box Brownie efforts so heres 4 I like.

The loneliness of the long distance sprinter



The briefing (and a list of don'ts as long as your arm)



The autofocus loves them teeth



'Slightly' overcooking it on the hillclimb

Cheers. I did like his descrition of my driving - hooning around ;D