Thursday, March 28, 2024

McChlery, Goddard better prepared

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“Better reliability should afford us good results in the major upcoming events.”

That’s how Stewart McChlery and Julian Goddard summed up their preparation for Flow King of the Hill later this month and Sol Rally Barbados next month.

Goddard said that it was an inferior, old and weak exhaust manifold that caused them to miss the recently-held Carter’s Pit Stop Stages Rally, but remedial work on the Lubriguard/Gunk/K.G.Enterprises/Ford Escort MkI is at an advanced stage and they would be ready for the two major upcoming events.

“We had all intentions of competing and had made necessary preparations, but the day before the close of entries, we realised that two of the primary header pipes had broken away from the manifold.

“We made all attempts to fix and reinforce the area, but the weak metal from the old manifold had become too thin to weld and time was against us to rectify the problem,” Goddard added.

According to the co-driver, the problem robbed them of valuable seat-time but we have modified and converted a large bore stainless steel manifold which we sourced from engineer Adrian Linton to fit our rear wheel drive application and that problem is now behind us.

“All mounts have been reinforced to avoid any further issues and as soon as the engine is remapped, which would improved ‘breathing’, we should see a drastic improvement in performance, aiming for another 10-15 per cent horsepower,” he noted.

Added to the remedial work in progress is a new cross-flow head, new camshafts which would offer improved drivability, and Goddard said nothing is being left to chance in the preparation for the two biggest events on the local motorsport calendar.

Co-driver Goddard said his driver’s goal this year was to get more crowd recognition than last year and to compete with his usual flamboyant style, buoyed by better reliability which should offer good results.

The pair is entered in SM2 in their 45 year old car Ford Escort Mk1, powered by a 2100 cc Vauxhall engine, in which they finished second behind winners Barry Mayers and Ben Norris in the Chefette/Rubis/Digicel/DHL/Graphics Ford Fiesta who returned a time of 1: 14:20.48 while McChlery and Julian Goddard were 07:07.84 seconds adrift, but ahead of Allan Mackay of Scotland and Barbadian Andrew Croney who were a further 09:08.34 behind the group winners. (TT)

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