BATHURST 1998 SIR DONALD HEALEY International Tribute Race

/ super100mph
The Austin Healey is a legendary car, enjoy this rare footage from Bathurst, The 1998 Donald Healey International Tribute Race.
Special thanks to Locky Fowler for digging this up & saving this footage from being lost forever, it's a true gem! Kudos mate.
All Credit Channel 7 Sport 1998 Introduced by Garry Wilkinson Commentators Allan Moffat & Richard Hay
en.wikipedia.o...
The business was founded in 1945 by Donald Healey, a successful car designer and rally driver. Healey discussed sports car design with Achille Sampietro, a chassis specialist for high performance cars and Ben Bowden, a body engineer, when all three worked at Humber during World War II.
Healey motorcars
Healey's new enterprise focused on producing expensive, high quality, high performance cars. It was based in an old aircraft components factory off Miller Road in Warwick. There he was joined by Roger Menadue from Armstrong Whitworth to run the experimental workshop. In later years they also had a now-demolished showroom (formerly a cinema) on Emscote Road, Warwick, commemorated by a new block of flats called Healey Court. The cars mainly used a tuned version of the proven Riley twin cam 2.4 litre four cylinder engine in a light steel box section chassis of their own design using independent front suspension by coil springs and alloy trailing arms with Girling dampers. The rear suspension used a Riley live axle with coil springs again. Advanced design allowed soft springing to be combined with excellent road holding. Lockheed hydraulic brakes were used.
A Credit Channel 7 Sport! Special race with Peter Hopwood as a tribute here • AMAROO '83 Peter Hopwo...

[@rocksreynolds3642]

Thanks for this guys! A rare treat I knew nothing about until you posted. Denis Welch was a legend in UK and European historic racing, he is sadly missed. Thankfully his don drives Healeys just as sideways.

[@hughmainwaring5368]

He was. Denis Welch Motorsport in Yoxall always was the best at Healey preparation.

[@Kyleinasailing]

Used to have a MK1 3000. But never drove it like this. The big Healey's are big, brutes of cars but they have something that no other car has and that's brutal, simple, no-nonsense, no-frills old School Engineering. No Italian fine art in These machines.

[@waynesmuseum]

Great racing on 4.5 inch tyres . Peter Hopwood was a great driver also in everything from Healeys to HQ Holdens

[@LurcherVonPapsmear]

More info here: www.myaustinhealey.com/hicr_98.html Sadly Peter Hopwood passed away on December 6, 1999. And Dennis Welch was tragically killed in a historic race meeting at Silverstone on the 28th May 2014 :(

[@LurcherVonPapsmear]

You can see George Forbes and I, on the starting grid in our Sprites: George in 7th position and me in 8th. I think we were about 12th and 13th by the time we got to Reid Park! 1400cc can't compete with 3000 cc on Mountain Straight. Then we passed a few big Healey's going over the top, only to be passed again on the way down Conrod Straight. I spun from trying too hard through Murray's Corner. The Weber swallowed a load of fuel and the engine wouldn't re-start. I don't remember why George failed to finish. I couldn't get more than 7,800 rpm in top gear down Conrod, as there just wasn't enough power available to push the car through the air any faster. George, on the other hand, had a rev limiter set at 9,000 and after the first practice session he complained to Simon Gardiner (who built the engine) that the rev limit was slowing him down. Simon turned the limiter off, and after the next practice session the tell-tale on the tacho read 9,600 rpm. We measured the rolling radius of his tyres and calculated his speed as 143 mph. You don't need much experience on a track to go fast in a straight line, but you do need practice and experience on the circuit to go fast in the tight and twisty sections. That's why the second race was better for the Sprites. The big Healeys still outdragged us up and down the mountain, but we passed more of them over the top and on the whole improved our position. I passed Rob Rowlands under brakes at Caltex Chase on the last lap and beat him to finish in 5th position. If the finish line was 10 meters further up the track, Rob would have beaten me. Greg Prunster had fitted either a 3.9 or 3.7 diff (I can't remember which) so that he could go faster down Conrod. It didn't work. Greg's Bugeye only has a 998cc engine. I don't think he went any faster at all down the straight as he didn't have enough power out of the little engine to push through the air. However, with the tall diff he couldn't get up the hill. He changed to a 4.5 diff and took about 8 seconds off his lap time. Just goes to prove that, at Mt Panorama, how you get up the hill is more important than how you come down. - Colin Dodds

[@Super100MPH]

Cheers Colin!

[@LurcherVonPapsmear]

HUGE THANKS TIM & MARK!!! -Locky

[@Super100MPH]

Lurcher260 No problem, this is a great piece of motorsport history, Mark & I are honoured to present this on SUPER100MPH, Peter Hopwood was one of my heroes as well. cheers

[@ezernut9mm]

pure beauty. excellent!

[@steinwaygrande3971]

One of the most beautiful sports cars ever made. Pat Moss ( sister of Stirling Moss ) rallied the big Healey,s and won three Mille Migllia rallies on a Healey 3000.

[@stubrigden]

great footage, does anyone have footage of the race where Hopwood passes Welch on the S's?, would love to have a record of that

[@davidlang9939]

CUT THE WITLESS CHATTER: WE'RE HERE TO SEE THE CARS, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, TO HEAR THEM THRU THE GEARS.

[@dsriggs]

Ugh... The computer billboards were just as out of place then as they are now

[@wadem4503]

Its The Stig in No 30