Rover 216 GTi
Emergency situations need emergency action. In our case the choice was simple, pull out from the remainder of the season or find another car to use in the interim. Introducing Rover!
A hunt around on the various race car sites showed that truly cheap race cars were few and far between. In an ideal world we would have bought a Rover Tomcat, in fact we considered buying one last year to keep as a capable T-car, but funds would not allow. And so it was again, funds could not stretch to a Tomcat. But we could afford (almost!) a Rover 216 GTi - the predecessor to the Tomcat in terms of Rover one make series cars. Like the Tomcats, the 216 GTi were purpose built race cars from the beginning and although based on the stock 216 GTi 3 door hatchback, they used non-sunroof shells, came fully caged and braced, and just like the Tomcats, came without headlamps.
The first car we looked at was possibly the better looking cosmetically from the photos we received, but on inspection was not what we were looking for. Shame, the colour (light blue) was possibly more TV friendly than the darker blue and white scheme of Rover. It was also basically as built by Rover, the dash was still in place as were the glass windows, window winders, front side lights, etc. The downside was it had not been run on track for 7 or 8 months, left outside for the past three months and although the front wing didn't look THAT wrinkly, it did prevent the passenger door from opening. If we had more time we may still have bought this car, but the reality was at time of buying it was 6 days until we were due at Anglesey and there was little time to do anything. What was needed was a car that was ready NOW.
Enter Anthony Allitt - he had previously owned Rover before selling to Mark Nicholson and then buying it back. Strangely it had belong to Matt Speakman before Anthony bought it first time around - so that's three previous owners out for Rover's debut at Anglesey! Rover had raced at Brands Hatch on that fateful day in May when the kappa's engine broke, and Lee David had raced it the week before at Rockingham. So a deal was done blind over the phone and off we went to Welshest Wales to pick it up. Rover came with more spare parts than we know what to do with and something like 25 tyres, although the one set of wets had seen (much) better days as had most of the slicks. Still, beggars can't be choosers and Rover fitted it with our financial situation.
Testing at Anglesey in the wet showed that not only did the wets look past their best, they were awful! They needed replacing urgently. The dry races showed that the slicks were a little better but went off noticeably during race 1 and struggled to get back on for race 2. So we needed tyres. We also needed brakes - the most amazing judder under braking was something we just put up with, but not something to leave alone. Jason Holmes pointed us at a set of unused EBC discs on eBay and a deal was done which saved a decent sum. I even fitted them myself in time for Snetterton along with the new Dunlop slicks and a set of Avon wets borrowed from the old Y10 - remember that!
So, what are we left with? A sixteen year-old car, approx. 150-160bhp from the Honda 1600cc twin-cam engine, and an opportunity to learn to drive a new way, where maintaining any speed gained is an absolute must.
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