Newsletter
Page - Messageboard
IMPORTANT
- Please Read - 2008 NEW RULE !
REVISED
REQUIREMENT FOR RACE HARNESS MOUNTING TO ROLLOVER CAGE & THROUGH CHASSIS
WE
HAVE IN CONJUNCTION WITH SAFETY DEVICES SUBMITTED A NEW BRACKET AND MOUNTING
KIT
FOR STRESS ANALYSIS AND CALCULATION AND THE NEW KITS WILL BE AVAILABLE
NOVEMBER 1ST 2007
PRICE £23 THE COMPLETE KIT . THIS KIT IS ONLY FOR LOTUS ELAN FITTED
WITH TTR SAFETY DEVICES
ROLLOVER SYSTEM WHICH IS ALSO THE ONLY FIA HOMOLOGATED LIGHTWEIGHT ROLLOVER
SYSTEM
Autosport
Rated The Masters Cloth Cap 45-minute Race -May 24th "The
Race of the Day"
Autosport
rated the Masters Cloth Cap 45-minute race on May 24th as "The
Race of the Day". Starting from pole position Roberto Giordanelli's
Lotus 26R (class C) had a race-long David and Goliath battle
with Jamie Boot's (class A) 4.7lt TVR Griffith. Roberto lead
for most of the race but after 40 minutes the rear tyres overheated
and his lead eroded as the 26R became somewhat tail-happy. At
the flag the TVR V8 powered ahead, beating the 26R by by a fraction
of a second. Although the 26R is homologated with M-Section
(60-profile) Dunlops, it has to run on very skinny L-Section
(70-profile) tyres to comply with Cloth Cap's bizarre tyre ruling.
With a creditable class win, Roberto and team owner Jane Watson
are heading for Italy to take part in some exotic hillclimbs
before returning to the UK for another Cloth Cap race. This
26R (ch no: 26-S2-33) is the ex-Ian Walker 'works' rally car.
Roberto says, "Rallying is in this car's DNA and long Italian
hillclimbs are more like tarmac stage rallies than hillclimbs.
It's fabulous that this car is so versatile, so reliable and
so great to drive."
|
click
on image to enlarge |
Our
Portugese Customers
We
would like to thank our customers past and present in Portugal
and would like to congratulate Carlos Cruz on his excellent performance
in the Tour Auto , a certain podium only lost with 1 small error
in the rain . He's still 7th overall driving his Lotus Elan GTS
. Also well done Alex Guimaraes on his excellent result at Porto
Historic Races driving his Lotus Elan Sprint . We also remember
way back in 1996 & 1997 our old friend Rui Bevilacqua also
won the Portugese National Classic Championship both years , see
photo showing Rui winning as usual ! Car Lotus Elan GTS.
|
click
on image to enlarge |
Tony
hi, Something you might like for your news section -
30 June, 1 July 2007
Vernasca Silver Flag Hillclimb
Of
the 200 cars entered in the fabulous Vernasca Silver Flag Hillclimb there
were six from Lotus:
Roberto
Giordanelli - Lotus 26R
Stephen Griswold - Lotus Elite
Giacomo Pedrini - Lotus Seven
Marcel Hoyez - Lotus 23B
Peter Studer - Lotus 59 F2
David Mclaughlin - Lotus 49 F1
The
Vernasca Silver Flag Hillclimb is a revival of a hillclimb that was part
of the tough Italian
Hillclimb Championship. Remove all images of UKhillclimbs. Italian hillclimbs
are long and exciting affairs on closed
public roads. The Vernasca Silver Flag is no longer a timed event and
thisis a good thing as it gives drivers who are
used to competition an opportunity to relax, have fun and carry a passenger.
For non-professional
drivers it means that they can play with the big boys without any embarrassment.
The
Silver Flag comprises of three runs up an 8.5km course rising 1000ft.
It starts in the beautiful town of
Castell' Arquato. There is a 3-mileheart-stopping kinky straight of Mulsanne-esque
proportions followed by a
blast through the town of Luganiano, finally you rise 1000ft on the twistyascent
to the town of Vernasca. Spectators
line the route, and the only rule is that you don't crash. If you do crash,
you will certainly die, you may
take others with you, and the authorities would close down this fabulousevent.
Being Italy, hospitality is unrivalled with
three days of hugelunches and dinners in castles.
Two
hundred stunning cars take part, and with worldwide demand, obtaining
an entry is not easy. Our famous
Lotus 26R (ch# 26-S2-33) is the 1965 ex-IanWalker/Team Lotus rally/race
car. Other entries included several F1 cars:
ex-Jim Clark Lotus 49, ex-James Hunt McLaren, ex-Niki Lauda Ferrari and
more. The legendary David Piper was there
with a Le Mans Porsche 917K andthe impressive list is too long to publish.
See www.cpae.it
Cars
start at 30-second intervals, with the order selected to reduce theneed
to overtake. The organisers looked at the
1594cc engine capacity of the26R and placed in amongst similar - albeit
much slower - machinery. Gradually we
make our way to the start line until it is our turn. The Italian tricolore
drops, I floor the throttle and just as the tacho needle
flicks to the red zone, I drop the clutch. The historic Dunlops light
up, the car snakes wildly, a sea of waving arms from
the encouraging crowd and we rocket away. 8000rpm grab second, 8000rpm
grab third, 8000rpm grab fourth
(top gear in an FIA car), 8000rpm in fourth is c.130-140mph. As with Mulsanne
at Le Mans, chicanes have been introduced
but at 310bhp/tonne, the 26R still reaches top speed between each chicane.
Through Luganiano and the climb begins.
Temp gauges are way off the clocks; thanks to Millers Oils the motor is
content. In the countless turns and hairpins bends, it is
power-slide-city, we monster the opposition, passing five or six cars
and the locals love it. Across the finish line and
into Vernasca and the bar. What a great car. Colin Chapman you should
be here. Next event - Chimay
1-hour sports car race 14-15 July.
Best regards Roberto

Entered
two SR & GT Challenge races at Brands Hatch in class C - from Roberto
We
entered the two SR and GT Challenge races at Brands Hatch yesterday in
Class C. We
won both with fastest lap twice.
Interesting statistics: Classes are split on power-to-weight ratio and
the regs are quite free – not ideal when you are an FIA App K car.
We had the oldest car. We had the smallest engine. We were the only car
on Dunlop Historics.
Car ran perfectly.
Thanks
to Tony Thompson Racing, Millers Oils, Dunlop Tyres.
Next event: June 9th Masters Series Goodwood Sprint.
Roberto
Email
Sent to Tony & Stuart from Bert
Du Toy van Hees
Dear
Tony/Stuart,
Just wanted to thank you for the help with the change in the set up of
the car and your perfectly supplied parts.
During the Easter Races at Zandvoort I had to skip the qualifying and
first races due to a major change in the car.
Meaning that for the second race I had to start from the final place at
the back of the grid with more than 30 cars in front of me.
Finally I ended up at the podium, third place overall with the fastest
lap time of the day.
I improved my laptimes with approx. 2 seconds, beated the fastest lap
of Beukenkamp with 1 second when he was driving the
Elan and was even faster than the fastest lap ever done by Hugenholz in
his Elan.
Check out the results/laptimes at the attachment.....click
HERE for Results
Still believe that some further improvements on the Elan and driving technique
can be achieved in the near future but that's
work for the next weeks.
Many thanks
Bert Du Toy van Hees
Coppa
Milano Sanremo - Roberto Giordanelli
2007,
and the Coppa Milano-Sanremo Historic Rally is 101 years old.
See www.milano-sanremo.it
. Jane Watson and Roberto Giordanelli entered the 2007 event with
the ex-Ian Walker Lotus 26R rally car chassis number 26-S2-33.
During the 1970s/80s and 90s the car evolved into a racing car
with countless successes in the hands of Lotus-man Malcolm Ricketts
and the late Mike Ryan.
The
Milano-Sanremo starts with 3 hours of free lapping of the Autodromo
di Monza followed by a 2-hour crawl in a Milan traffic jam. Any
car that can survive that should have no trouble with the 250-mile
route to Sanremo that includes open roads, towns, motorways, mountain
passes and 19 sections of regularity trial.
Every
year the Milano-Sanremo grows more international, with this year's
entrants arriving from 16 countries. Of the 220 top classics entered
96 had Italian crews, 23 Swiss crews, 11 teams from Russia and
9 from the UK. This up-market rally includes 3 lavish lunches,
3 Gala dinners, 3 nights in 5-star hotels, with your dinner suit,
posh frock and tiara transported for you by the hundreds of organising
staff.
We
opted for the Tourist Class which is non-competitive. Jane did
the driving while I got down to journalistic work. This liberated
me for the job in hand; to cover the story and supply photography
for several magazines. Thanks to Tony Thompson Racing, Millers
Oils and Dunlop tyres, the 26R ran perfectly. Next outing is the
Sports Racing and GT Championship Race at Brands Hatch on the
19th of May.
Roberto Giordanelli
|
|
Email
Sent to Stuart (parts manager) from US Customer
Dear
Tony, I just wanted to send you a note thanking you for the great Lotus
racing parts you recently supplied. The custom
made Lotus
35 shock absorbers look great. I also appreciate the Lotus Cortina gearbox
parts. In particular you did a
beautiful job on the complete alloy remote gear change unit. I know that
some of these parts are hard to find in order to
make a complete unit. Again I thank you for doing a great job, on time
and at a fair price.
Best regards,
Steve Lawrence CA, USA
Dennis
Liversidge
Congratulations
to Dennis Liversidge on his excellent 2006
Harewood Hill Climb - 16/4 - Third in class
Scammonden Hill Climb - 13/4 - First in class
York MC Keith Pattison memorial Sprint at Elvington - 10/6 - First in
class
York Raceway (Drag race) 18/6 - First in class (13.1s at 104 mph)
parts and Technical back-up from TTRacing.
Bologna-Sanluca
Hillclimb
Congratulations to Roberto Giordanelli, first time out and 1st in Class
at the Bologna-Sanluca Hillclimb. Overall winner was an Elva-BMW 2.0,
also running were: Lotus 23B, Chevron B8, and lots of lightweight race
Porsche 2.7s and 3.0. Your name came up
favourably with other Lotus entrants.
Roberto has 2 more Italian Hillclimbs to do. Will send you the stories
when published.
Looking for a UK race in late summer/autumn. TTR and prepared with TTR
parts.

click
on image to enlarge
2006 Tour Auto
Congratulations to Hans ( John ) Hugenholtz on his fantastic 1st overall
and to Jean Pierre Lajournade on 3rd overall in the 2006 Tour Auto . Once
again the Elans beat all the Cobras and E Types ! Well done to both teams
. Both cars were supplied by TTR and prepared with TTR parts.
1st
Major Historic Event of 2005 Won by John Sheldon
The 1st Major Historic Event of 2005. The Classic Rally of Majorca was
won outright by John Sheldon driving his Lotus Elan GTS, parts supplied
by TTRacing. The car was expertly prepared by Ricky Higgs.
Octane
magazine April 2005
See Octane magazine April 2005 edition just published , fabulous 10 colour
pages
of our Lotus Elan 26R , article by Mark Hales
Email
Sent to Stuart (parts manager) from US Customer
Re: S2 Elan Finally Complete
Stuart
- If you recall, I'm the person here in the states that ordered the S1/S2
body about 2 years ago only to have the gorillas in Chicago run a fork
truck thru it after dropping it when it was being removed from the boat!
Just thought I'd let you know that, with your great help, another Elan
'Basket Case' is on the road! I just finished the interior this past holiday
and have been driving it whenever it gets above 40 degrees F! I've strongly
convinced that buying a new body from you was the best thing I ever did.
I was able to achieve a much better quality finished product by just ordering
a new one rather than trying to spend hundreds of hours patching my old
one. As it turned out, when I cut up the old one for the trash, I discovered
that there was significant rust in the sill reinforcing bars, which made
the large majority of the bonds between fiberglass and steel virtually
nonexistent. ---And there was no evidence on the ! outside! Had I restored
the old body, it probably would have failed in this area once I started
to drive it hard! I also appreciate the thicker bulkhead you put in the
pedal area. A-1 quality all the way. Enclosed are three pictures (not
too many to avoid filling up your
mail system!)
Thanks again and best regards
Paul Zimmerman
Ohio, USA |