| Back in 1978 I bought my first car. Right - You guessed it: An Austin Healey Sprite. It was in a sorry state. After spending a lot of effort through 1978, I drove it for a year and a half. In the end, I was forced to sell it due to the space needed for baby stuff. Despite 5 wonderful years with a TR4 in the late eighties, I never found the same entertainment I was used to with the Sprite. In 1998 a Sprite were exposed at the Classic Autojumble at the danish castle Gavn��s. Although fitted with a worn out 1098 Minor engine and hard to get rolling due to hanging chokes, I fell in love immediately. The deal was settled that same afternoon, and the car delivered within a week. The story of this particular Sprite began in the spring 1959 where it is stood in the production line at the Abingdon manufacturing plant. (Just in front of my first Sprite as they have adjoining chassis numbers.) After being shipped to Denmark, it was first registred on May 5th 1959. The owner before me had it registred June 8th 1993, and I took it over on June 25th 1998. During the dark and cold winter I prepared it for the MOT and did a lot of the finishing jobs, i.e. carpets, hood etc. In the early 1999 it passed the MOT without any comments, and we were ready to enjoy the Spring. In april 1999 we went to Ring Knutstorp, Sweden to attend the racing school, where I earned the HR license. Good Year Classic 1999 was the debut with a valid racing drivers licence, competing in the "beginners class" (Class C). My oldest son Kasper was co-driver and did a splendid job. Almost without aid of instruments. With the speedo accuracy uncertain and tripcounter impossible to reset ( He could not see it anyway, but I could.), we were happy the stopwatch and the calculator were in good shape. He kept his head cool, even when the accelerator pedal got stuck in floor position on a high speed trial. We were very proud to finish 6th in class out of 15 teams. In the summer we prepared it for racing with cut off switch, tow eyes, roll over bar, seat harness, OMP seat being ready for the event at Ring Knutstorp in September. What a debut. Getting flagged out in my first heat for not paying enough attention to the blue flags. Im proving in second heat i finished as no. 5 of 5.. I confess: I was a nuisance to my fellow competitors being EXTREMELY slow. I learned my lesson: !) Give way for the faster boys to take over and 2) Get more POWER. In consequence I had to do something preparing the car according to the Sebring homologation. I managed to build an original 948 engine from scratch over the winter with reboring, new pistons, pumps, bearings and balanced internals. What a difference !! Not quite the grunch of a 1275cc, but............. On Sturup Raceway I discovered what fading brakes really are about: An opportunity to learn how to powerslides through the curves. Although I am still the less fast GT, I have had tremendous fun in the Y2K season. The peak being the Copenhagen Classic Car Cup. With its 1100 meter track it was perfect for the agile Sprite. It it did OK. Up against much more powerful cars we made an honourable 9th place out of 16 in class and the 5th fastest lap. |
| Austin Healey Sprite mk. 1 |
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