the life of rolie

[PR95]

Dave
The previous owner of Rolie do know what happened to him, and follow it on this site, and they are over the moon about it.

[redback]

The effort put into this car is simply fantastic!!
WHO AGREES??
Dave M.

Me - The whole job on Rolie is top notch work and interesting too.

Neil

[1968GT]

THAT IS FANTASTIC Geoff!!
Why wouldn't they be "over the moon" about the progress and future of Rolie!!
It would be even better if "one day", we could all meet meet Mark and maybe some of his Team, WHAT A STORY!!!
Dave M.

[gt orphanage]

I got a email from Gary the previous owner he had done a write up for his car club in coona and forwarded it to me i will see if he is ok to if we post it on here or he might post it himself as he is a forum member now and follows this thread on the forum. Mark needed some history on Rolie for the event and he and Gary exchanged emails a fair while back.
Garys has asked if we are coming back to coona as he can not find much info about it on here I have advised him how if he does ask a moderator .

[Pombellett]

Thanks guys for all your kind words, it's been really useful to me to keep this 'kind of diary' of the story of Rolie, but it's made it so much more worthwhile knowing the support and enthusiasm of the car's mother country is right here on the forum.
This whole epic adventure is, of course, by no means over....we now begin the quest for power, of which I'll keep you informed.
In the meantime, any good pics or film I get sent, I'll post.
When we were clearing up on Monday the Fortress left....what a sight (and sound) as each engine was fired up.

rsz_1b17_fire_up_2.jpg (209.66 KiB) Viewed 168647 times

And then when the throttles were pushed forward, the steel crowd barriers blew over. What power!

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[Antti Pellonpää]

I and Esko were there at Goodwood Revival and what a journey it was! I drove about 600 km on the "wrong" side of the road in that weekend. And I hadn´t done that since I visited Australiain early 90´s. Hmmmm... a couple of times I also drove on the "right" side. You have good horns there in England.. Only once I stopped the traffic when we had to put 1,50 pounds road tax to the automat and I had a 10 pound paper money. The sound of silence..no, horns again.. Thank God for the help buttom and then came the officer.

We stayed in Simon Hamptons house and he and his Sally treated us so well. As did Mark and his Anna and the whole crew too. We got special passports so that we could visit all the areas where we needed a tie. Of course I had my Isuzu-tie, which I got as a "Seasons Greetings" present from Isuzu Motors in 90´s. The whole Goodwood show gave us too much to see with all the Spitfires, hundreds of old cars at the parking area and the old slyle costumes that women had. They looked like...real women.

I still can´t understand how Marks crew made that miracle to make Bellett ready in so short time, without knowing anything about Belletts before. They are really professionals.

Mark also raced incredible fast with that engine against those cars that had at least 50 hp more than Bellett (and some had 300 hp more..). I think Mark was very good on the curves and drove through them smoothly. At 2013 there must be a 1,6 twincam from Finland, that I bought from Australia a couple of years ago and what Ari is now repairing or a lots of more power from that SOHC. I also think that the car should be a little lower, but they couldn´t make it lower because of the 14 inch wheels. More negative camber both front and rear.

I have tried 1 to 5 leaf rear "stabilizer". Also solid fix on the middle. But Bellett is handles better without it. We have used those straps which are shown in one of the photos, but I think right type shock absorbers will do the same. I have also seen that z-bar in Tom Amos GT. I had that type of stabilizer in my Porsche. When I saw Tom racing, I believed that type of stabilizer works.. I myself like a very hard suspension in Bellett. It´s more funnier and like a go-kart. Bellett is easy to handle when it oversteers, like driving on snow. So I hoped that the track should be wet at Goodwood, so that the other competitors can´t use the power so much against Mark. I have tried limited slip diff, but welded diff is much better in curves. And it won´t go off from the curves as many say. Try it.

I´ll be at Goodwood in 2013 if I´m not dead... and if The Bellett is there too.

Antti Pellonpää

[cdtpf60]

Thanks guys, I've never been so nervous as when I was hanging around the paddock waiting for Robbie to qualify....all that time, effort and money to be condensed into 20 minutes with the car being in the hands of a total stranger (to me and the car) But I didn't have to worry, Robbie is the consumate professional, and when he bought Rolie back intact and with a half decent time I nearly wept with relief!
I'll post Q1's times because Robbie was in with all the other interesting drivers.

Q1.pdf

In Q2 I was slightly slower with a 1.48, but pretty much the same grid slot. We were totally thrilled with our qualifying effort, and beer was drunk that evening (Not our Rob, of course )
We now realise we are seriously under powered, having done no development work on the engine (even the Anglia developed 165hp).....BUT, apart from the Minis, there was no car on that grid that was significantly quicker through the corners than us.
Anyway, check this out....does this happen to everyone who buys a Bellett?

rsz_rsz_glam.jpg

great to see you did well with rollie,but if i have to dress like that ..........thank god i have a gemini...LOL
i hope to get back over there in a couple of years and thid time i want to get to the revival meet,it looks like a great event.
congrats again Paul

[gt orphanage]

antii I thought we left the leaf spring a few pages back

It's a little like the pr91 W thingy , .
But a little extra action now and then is fun.

[Pombellett]

It was great to see Antti and Esko at Goodwood, he even turned up with a back up dizzy cap (which I still owe you for Antti)
Thanks guys.

I've only made it to the pages of Autosport once before (when I was racing Alfas, and everybody else fell off and I accidentally won my class ).....but we're there again much to my surprise. First Bellett mention???

autosport22sep.pdf

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Polara Jim has got some good pics, and as soon as I've twiddled around with the old resizer, I'll post them.

[Pombellett]

He got a good one of the team, although I reckon it looks a little 'staged'

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And here they are giving me a little more brake pedal.

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And here we are waiting to go out for the first time, everybody nervous, except Robbie, who just looks impossibly cool!

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I 've got some good action shots, just got to make some time to do all this resizing. I'll post tomorrow.

[Pombellett]

Back view of Rolie going out on his first competitive lap in the UK. This was qualifying on Friday. The crowd was like this pretty much all the way around the circuit.....and this was just qualifying!!!!

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Bellett bullied by Galaxie

Rolie and Galaxie.jpg (389.92 KiB) Viewed 168503 times

More action at the chicane, with a seriously crossed up Jag.

Chicane Action.jpg (346.4 KiB) Viewed 168503 times

[mrflibbles]

love it! it is great to have seen a car go from as found to a competition car in little time at all, Should be a ripper once you get a bit more go out of rollie! Are there many competitions you can enter rolie in over there?

[Pombellett]

Yes Mr Flib, there's a couple or three well run series here that Rolie could run in. But we've got to do quite a bit more work, since we'll require FIA papers (or the modern equivalent). So one of the first big jobs, amongst others, will be to build a hot OHV engine. But this is something we don't want to rush, but I'll keep the forum posted.
In the meantime some more pics or the race itself.

You can see him somewhere in there!!

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Looking nice and stable.

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And at speed.

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[GerryBellettGT]

Great read,car looks like it's sitting on the track and handling as you need,
fantastic photo's,this info is the next best thing to being over there,Gerry

[BULLITT]

we all spotted the little red car in the bunch ....looks great ...goes great ..keep flying the bellettflag you are doing us proud ..also spotted the left hand drive mini kind regards davo

[redback]

Love the Speed 2 photo - looks great on the track with the rear camber!!!!

Found my new desktop photo - cheers

Neil

[Stickman]

I'm simply speechless & yet all warm and fuzzy.

[Pombellett]

Found a couple of Youtube clips of race one, the first one (not so good quality) is evidently taken from the stand overlooking Woodcote corner and the chicane....sadly the best shot of Rolie is towards the end.

http://youtu.be/h7Z11QOegcI

The second is a higher quality recording and is taken Madgwick corner (where the above photos were taken) And I reckon the commentator is just finishing talking about Rolie just as the film starts...see what you think.

http://youtu.be/VQNMh4yGHzc

Both these clips give a good flavour of what the St Mary's Trophy's all about.

[65bellett]

Pom Bellett you blokes weren't mucking about!!!

For any one interested the 1st Youtube video which is well worth watching the entire way through, at about 8m12s there is some great footage of Pom.

[GTtoo]

Sooo, Soooo much enjoyed watching Rollie in the fray, Pom. You are racing in a serious field of pedegree !! Reminds me much of J class here in Oz, the Minis giving the Jag a hurry along. And there not afraid of using the whole track and then some.

Awsome effort,

B.