Adventures in Sprites

Kansas City All-British Meet, August 31-September 1, 1996

.I asked my wife, Nancy if she would be interested in writing about our trip to the KC all-British Meet. Here it is!!

Hi, my name is Puddles and I am the Myer's Austin Healey car and I wanted to tell you of the next big adventure in my life. It started out much better than my trip to Illinois - NO fuel pump problems!! The sun was shining, my top was down, and off we went on the road to the all-British car show in Kansas City, Missouri. We stopped first in Nebraska City to give me a hardy drink of fuel and we met up with two other British cars from Lincoln - a big Green Healey and a red MG. After a short rest, we were off - following each other down the road. The other cars stopped at an antique dealer just before we reached Kansas City, but Les, Nancy, and I continued on.

After reaching the show, and after a little polishing by Les I was lined up with many other cars much like myself, but some had big rubber bumpers and many of them said they weren't really Austin Healeys. Nonetheless, I felt proud to be among so many beautiful cars.

Les and Nancy walked around looking at many other makes and models and I overheard Nancy comment how much she liked the Minis and the Morris Minors (I think).

After a good night's rest, Les was up bright and early to wax and polish me up for a day of judging and showing. Many people looked me over and commented about my PDLJMPR license plates - I even showed them my new engine. I didn't win any recognition in the show, but Les entered me in the Driving Olympics competition and I won 2nd place in a field of about 30 cars. After a wonderful day, back we all headed to Lincoln.

Nancy Myer

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Now its my turn!! - ed.

The Kansas City all-British Meet is the biggest British marque event in our area of the Midwest. A co-worker (Triumph owner) told me of the event last winter and we had been planning to go for quite some time. It was held at the KCI Marriot Hotel (airport exit, beautiful setting - big lake, trees, etc) and it appeared to be quite well-organized - a very nice British show to attend! Furthermore, the rooms were reserved for the meet at around $80.00/night - I was pleased to get a late reservation at the special reduced price.

We left early Saturday morning and while fueling up in Nebraska City, we ran into a couple of British cars from Lincoln that were heading to the meet - Bryan Mitchelltree in his beautiful big Healey (2nd place in his class) and a mint older MG (took first in his class). We caravaned with them for most of the rest of the 200 mile trip, but they exited I-29 after St. Joe to go look at antiques. Puddle's fuel pump gave us no problems this time, after being repaired with some used parts acquired in New Jersey (thanks Frank!) The hotel was easy to find and we were amazed at the sheer volume of cars being shown at the meet. After checking into the hotel (very nice), we wandered the basement hallways for quite some time looking for the registration room (which had been abandoned and moved to the show area entrance).

Once we realized where we needed to go, we completed registration and was shown where our class was parked. I have to admit that I did take slight offense to being registered under "Midgets and Box Sprites" - I object to having my car's marque (if you can call it that) come after the word "and". Oh well - that's just me - guess I should have just accepted it (but I didn't). My form of silent protest was to park my Sprite right in the Midget end of the lineup. My suggestion to officials would be to separate the Sprites from the Midgets and call the non-bugeye Sprite class "Austin Healey Sprites MKII-MKIV" - just my opinion!

The Bugeyes had their own class and were well-represented at the show.
Bugeye Photo 1
Bugeye Photo 2 (the one on the right won)

Here is the Big Healey lineup

Of particular interest to me was an immaculate Austin-Mini Cooper S that had been a SCCA racecar. In the closeup of the sign it says that this car was clocked at 126mph at Road America. I can hardly imagine driving a Mini at that speed! My hat is off to the Mini racers - they have the "biggest balls of all" (strictly speaking of high-society events, of course). Can you name the origin of my pun? - if you don't understand, never mind - ed. In any case, Minis always put a smile on my face. Go see them race - you'll see what I mean....

Late Sunday morning was spent attempting to vote on all the cars in all the classes - not an easy feat (had to do it sans camera). There were British cars from Rolls Royce and Bently, Healeys, an Aston Martin, Jags, Minis, MGs, Sunbeams, about a kazillion classes of Triumphs with 20 kazillion cars in them, and even a few Italian car classes (I forget all the marques). I voted for most of the classes I could find in my packet of voting slips, trying to make sure I voted for the best car with the hood up and wheel wells showing it had been driven on a real road. One MG was driven to the show from Florida - he got my vote. The Aston Martin engine was definitely interesting - double overhead cam V-8 with multiple Webers. Something you don't see every day. Also of interest was a primo Jag that had been restored, subsequently in a major accident, and then restored again. Very nice display to go with the car - story, photos of damage and repairs in progress. Bet the guy that hit him's insurance company was very unhappy - there was a blurb about waiting quite a while for the insurance settlement! I stopped and spoke with the Bugeye owner who eventually won the class (maybe 10 bugeyes). He was one of the few owners standing by his car - I guess he must have been smart and voted early so he could be there with his car (I had intended to be with my car, but had no concept how long the voting would take me). He also had his hood up and was willing to talk. He said he had attended the show many times but never had placed. I'm glad he won - he certainly showed his car properly!

Now comes the really fun part of the meet for me! On the spur of the moment, I decided to enter the Driving Olympics. Nancy and I took Puddles down to a big paved parking lot where the Topeka British Car Club was sponsoring the event. There were a number of things you had to do. Some were timed and some were not. I liked the timed things the best.

Here I am, starting my first competion event in a British car. I had just blurbed something to Nancy about "sometimes you break axles" (Hi Frank) and drove away from her....I planned to drive agressively.

After doing the power-off roll to a mark and drive the car in-between the driver-spaced obstacles, I was ready for the first timed event. At the far end of the large parking lot was a single cone....I was to do a 360 around the cone and come back to the start line, stopping exactly on the mark. What fun.....5000rpm, dump the clutch and I was off ....got the tires hooked up and made 7000 rpm before having to let off...cut a cookie around the cone under full power....drove through my own tire smoke, headed back to the start line and stopped on the mark without squealing a tire....it was one of those perfect moments you so rarely get in life - 18 seconds when I could do no wrong! When I asked the official that was timing me how I did, he shook his head and said "You did real good". I copped a glance at the score sheet he was writing on and saw that I had beat the first two cars by a over five seconds.

Now I was pumped - the muscles in my legs were twitching from the adrenaline (they had only did this once before - in a demolition derby years ago). The next task was to turn around in a "garage" that was marked by cones - a tight space. Again, everything went perfectly....into the garage, turn, back up, and out....Sprites seem to be very manuverable in tight spaces. Out of the 30 or so entrants, I believe only the Sprites were able to do this.

The next event was a slalom through five or six cones, around the end, and back through the cones. I started my first slalom by almost dumping the clutch in reverse (oops! - brain fart) and I missed the go signal. They kindly let me start again. Maybe not fair to the others, but it worked for me. Unfortunately I managed to brush the 2nd and 4th cones with the right side of the car and tipped them over - severe penalties - I definitely need to work on slalom technique. I went through the course very fast, but seem to have a problem cutting the cones too tight on the right side. Any slalom driving tips for an inexperienced but agressive driver will be greatly appreciated.

After the trouble with the slalom, I was a lot more conservative in the reverse slalom where I had to back up through the cones. I think my time was somewhere in the middle of the pack - Sprites don't seem to handle quite as well in reverse!!!

The last task was to parallel park, and fortunately the manuverability of the Sprite led to an excellent time.

When it all was over, I got a chance to see the big score sheet and they told me I might win - they couldn't tell for sure until they tallied all the scores. In the end, tipping that second cone in the slalom cost me the win. Still I was very happy to get the 2nd place coffee cup and my name announced during the awards ceremony. You can bet I will be trying the autocross next year.

Les Myer