August 1999

Published by the Golden Gate Lotus Club

PO Box 117303 Burlingame, CA 94011

www.gglotus.org

20 Meeting Los Altos

27-29 Lotus corral at the Monterey

Historics (featuring Auto-Union)

11 All British Car Meet coastal drive

and lunch starts in Palo Alto

12 All British Car meet – Palo Alto

17 Meeting

15 Meeting TBD -

Nominations

19 Meeting TBD -

Elections

5 The Toddler Toy Rallye -Fremont
?? GGLC Holiday Party ,TBD

Friday August 20, 1999

Brandon Burke’s Place

(415) 941-0450

Well, this is the last opportunity I’ll have to really drum-up enthusiasm for bringing your car(s) to the All British Car Meet in Palo Alto next month. If you haven’t already guessed, YES, I would very much like the GGLC to win the club participation award, for the obvious reason. Now, I’ve given this a great deal of thought over the past month and I’ve come up with two plans. The first one I already told you about in last month’s CR. I fully intend on requesting that the Rovers be disqualified from the club participation award based on the fact that most of them are SUV’s and not CARS, like the title of the meet clearly states.

The second plan is a little more devious, even by my standards. If you think back over all the years the British Meet has been held, the GGLC has always been in contention for the club participation award. In fact, we’ve walked away with it more often than not. And, as all of you know, we’ve done it fair and square every time! We were beat out by the MG club a few years back, but that was because they held their west coast MG meet at the same time and they pulled a lot of cars from pretty far away. Okay, so they deserved it that year. But, one of our main rivals throughout the history of the meet, has always been the Sprite-Midget group. How can that be? This always bugged me because when you think about it, they basically cheat. They have to combine two cars into one club in order to make the numbers add up. Well, we can play that game too. I say we count the Jensen-Healeys with our club! After all, they do have Lotus engines! Okay, so counting the Jensens is a stretch, but the Rover plan is a very shrewd one (thank you very much) and I’m sticking to it.

While I’ve been concocting plans for a sure victory at the British Meet, I’ve also been working more and more on the Seven trying to get the bugs worked out and finish off the things that remained from last year. Having said that, I’m happy to report that the Weber carb swap proved to be just the right thing because the car is running much better now. It’s still not perfect, I need to fiddle with the jets now, but the stumble that made driving the car so aggravating has virtually disappeared. What I’d like to do is get it on a dyno to make those adjustments. Speaking of which, since the dyno day in March went over so well, I’ve wondered how many of you out there would be interested in doing that again. As I said, I’d like to get the Seven on the dyno, and I’ve got a few mods I’d like to do to the Europa to see if I can get a few more ponies out of that as well. If you’re interested, please let me know and I’ll see if we can arrange for the dyno again.

Having gotten the car running better now, I’ve focused on getting the gas tank properly secured. This is going to be interesting because the previous owner had plans of running a fuel cell and as a result, removed the hold-down straps. I’ll have a crash course in metal forming when I try to install the new straps because they go around the chassis tubes and the car has already been skinned! It’s always (what should be) the simple things that take the longest.

I’ve also been working on getting a roll bar in the car. When I got the car, the previous owner had two different versions fabricated, one for the street, and one for solo racing. He was somewhat disproportional with a rather long torso. As a result, the roll bar was a bit too high. And, since I plan on driving my Seven to the West Coast Lotus Meet 2000, wherever it may be, I needed to be able to put the top on. I know what some of you are saying right now; "A top on a Seven? I’ve only seen that in pictures.". I believe it was former GGLCer Grant Larson who drove to the first WCLM in Cambria, in the rain, with no top! Call me a wimp, but I want the top.

I’ve got a lot of other little things I’m doing to the car, like painting the nose and trying to upholster some seat bottoms, but you should be seeing it arrive in green fiberglass with bare aluminum this year. So come to the meet, support the marque, and have a good time! See you at the next meeting.

Scott

The GGLC will be gathering at the Green Flag Driving Associations event at Thunderhill on September 26. Green Flag is a small group of driving enthusiasts who used to put on track events with the Shelby club. I’ve been to their events and they definitely know what they’re doing. They run a very casual format with 3 different groups based on experience and aggressiveness. The unique thing about Green Flag is that they don’t allow any beater cars on the track. The result of this is that a lot of high-dollar machines and fast, careful drivers show up. Although your group will have lots of non-Lotus cars, you will not be running next to a ‘76 Camaro in 2-tone primer.

The GGLC is not sponsoring this event but many members will be showing up. You must register directly with Green Flag using the enclosed form. Be aware that if you’ve never run with Green Flag before, you must send in a picture of your car with the registration. Cost is $150. Discounted hotel rated are available at the Golden Pheasant (530) 934-4803 by mentioning "Green Flag".

Okay, this is it. If you only go to one GGLC event this year, then this should be it. This is the premier British car event on the West Coast and the GGLC needs you to win back the coveted Club Participation Award. Our President has arranged a hospitality tent at the finest spot in the park. We’ll be providing chairs and literature along with complimentary food and drinks for GGLC’rs and guests. (I think Scott’s bribing us). As usual the GGLC will be meeting across the street in the Stanford Shopping Center parking lot. At 9:30 to drive across together at 10:00 Here’s the other details:

***Saturday, Sept. 11th ***

_ Join us for a fun filled morning Brunch Cruise toThe Sea coordinated by British Car Magazine. Cars will be staged from the El Camino Park parking lot between 9:00AM & 10:30AM. This free tour offers an optional brunch at a restaurant on the coast at its conclusion. There will be no pre-registration but please let the British Car Magazine folks know if you are going to attend. Call: 650-949-9680 or email: BritCarMag@aol.com

***Sunday, Sept. 12th ***

Be part of the biggest one day British car show in America. Over 700 cars are expected to fill El Camino Park. Daily drivers, hot rods & works-in-progress are as welcome as Concours quality show cars.Great food, live music and more fun than you'll be able to stand! All participants will receive a commemorative gift. Field entry starts at 9:00AM. There is no preregistration. Fee is $20 per car at the gate. Spectators attend free. Call: 310-392-6605 or email: rfeibusch@loop.com

El Camino Park is on the El Camino Real. From 101, take the University Ave. exit west and turn north onto the El Camino.

August 27-29

It’s that time of year again. The Monterey Historics and associated auctions and concours’ are in town. This year the featured marque is Auto Union. I don’t know much about Nazi history, but I think Auto Union has someth’n to do with Audi, or it’s the same, or who knows?

But don’t worry, there’ll still be plenty of bitchen cars from all sorts of peace loving countries and lots of good racing. The GGLC will be there and has a paddock space reserved. If you ordered tickets through the club you should be receiving them a couple days before the event. Sorry about the delay, but the tickets were sent out late from Laguna.

July

1990 Lotus Esprit SE; silver paint (factory optional metallic); gray interior leather in excellent condition; 34,000 miles; new Yoko AVS front tires; 70% life left on OEM Goodyear rear tires; new Spax adjustable rear shocks; new brakes all around; Sony removable-face stereo; registration paid through April 2000; new paint on front and rear bumpers; best offer around $30K; Victor @ (650)347-4795 or e-mail @ vholtorf@investorfacts.com

June

Europa Parts Wanted fresh air vents that mount in the dashboard of Europa. Must be in very good or excellent condition. Also need a spring clip to hold the ashtray into the ashtray holder for Europa. John (650) 368-9105 Motofab@wenet.net

The Chapman Report is published monthly by the Golden Gate Lotus Club, PO Box 117303, Burlingame, CA 94011. The GGLC is a non-profit incorporated car club and is not affiliated with Group Lotus, Team Lotus, or Lotus Cars USA. The GGLC's annual membership dues are $20.00.

Opinions expressed in the Chapman Report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the GGLC or its officers. Technical advise should be used at your own risk.

Submissions to the Chapman Report are accepted. Please E-mail them to motofab@wenet.net in Word Perfect or ASCII DOS text. Submissions may also be mailed to The Chapman Report at 3507 Edison Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025-1815.

1999 GGLC officers are: President: Scott Hogben, Vice President: Mike Schlict, Secretary: Bruce Weinberg, Treasurer: Laura Hamai, Event Coordinator: Victor Holtorf, Membership Chairman: David Anderson, Social Director: John Ridley.

Chapman Report Staff: Editors: John Zender/Daren Stone, Circulation Manager: Tom Carney, Advertising Manager: Mel Boss, .