You certainly had a job on your hands at Bathurst in '72 after taking over from Gerry... but fastest XU-1 lap?

That's a stack of racing, David, you're going to have to try and recount some of that some time. Especially the bit about beating fat sports cars in that BMC-engined Clubman.

Why not?

With Col Wear about to prepare such a car for Bathurst, the engine was taken to Waggott's for a bit of inspection and blueprinting. Col, who pulled the string on the Waggott dyno as I recall, reckoned that old Merv looked it over carefully, then simply said, "Typical Poms! Three eighths of an inch of cast iron to hold in the water, thirty thou to hold in the horsepower!"

By the way, the Datsun 1000 wasn't a 2-litre FVA, rather it was a Waggott TC4V engine, but I think it was the ex-Stewart engine, which may well still have been an 1850. It was built on a Ford block.

Ah yes, the direct top gear 5-speed... trust Col to use the good gear...

I remember there was something quite different about the exhaust pipe on its first appearance.

Now you'd better remind us about Moff's beef.

Good old Peter! Yeah, I know him...

I really should remember this incident, I'm sure. It must have happened, however, some time between August '73 and about July '74, when I wasn't doing the RCN reports. And on checking I find it in June '74's magazine:



Anyway, I've opened the way for you to discuss the beam axle cars in a thread about Welsors.

Unkind David!! but welcome....look forward to hearing more about your exploits Mick

Since Ray insists, here's a very brief resume...
I’m in my late 50’s….ok,ok…59 and began my 20 year racing career at 18 in a Volvo 122S which I went on to race fairly consistently and some would say spectacularly, around most circuits on the East coast of Australia. These included Towac Park, Warwick Farm, Oran Park, Catalina Park, Amaroo Park, Sandown, Winton, Hume Weir, Calder, Bathurst, Phillip Island, AIR Adelaide, Surfers Paradise, Lakeside etc. I’ve raced a variety of cars including several 122s belonging to various people, then my own 142S Volvo, Cooper/ Cooper Ss, VW Passat (!), Holden LC & LJ XU1s, XY Falcon 351, XD Falcon 5.8, Triumph Dynamites, Volvo 242GT, Nissan 280Z, Alfa GTV6, Datsun 1000 Waggot BDA 2000 Sports sedan, 2 Welsor Waggot Clubman Sports and probably a few others I’ve forgotten. I’ve competed in 13 Bathurst 500/1000s, 2 Surfers Paradise 12hr races, a Surfers Paradise 4hr, Oran Park 300, Amaroo 300 8th o/r and class win, won a state clubman sports championship, 2nd in another, class win at Bathurst, 7th o/r and 1st Ford in another, fastest XU1 lap in 72 (crashed whilst 3rd o/r) held lap records at Amaroo, & Oran Park, and have done more races than this befuddled old brain can hope to remember.
So, I guess you can say I’ve been around a little….

Yes - silly part was that it was a wet start and I love the wet, but it was his car and so he started it. Then the car was handed to me about 10 places back from where we started and I had to do 2 stints back-to-back to the finish, got back up to 3rd but I had the 'flu and was exhausted, lost concentration and rattled along the fence at Castrol damaging the 'rack. Yes - fastest XU1 lap even quicker than the great man himself apparently. Unfortunately a couple of divorces has seen all my old keepsakes sent to the tip...
There's been so many cars I've lost count but I forgot the Geminis too which also gave us a Bathurst class win in 79 and at Amaroo in the 300 for 8th o/r ahead of Bartlett's Camaro. As for the Welsor - well as you know it was a pretty good little car for a 1293 A series engine but the secret was Col's ingenuity and the way it handled and stopped particularly.

Don't be so bloody testical Ray...It had twin over-head doovies, side-draft glove-box, and 4 somethingorothers, and injection of some sort,... oh...and a c/r 240Z box, and F5000 brakes, and Col sort-of grafted a copy of the Clubman beam-axle front-end in too. It had about 240hp and weighed about 500kg so it went ok, although Moffatt didn't like it much..... And with track and wheelbase fairly similar, the handling was...ummm...challenging...it would easily spin in its own length

Huh! Well there was a fairly important race at Oran Park and Moff had the Brut Mustang there and it was in that period when he was .... wound-up like a top. I was going ok and was about 6th or thereabouts but lost oil-pressure so I slowed and was heading into the pits. As I was actually in the entrance to the pit-lane (which was particularly poorly situated at the exit to a particularly difficult rising off-camber corner at the entrance to the straight) Moff came past sideways, totally out of control and off-the-planet using the pit lane as well as the track, and clipped me as he went past. This straightened him up and spun him the other way and put him into the pit wall and ended his race (and maybe the series). So, with the roar of blood still ringing in his ears, Smailsie thrust a mike in his face and asked him what he felt..... So Moff, virtually frothing at the mouth, gave me a totally undeserved spray on the tv and the PA saying I wouldn't know the brake-pedal from the steering wheel and shouldn't be there, even though the fault was entirely his. So, it escalated to another tv interview 2 days later where Smailsie again tried to inflame the situation until I pointed out to him a) I was quite correctly in the pit-lane entrance , b) Moff was also using the pit-lane as part of the track, c) the windscreen was so badly cracked and damaged and taped on the Stang and he probably couldn't see properly and that it shouldn't have been passed at scrutineering, d) I was quite correctly returning to the pits in the correct fashion with my arm held high out the window to so indicate, and e) when was the last time that Moff had not also used the same return to the pits in similar circumstances.... Smailsie was lost for words. I was so incensed by the whole thing that I wanted to take civil action for defamation and damages, but my solicitor, whom you know, talked me into letting it die a natural death...
So, that was the Moff incident... It still irks me!

How about that! And the official record even pretty-much agrees with my view as well. Thanks for that!

Welcome, Seldo!

Guys... this exchange was too good to leave in the Introduce yourself! thread so I've given it its own berth.

If the title needs changing, please let me know!

Thanks, Twinny, and thanks to David for bringing out the detail...

He's also gone to a bit of trouble in the Welsor thread, which is all pretty illuminating. I'd still like to know more about that 'fastest XU-1 lap at Bathurst in '72', as the race report shows them on a 2:42 and Brock on a 2:38.

There's no doubt that during the early part of his first stint David was flying, chasing Don Holland through the field and taking over third place when Holland had a problem.

LOL....far be it for me to argue with you over the facts Ray, since you have all the reference material at hand. I'm sure that was correct as one of the mags commented to that effect when I was actually ignorant of it, however, maybe it's just a case of "The older I get, the faster I was..." You've got me puzzled now - must be losing the plot - Must see if I can do some digging...

Moff was obviously trying to force the issue where it might have been prudent to take another tack....sad to read

Pity the report on the Mini Sprint race is so short

Old Moff had a little coming together with Noel Delforce's Marina around the same time and a few years later Moffat had another touch up with Noel, this time Moff was in an RX7 and Noel was in a P76. Moffat got into trouble with the Stewards for walking across the bonnet of the P76.
Why did all the NSW Sports Sedans pick on Moffat?

Funny you should mention that....Bloody Moffatt ! Once again I was involved.... It was a wet practise and the race was for combined Touring Cars and Sports Sedans including Moffatt in one of the first of the Peripheral-ported Mazda RX7s . I always went pretty well in the wet ( I always reckon it sorts out the men from the boys) and after practise I ended up on pole ahead of all these big V8 sports sedans in my little Group C 1600 Gemini with which we'd won the class at Bathurst just prior.
As we formed up in the marshalling area next day for the start of the now dry race, I went around to all those V8 drivers immediately behind me and said that since they were going to swamp me off the start I would hold hard to the left and try to stay out of trouble...
The flag dropped and we rushed down to the first left hander with me hugging the inside and then into the braking area....Moffatt was trying to prove a point with the Mazda and tried to push down the inside of Noel Delforce in the V8 P76 and gave him a whack pushing him into my rear quarter. With the nose down hard on the brakes, it didn't take a lot and the Gemini began a series of end-for-end rolls down the track.....Moffatt got his revenge...

...that would be at the bottom of the straight at Oran Park David ?....car a right-off?...Seldon OK?

Yes, it was the old original short circuit that I think they now call the Southern Circuit . Yes...as you would expect the car was totalled, but I was fine.

Seldon in his element...



2000cc of raw Volvo power chasing a Falcon V8.

Watching sports/improved production cars at Warwick Farm 1968 the other night....I caught a glimpse of a 122 (3 GT?) about fourth row of the grid close to the fence....I wondered if that could have been David Seldon.

Hehe...Yes, I saw it too. That was him.....
I was most amused by the commentary by .... the guy who called the Gold! Gold! Gold! at the Olympic swimming a few years ago.... and his obviously total ignorance of anything to do with motor racing, as he called Brian Foley and Bob Holden by everything except their correct names...

Well...I think you should be thankful that Norman "Nugget" May didn't know a swedish car from a massey-ferguson tractor.....I can just hear him now, and here is Davis Seldom in the Vulva

I certainly hope that's not true!

Just one question, was the volvo fitted with a Repco Volvo alloy cylinder head as used by the Volvo Australia rally ars of the era ?

No..'fraid not. For a start they weren't legal for circuit racing since they were not a factory homologated part (cylinder head had to be as supplied by the manufacturer save only for the removal of metal) and who could afford one anyway. It was developed by Repco and financed by Max Winkless who was the MD of Volvo Australia at the the time for his rally cars. They were never available commercially. They also had a dreadful reliability problem and it was more than just a cylinder head being a Heron head arrangement with the combustion chamber in the piston crown which was where most of their reliability problems arose... and they used to have 3 head-gaskets for breakfast... It was just standard 1780 cc + .040" which gave 1825cc, with a couple of 45DCOEs. Not that I ever had it on an engine dyno....engine dyno..??? but in latter years they were getting about 178bhp on Waggott's dyno (from 1900cc)