BILL GILCREASE AT THE USA RUN-OFFS.

The car was originally built in 1982 as a tub car to SCCA GT5 rules and since then it has gone through many transformations.  In 1988 the Mini gained a full space frame chassis.  The original design was achieved by building full scale cardboard mock-ups and running them through their range, changing the templates or mounting points until the optimum was achieved and although this method was a little primitive in today’s world of computers, it worked! Since the original design, Bill was able to go back with the help of computers and make some improvements, but most of these were in the spring and anti-roll bar rates rather than in the chassis.  With the Mini Bill has been the divisional champion five years in a row.

In October of every year, the SCCA runs its National Run-offs Race at Road Atlanta, in Gainsville, Georgia.  Bill has qualified and attended this spectacle since 1986 with mixed success, ranging from not really being competitive to having the Mini be darn near destroyed by an overly dumb driver in a GT4 Toyota slamming him on the first day of practice, to having bad luck or just no luck at all.  Bill went into the 1991 season with one goal and one goal only – to win the run-offs.  He ran an abbreviated schedule, ran only races that directly benefitted him towards that goal, and most of the races were run with the Fortech Mini.  Sometimes they won, sometimes Bill did, and it had become a coin toss as to which one of these two Minis was going to win each race.

Off to the run-offs, and as soon as Bill arrived, the two Minis were the two fastest cars on track.  This continued all through the week until the last few moments of the final qualifying, when last year’s runner up Nissan beat Bill by 1.3 tenths of a second.  The Fortech and the Mincomp Minis didn’t quite make the front row together, but it was close.  The race went like this:- At the start Bill fell into 4th position behind an Alfa 1300 JR.  With Fortech in 2nd at the end of the first lap, Bill took over 3rd about 500 ft behind the two leaders coming out of the 4th turn.  Then suddenly Bill came to a stop about 2 ft from a pine forest with a broken left front drive spindle! (it broke right where the threads meet the splines on the C/V joint).  On the 4th lap the Fortech Mini retired with a similar failure! So Bill left the run-offs disappointed at the way the race had turned out, but happy to prove that there was now more than one Mini on the pace, and capable of winning the run-offs.  Maybe next year!

Back to contents page