Sean Wiles
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I am not sure what memories in particular you may be interested in, most of mine were in regard to Daniel and Bunty and their quirky way of dealing with their staff, sometimes resulting in most bizarre events. The actual details of the tuning specifications and development details were more carefully controlled. Although Daniel often gave me odd bits and pieces which he got from god-knows-where (Abingdon special tuning dept, I think) and asked me to try them on whatever racing mini I was using at the time. He didn't, however always ask me what the results were!!
Purely as a matter of interest, while I was running under the Social Club entry licence I managed, mainly thorough his help, to enter races in every engine size that minis could run in at the time! He lent me an 850 engine, a 1070 "S" unit, and a particularly hairy 1000cc "S" which I used to compete in my only Drag Racing event at Santa Pod (1St in class 13.4 seconds for a 1/4 mile....slow now!) And I personally built an 1172cc (with some strange pistons from Daniel again) and a 1275 "S" later on. I later turned this into a 1340 with which I was timed at Castle Coombe one day when somebody brought along a speed trap device, at 130 mph. Not much now, but an interesting speed to arrive at paddock bend at! There were many other strange things that happened, I never was sure who arranged for the man at BMC who put the sheet metal under the press for mini body parts, whether it was Barry, or Daniel, but somebody gave him some aluminium sheets one day, and I was presented with a complete set of panels for my min! The only part that was in steel was the front wings and windscreen pillars, John Dorrans and I could pick it up (minus engine!) and carry it about the garden where I built it. (workshop? No such luxury then, all my prep was carried out in the orchard where we lived!) There were endless tales about the "goings-on" at Downton, which I am sure you have heard already in great detail so I don't know if you should be bored with more of these. As you will know all the racing minis were road tested on the highway using the most rudimentary silencer stuck on the end of the tailpipe. When Val Gardner did the testing this always included a "racing" start just outside the workshop on the road and a blast thro the village that nowadays would have had the local police phone ringing immediately! These events were always more fun when we were visited by a guy called Ron Fry, a big club racer in the 60's, who owned a Ferrari and a racing mini. Every time he called to collect his mini from any work we had done, this often resulted in Val finding another car that needed testing at the same time, and we had a mini race through the village! And of course they didn't start till we had time for all the staff to assemble outside to watch!
Blandford Camp Hillclimb 1966, Sean in the running for FTD!
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