Re mjb's wheeling and dheeling, no, I don't think he is being too commercial.
I mean, every time he is supposed to send *me* something, he takes (ahem) quite
a while, so one could hardly accuse him of running a commercial, for-profit
enterprise! Like that TR-6 carb stuff, f'rinstance. The temperature dropped
from 60 to 10 between then and now, so if he sent stuff *now*, I wouldn't even
be able to go into the garage to work with it! (Hi, Mark!) But then again, I
have been known to wait even longer before sending various checks to people.
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
Let's see, I entitled this mail Panasport Wheels, didn't I? Oh, yes. Now I
remember. I was intrigued by someone's report that he called Panasport and
they made up some wheels to his specs. The reason it caught my attention is
that I remember something from this year's VTR meet. At the autocross meeting,
the good keptin bobwrench (who with his compatriots did such a marvelous job)
was explaining the rules and said that any wheels were allowed as stock *IF
THEY WERE STOCK SIZE* "which means that those nifty Panasport wheels make you
modified." Which probably surprised a few people. Out of curiosity I looked
up the wheels offered in TRF's catalogs, and lo! the Spitfire options were
5.5x13. The factory size peaked out at 5x13 for 1979-80 (being 4.5 for some
time before that). So I thought it might be nice to have a set of 5x13's if
they would make them up for not too much extra money.
You're probably what all the fuss is about. After all, autocross classing is
not that important, seein' as how that was my first in 15 years and I don't go
out of my way to find others. (Exceptin' too that I liked winning something
and I'd get blown off the lot in modified.) But also, I've been driving our
van around for 6 months with larger than original tires and I can really feel
the difference in their weight. Percy's wheels are not in too good a shape
anyway, so new wheels might be a nice upgrade. But would not a wider wheel
give up some (or even all) of the weight-loss gained by such an upgrade? So a
"custom" 5x13 instead of the "standard" 5.5x13 would be a neat, tidy solution
to both issues. I am not ready just yet to buy new tires, and anyway would
wonder if wider tires would be heavier too. I'd suspect that lighter wheels
would do wonders for the rear-end ride comfort. So all I have to do is get
Panasport to make me some! (And that raises the question too of whether I
could convince the tech inspectors at the next autocross I run that, yes,
Triumph did put 5, not 4.5, inch wheels on the latest Spitfires, so no, my
nifty Panasports do *not* make it modified.)
Any comments? Thanks. (Just what I need. Another way to spend money.)
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