Montego Racing

About

The answer to first question is Yes’m, it is a Montego and Yes’m, it is an estate!

The answer to the next question is Why not?

Bootylicious! Miss Daisy shakes her tail feather at Cadwell Park!

You can probably figure out for yourselves why this delightful piece of race car engineering is affectionally known as Miss Daisy.

If it’s good enough for Tom Walkinshaw (but what isn’t) then it is good enough for the MG Car Club. It seems that MG did actually make an MG Montego Estate, and whilst this isn’t it (allegedly there was only one) it seems that as long as you have a flat cap, a pipe and the most tenuous of links to MG Rover (we once had a dog called Rover) you are eligible for the MG Car Club Race Series.

Story of the Montego: www.maestro.org.uk/montego/
The MG Montego Estate: www.freewebs.com/f700suy/about.htm

Style or no Style? Forget the TV, have you got a licence for that suit Noel?

Click here to view the Austin Rover advert on YouTube.

The Montego Estate is actually an ideal racing car. Firstly, according to Noel Edmonds it is “the most stylish Estate car ever designed” and he knows a lot about style, just check out the suit in the YouTube link!

Also, the Montego “is the car that puts the driver first” (trade mark Austin Rover) although in our case, it puts the driver about 37th out of 42. That said, not only do most races take place on a Sunday, so we can take a quick detour when en route for the big shop, but thanks to that extra load capacity, we can also carry all (or actually both) of our spare parts on board.

Andy Campbell

This particular car is in fact a championship winning vehicle (oh yes it is, or was), albeit not in our hands. That credit goes to Andy Campbell, the brains behind the concept and the person who did all the hard work by building the car. It is as much as we can do to get it on a trailer. For more details of how Mr Campbell “Souped” (get it?) up the humble Montego Estate and took championship honours:

Proper Bo! Racing Blog: www.properboracing.blogspot.com
Pole Position Magazine - Bizarre Racers: bizarre_racers.pdf
Photos on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/tags/montegoestate/

Team Montego Racing (TMR)

We became carers for Miss Daisy in 2008. Whist we would say we took “control” of the car, if you have seen our performances this season we accept you can question the word “control”. We have had “mixed” success ever since. Highlights include turning up on time (twice so far!!) and in some races other vehicles have been overtaken, albeit not many. In fact, those cars that were passed, probably thought it best to get out of the way, having seen the 7-seater rolling towards the rear of their rather less robust vehicles.

Sadly, at Oulton Park, one competitor’s efforts to get out of the way resulted in Miss Daisy having a close encounter with the Armco which resulted in her best Easter bonnet being misshapen. This saw the end of the Bo! Racing Team colours which were replaced with an all new T-5 “lookey-likey” livery for the summer. Miss Daisy debuted her new yellow frock at Cadwell Park where despite her age, she drew many admiring glances. At least we think she did!

Team Montego Racing is, like most race teams, a “not for profit” organisation, in which various drivers will give Miss Daisy a good pedalling at various circuits throughout the country. At present, we will be raising eye brows in the acronymically titled MGCC PBIC Gp A Race Series, although appearances in other championships are planned.

Should you stumble across us in your travels, pop over and say hello because the chances are, we won’t be doing any preparation so it’s not as though you are going to be interrupting anything!

Trivia

The Montego’s lovingly sculptured lines were designed by Roy Axe.
A unique feature of the Montego (which it shared with the Maestro so it wasn’t that unique) was the all singing/dancing dash board using the synthesised voice of Nicolette McKenzie before she found fame as an anti-smoking patch.
The Estate had state of the art, innovative, “self levelling suspension” which received instant acclaim and a Design Council Award. This feature has been removed from our car!
436,000 Montegos were sold in the UK between 1984 and 1995. By 2006, just 8,988 were still in working order, securing a further award from Auto Express Magazine; 8th most scrapped car in the UK.

The Music of the Engine

Although the 2 litre O Series Engine is highly tuned and therefore sounds so sweet, on some of the longer circuits, it can get a little tedious so we like to keep a selection of tapes ready for the 8 track. As the hooter in our car still works, we can add our very own horn section. These are a few of our favourite tracks: