Racer rebuild: Alfasud Sprint Veloce

How has progress been since last he spoke to Motor Sport? Geoff Gordon chuckles. “Gentle is probably the word,” he says, “but that’s always the way when you try to build a racing car during the summer months – stuff gets in the way…”

To recap, Alfa enthusiast Geoff sourced a well-used ’Sud Sprint Veloce to race in Peter Auto’s Heritage Touring Cup and commissioned Raceworks Motorsport of Royston to prepare it for purpose. “It has been a very busy time of late,” he says, “with Raceworks committed to running cars in the Spa 6 Hours and the Goodwood Revival [where, as you can read elsewhere, Motor Sport’s resident racer Dickie Meaden took Geoff’s Giulietta to a heat win and shared second overall with Steve Soper in the St Mary’s Trophy]. But we are now at the stage where this is pretty much an assembly job.

“Dave Ashford at Brunswick Racing did the engine and has been working with Nigel Rees of GSD RaceDyn. Nigel wants to make the car as stiff as possible and the two of them work together to see how that can best be achieved without compromise.

“DC Electronics is making the wiring loom and the fuel system is already fitted – Advanced Fuel Systems has plumbed it for both fuel injection and carbs. As I said last time, we will eventually use a period-correct Kugelfischer mechanical injection, but that’s quite complex and first we just want to get the ’Sud up and running.

“Getting an oil tank made was quite interesting. Pro Alloy Motorsport undertook the job, but had only a very poor black-and-white image to work from. They’ve interpreted how they think it should be and we’ve been told it looks OK, so gradually it’s all coming together.

“Raceworks takes a great deal of pride in making sure everything is done correctly and that tends to be my attitude – probably something to do with my engineering background! If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.

“The target is to race the car in the final HTC event of the season at Paul Ricard [October 20-22], where I’ll share the car with Dickie, but I guess that’s going to be tight. Hopefully there will be an opportunity to do a couple of test sessions beforehand, but if we aren’t ready for Ricard we’ll have the consolation of plenty of time to test and prepare ahead of 2018. Next year the plan is to tackle the full HTC season and also as many UK events as we can. If the car is eligible for any races at the Donington Historic Festival or Silverstone Classic, we’ll be there.

“I have a bit of learning to do, because I have never previously raced a front-drive car – and Dickie tells me he’s a little rusty. I’ll perhaps book in for a bit of tuition at a track day beforehand.

“It’s a lovely feeling watching a new project like this come together. I think there’s as much pride to be had from the build and preparation as there will be from the actual racing.”

Next month: Will the car hit the track in time for Paul Ricard? News from the car’s first test… hopefully
Thanks to: Geoff Gordon, Raceworks Motorsport www.raceworksmotorsport.com