Round 15 - Curborough, Sunday 2nd July

Of Molehills And Bollards
The Curborough Sprint Circuit, aka the Curburgring, is basically untouched since the first competitive sprint held there in June 1963. That’s 54 years. OK there’s a toilet block, an admin room and a permanent excellent greasy spoon but the track remains unchanged. Motorsport, old fashioned club motorsport.

It’s a popular annual event on our championship calendar but it was a small entry of four competing TVRs with five drivers this year. All V8s, no pesky Vixens who normally perform so well on this tight and twisty track despite its 100mph finishing straight. In fact we haven’t seen many Vixens out at all this year. Good to see plenty of TVRs in the car park.

So points were up for grabs. Steve Mogg was making a welcome return in his Griff after his 100+ mph off at Epynt three weeks ago. Lot of midnight oil and a positive approach saw the car looking pretty good with new wishbones, boot lid and remoulded panels plus lots more. Good effort by Steve and pit crew Rob. Pity about the baked bean colour of the body filler. Oh and he forgot his timing strut.

Rob Pack was in his well-developed Chimaera 400, Shelagh and Peter Ash were sharing their immaculate yellow Griff 500, which used to belong to Rob and Three Nuts turned up in his road going pre-serp Griff as the red checkered thing was hors de combat. We were joined by Dave Tilley in his 4 litre Chim, not in the championship but welcome all the same.

Really nice day, quite hot with a cooling breeze and a dry track. The course is basically two laps and so you come across the Molehill twice per run. This is a tricky right hand entry into a tightening left hander with Three Bollards for the unwary. You’ll hear more about this.

Practice 1 is just that – practice. A chance to find your way round and feel the grip of the surface. Three Nuts having done this course countless times didn’t feel the need for caution, entered Molehill  too fast, caught the right-lock tank slapper and immediately snapped round and exited backwards into the hayfield in a cloud of seeds and plant life. He missed the Three Bollards.  There was much discussion about the slippery almost jelly like feel that the track was giving out.

Practice 2 was uneventful leaving Rob ahead of Moggy by 14/100th of a second with Peter Ash just ahead of Three Nuts and Shelagh.

First timed run was before lunch and Moggy set off to demote Rob, but entered Molehill a fraction too enthusiastically and the resultant tank slapper demolished the Three Bollards as well. Four wheels off, so no time, which left Rob leading Peter A, Pete W and Shelagh. Three Nuts was moaning about the erratic handling of his Griff. Shelagh set a personal best ever at Curborough on this run.

Timed run 2 saw all five drivers home safely, with Moggy setting a time a fraction slower than Rob on handicap. Rob had improved his time slightly whereas the other three Griff drivers were all a tad slower. Three Nuts was still complaining and boring everyone about the handling of his road Griff and how Molehill was getting in his way. Moggy applied some science by bouncing on each wing and announcing the car was too soft, then got under the car and added three clicks to each Nitron and said try that.

Both Rob and Moggy knew that this run would decide which one would collect the silverware.

No pressure. Both were on the ragged edge, both got round Molehill twice and missed the Three Bollards twice and both improved their times but frustratingly Rob was still ahead by 15/100th. Peter A’s time wasn’t recorded, so he had a rerun and set his best time despite a sideways at Molehill.  Three Nuts found the handling much improved and would have set his best time if he hadn’t missed a gear at, you’ve guessed it, Molehill. Shelagh slightly improved.

So 25 well-earned points to Rob and 24.86 to Moggy. Pretty close.

Curborough deserves more TVRs next year. Come on, put some numbers on it and join us.

Pete “Three Nuts” Watson
(Photography: Peter Dykins, Shelagh Ash)