Round 5 - Gurston Down, Saturday 22nd April

Howell’s Howler
Dawn broke to a bright and fresh start for those who’d trekked down on the day, rather than stopping or residing locally, namely Blower and Hank. Although the rain clouds came along later and threatened to spoil things, a quick word with the Good Lord from Blower and the reminder of him also being a lucky weather mascot managed to avoid AHD’s threat of physical violence if he’d got his meteorological prediction wrong………………….oh ye of little faith! Dry and fine weather prevailed throughout the day………..of course!!

This time it was James who got the first driver’s excuse of the day in as, even though he (and his wife Imogen and five-month old Freddie) had stopped locally the night before, he used the “didn’t get much sleep though as we were all in one bedroom” etc., etc.

Hank voiced his observation of how narrow the track was, James welcomed that saying it meant that it was harder to get lost!

First practice went well with all putting in decent times, especially Hank for his first ever hill climb and even more impressively Ben “Cadet Chaos” Everett (son of the Captain) at his first ever competitive event!! The timetable was later slightly disrupted by an over enthusiastic Westfield last seen being recovered from an adjacent field to serve a s a reminder that, as this was the venue’s first proper event of the season the course was still dusty and lacked traction; later it transpired that James may not have heeded this cautionary image as much as others!

We were joined during the morning by Hank’s partner “Leatherclad Lina” who cruised down on her BMW motorbike, two more members of Hank’s fan club, and Imogen and Freddie Howell, the latter of whom was here for the first time to support his Dad in competition.

So to second practice, as track, cars and drivers started to get dialled in and warm up a bit. Harry had been complaining about how many bird droppings he’d amassed on his bonnet overnight but they must’ve had a positive effect as he improved by an amazing 2.5 seconds, although he didn’t know how he’d managed it (his best ever time) so wasn’t holding out too much hope for the competitive runs after lunch. Team Everett were charging along with the Captain joining Harry in the 38’s and the Cadet knocking a second off.

With the track continuing to improve it seemed that competitive runs after lunch would see more of the same with gradual improvements all round – wrong, very wrong. First off the line was James, with his best start and quickest first sector a good time looked promising, however using 150% of his braking capacity into the first corner he had a Howell-er and his lovely Cerb got a little too intimate with tyres and bales alike! Driver all ok, Cerbera not quite so with oil cooler/radiator damage and a new slanted look to the front end. All credit to James though, the black lines into the corner did have a break in them where he must’ve thought he still had a chance to make the turn. Mrs Howell was reportedly heard to have said later “how broken is it?, I told you we should have got a Porsche!”. Being the gentleman he is James apologised to all at the start line for causing the delay in re-starting (although that seemed mainly due to the organisers not being able to locate the recovery truck driver!).

The rest of the afternoon saw Mark “Captain Chaos” Everett lead the way with AHD close behind and a ding dong battle (on handicap) develop between Harry and an continually impressive Ben threatening to join his Dad in the 30 somethings (seconds that is, not years of age, well not for Mark anyway, that was a long time ago!!).

And so to the last run of the day (well for 7 of us anyway). Most went quicker still, with Everett Snr taking a well-deserved win, AHD a great 2nd, Everett Jnr a terrific 3rd with Harry, Blower, Hank and Paul (somehow managing to exactly repeat his first practice time) following on with James in the Paddock waiting to be reunited with his car, and being warned by Imogen not to crash her BMW as well!! (harsh, very harsh).

A great day (for most), a well organised and very well marshalled event, already looking forward to a return next year!

Blower

Go on, put some numbers on it.
(Photography: Coxy, Hank, Hank's mate Shaun)