Rounds 9 & 10 - Wiscombe, Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th May
Depletion & Frustration
The Speed Championship’s annual jaunt to the West Country hillclimb at Wiscombe Park on the weekend of 13th & 14th May should have had nine competitors, including two former Champions and two further multiple winners of the event. However in the preceding week we lost Simon Cole with a DIY saw/hand interface issue, then on the Friday James Howell realised the Cerbera wasn’t going to be finished after its TVR/tyre wall interface, and finally on Friday evening Steve Dennis had a trailer/gravity interface (in which gravity won convincingly) with the result that Steve then spent the rest of the weekend travelling between Devon and Yorkshire so as to end up with all cars and trailers in the right place.
The Speed Championship’s annual jaunt to the West Country hillclimb at Wiscombe Park on the weekend of 13th & 14th May should have had nine competitors, including two former Champions and two further multiple winners of the event. However in the preceding week we lost Simon Cole with a DIY saw/hand interface issue, then on the Friday James Howell realised the Cerbera wasn’t going to be finished after its TVR/tyre wall interface, and finally on Friday evening Steve Dennis had a trailer/gravity interface (in which gravity won convincingly) with the result that Steve then spent the rest of the weekend travelling between Devon and Yorkshire so as to end up with all cars and trailers in the right place.
Anyway enough of the negative aspects, this still left six eager competitors, four of whom knew the course well while the remaining two were Wiscombe new boys.
Despite tales of storms and tempests the track was slippery only with overnight dew, so while first practice was a cautions affair for most second practice allowed us to get stuck in. Early leader at a very late lunch was Mark Everett from Steve Mogg with Rob Pack and Alan Hugh Davies trying to keep up, meanwhile Ben Everett and Hank Hankins were trying to remember how many twists and turns there were while trying not to count how many trees lined the course.
Despite tales of storms and tempests the track was slippery only with overnight dew, so while first practice was a cautions affair for most second practice allowed us to get stuck in. Early leader at a very late lunch was Mark Everett from Steve Mogg with Rob Pack and Alan Hugh Davies trying to keep up, meanwhile Ben Everett and Hank Hankins were trying to remember how many twists and turns there were while trying not to count how many trees lined the course.
The late lunch was caused by a nasty accident involving a fifties 500 Cooper, and with the timed runs not starting until well after 3.00pm we were informed that there would be only one timed run. So no pressure then!
However we all rose to the occasion with improvements all round, however for the rest of us Captain Chaos’s unbeaten run continued with Mark being the clear winner followed by Moggy, Pacman and AHD, with Ben just getting the better of Hank for the newcomers’ cup.
However we all rose to the occasion with improvements all round, however for the rest of us Captain Chaos’s unbeaten run continued with Mark being the clear winner followed by Moggy, Pacman and AHD, with Ben just getting the better of Hank for the newcomers’ cup.
Sunday was not quite a repeat of Saturday but had a lot of similarities; heavy overnight rain (according to the campers of the group), meant that first practice was a bit pointless with everyone taking things very gently through the trees. With the sun out (apart from a very short shower), the track was dry for second practice with the order at lunch being Moggy from Mark with the rest in the same order as the day before.
While there was a bit of a delay while one of the Classic Marques’ runners went gardening, all seemed set fair for two runs in the sunshine, however because of the large number of entries, we yet again only got one timed run in. The frustrating part was the organisers had decided not to tell us this until after the runs were completed! This was brought into focus when we all realised we had gone slower than the day before and were convinced we could have improved on a second run.
While there was a bit of a delay while one of the Classic Marques’ runners went gardening, all seemed set fair for two runs in the sunshine, however because of the large number of entries, we yet again only got one timed run in. The frustrating part was the organisers had decided not to tell us this until after the runs were completed! This was brought into focus when we all realised we had gone slower than the day before and were convinced we could have improved on a second run.
The end result was a very narrow win for Steve by two hundredths of a second over Mark, while Rob maintained his grip on third, AHD a rather confused fourth (he kept on having to remind himself that he used to be able to win here), with again Ben keeping Hank behind him for fifth and sixth respectively.
So while we were frustrated that the organising clubs on both days had seemed to be rather ambitious pushing the entry numbers up so high, after a swift half of Otter Bitter in the beer tent we all agreed it was still a cracking weekend’s motorsport. Alan Hugh Davies Go on, put some numbers on it. (Photography: Nigel Cole, Derek Hibbert) |