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report by Tony Attwood
photography by Tony Attwood & Philip Whitehead
Sunday was drier than Saturday and we had more competitors joining us. It was good to see Peter, Chris and Lorraine Hitchman in their F430s. Peter continues in his red model while Chris has a black coupe and Lorraine was in her black Spider. Fortunately this year all the cars behaved well and all three drivers improved their times over the day.
Brian Jackson drove up from home in the morning and made the fourth addition over Saturday. Brian had a frustrating day as his beautiful 308 wasn’t performing properly and appeared to be well down on normal power. As a result, Brian abandoned the event after his first timed run, which, despite low power, wasn’t shabby at all and got him 3rd place on PEP.
All drivers were called to a briefing before practice as the CoC had been checking the weather forecasts closely and didn’t want a repeat of Saturday. The result was the decision to have just one practice and start the timed runs before lunch in an attempt to get all runs in before the predicted rain may arrive. This proved to be another excellent decision by the CoC.
Practice was damp and on Sunday it was Tony who was running out of class. Although he still got a good start on a dampish track he wasn’t happy further up the course and recorded 72.14. By the time the main class went off, the track was effectively dry and Pauline (67.40) and Iwan (67.83) were battling all the way. Pauline had a just faster start (2.54) compared with Iwan on 2.56. Everyone else did as expected although Brian wan’t sure about his car and was a surprising 2 seconds down on Pauline in practice.
The first official runs were done in good conditions and the track had dried out in the sun and wind. Steve Nunney and Peter Rogerson got their best times that run.
Tony was annoyed with his start but went well thereafter to record a 67.86 and a speed at the top of Cedar of 75mph with Iwan and Nick Taylor on 75mph through the trap.
Pauline went off well with her usual start of 2.43 matched by Iwan. She was then storming up the hill and had a speed of 78mph at Cedar and Cedar split of 45.86 compared with Iwan at 46.52. Unfortunately that appeared to have caught her by surprise and she overbraked going in to Museum to get a frustrating overall time. Iwan got to the top with a 66.00 so continued to show Dad the way home.
The other interesting first run was by Paul Booth who overcooked the first sharp Left hander at Hall and went in to the slip road but he still recorded a time just 30 seconds slower than his practice earlier!
I was watching and couldn’t understand why Steve Nunney didn’t get a rerun as Paul’s time was clicking up. It was even more surprising when Peter Rogerson had a rerun after Pauline’s incident and she had been only 25 seconds behind her usual. At least the run had made Pauline smile again, as she felt that her mojo had returned and she has more confidence, so it had been frustrating and not all doom and gloom.
For the second runs, as the rain hadn’t come for the earlier competitors, there was quite a marked change in running times but Tony failed to capitalise on a good start. He ended up just 1/100 of a second slower (67.87) than his first run (67.86). Chris Hitchman got a PB in his 430 of 68.10 although he has been faster in his 355 and Peter Hitchman also had a PB in his 430 as did Rob Samuel with his 63.35.
The rain was definitely coming down by the time Nick Taylor went up and his first run time of 59.94 ensured a class win again with Rob Samuel 2nd (63.35) and Iwan Attwood 3rd (66.00)
The PEP results were 1st Nick Taylor (61.44), 2nd Iwan Attwood (63.03) and 3rd Brian Jackson (64.74) beating Tony Attwood by 6/100 of a second.
Iwan and Tony went to the prizegiving and this was Iwan’s first scratch trophy at an event. Iwan will pass on the 1st & 2nd trophies at a future event
