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report by Tony Attwood
photography by Niki Teall
As appears to be becoming the norm this season, the weather has not been good and the forecast for the Saturday of Prescott was looking very poor and it got worse as the weekend approached. All the forecast sites were showing rain for much of the day, but the favourable ones suggested that the morning may be OK with the rain arriving at lunchtime.
Unfortunately they were wrong and the rain arrived early and, although it was not teeming down as it had been at times at Loton, there was also no sun and wind to give back some semblance of dryness. Several of us had first practice out of sequence as a result of taking much longer to get ready with everything so wet.
First practice only had Nick Taylor in his F430 break 60 seconds with Pauline Goodwin, in her 328, second but 10 seconds down.
For second practice, track refamiliarisation and knowing where the surface water was allowed considerable but safe improvement. Nick got almost 2 seconds off and Pauline over 5 but Mark Wibberley, in his 360, surprised everyone, and himself, by recording 61.67, almost exactly 10 seconds off his first practice, to be second fastest. Steve Nunney in his 348, (65.58) came in after Pauline (63.16) followed by Rob Samuels (65.77) and another surprised Tony Attwood (66.31) in his 308GT4. Martin Jones summed it up when he said he would prefer less power and driver aids to be able to feel in more control.
The rain was teasing everyone as it eased (but didn’t stop) for a while and then retuned heavier again after a longer than usual lunch break.
It was great to see Richard Prior again who came along to support us all. He braved the weather with good waterproofs and a large umbrella that was needed almost the whole time. Even Richard suggested at one point that it might have been more sensible to follow things from home.
The timed runs were all done on a very wet track which had streams coming across the course in various places. The CoC made two track inspections during the timed runs as Marshals reported varying amounts of water across the track.
In discussion after the first run, several of our class were grateful to have completed it safely and got a time in the bank. Rob Samuels (64.32) in his 458 Speciale was struggling with traction control and aquaplaning and very sensibly decided that discretion was better than valour and one run was enough.
Mark Wibberley (61.87), Steve Nunney (63.90) and Tony Attwood (64.13) got their best times on the first run. Tony was surprised as the run had felt ragged and off line but his second run was 0.3 slower. Everyone else had a faster second run. Pauline improved by over a second to 62.82 and Nick took the class in 56.08. Paul Booth kept his roof up all day and got a 64.42 followed by Martin Jones and Peter Rogerson.
Our top three were Nick Taylor, Mark Wibberley and Pauline Goodwin and a very good result at 4th for Steve Nunney. On PEP the results were Nick Taylor (57.48), Pauline Goodwin (60.94) and Tony Attwood (61.24)
