Arrive at track bright and early, find slot and discover we are lucky enough to have free space behind our pitch to park the CRV. It will become a mobile umbrella over the next couple of days.
Sign on, car scrutineered, drivers brief time to walk the track. Still damp from the nights/mornings rain the first thing that’s obvious is how slippery it is under foot. Walk round trying to pick up any tips from some of the more experienced around. Bump into Tuscan Thunder, both speculate as to the where abouts of fd!!
Watch the first 30 or so cars slither there way tentatively round which just adds to my ever mounting nerves.
Should have tried harder to get new rear 048’s, why did I leave it so late to order them and did £8 a tyre mean that much!! To late now!!.
Time to join the queue for first run, try to gather thoughts and remember when to cross over.
Sitting at the start, light goes green, deep breath and I’m off, wheel spin in first and second, into third and brake for first corner. Front stays planted, back end has a mind of it’s own
. Keep foot in and control it with throttle, back straight same…….no grip. Make the cross over which is OK first time but tighter than it looked second time. Cross the line 72 seconds. Know I could have done better but first time round, and in the wet, car in one piece, knowledge gained.Weather is best described as unpredictable. Light showers persist but the track is drying.
Second run much better, not sliding but notice I am not using all of the track. Just steering the car not pushing, still take 5 seconds off first time so know things are moving in the right direction.
A look at everybody else’s times in the class shows that Graham and Jennifer in the Exige are in a class all there own, but Jennifer has the upper hand. Three of the cars in A8 are double entered mine with my friend Ally, the Gartshore’s V8 TR7 and Supercharged Exige of Graham and Jennifer along with a Gininetta makes seven. After the first couple of runs the guy I am aiming at looks like Paul Gartshore in his 290bhp TR7. We are about a second and a half apart with David in his Ginetta keeping us honest.
Third run time comes, track is dry. Drop the clutch and go, the rest is pretty much a blur but remember to use what I think is the entire track, brake deeper and turn in later. Cross the line and see 62.99. Wait for the rest to finish, not much has changed with everybody improving their times, still a second behind Paul but it’s getting quite tight with a couple of second cover three of us. The Exige is still the class of the field, and is a good 5 seconds up the road, oh for an extra 100bhp wonder momentarily how much that would cost, shrug it off and say to self it’s only a bit of fun. For Now
End of day, home bed sleep, this sprinting carry on is tiring.
Sunday:
Wife is adamant, it’s a 10am start. Argue the toss it’s a 9am start that they said at the drivers brief. Arrive at 8.30am, not a soul to be seen. Turns out she was right, they had made an announcement and I hadn’t heard it. One large portion of humble pie please……..
Walk track to kill time, not as bad as yesterday but still very slippy. First run has the tail end backing out all over the place, cross line and see 69 something, very disappointed but after everybody else’s runs it turns out that the same has happened to them. Watching, even the 4 wheels drive cars are struggling for grip.
After the morning practice half hour lunch break is called. It hasn’t rained for about an hour and the sun has come out. The track has dried and the times for the first runners reflect this. Time to join the queue for first timed run, as we wait the rain starts, light at first but soon developing into something more serious, just typical
. Just as quickly as it started it stops, pull up to start and faced with a dry track, well as dry as it has been 
. During lunch I got some friendly advice from a previous Scottish Champion who had been watching my laps. He suggested a few changes to braking and turn in points which as I waited for the green light I tried to recall what he told me. Brake deeper into corners than I have and turn later allowing for a more open exit to the corner, (obviosly I wasn't as late or deep or using as much of the track as I thought, later review of some video showed me this as well) cross line and see 63.10 fasted time in class for the day, well pleased.
Time to sit back and see what the others do. The Exige blitz’s my time and sets an new class record with a 56 second time, fair do's and well done GB, a stellar performance to pull that one out of the bag. But I am more interested in what Paul and David are up to. David out first and he is slower but only by a couple of tenths, Paul crosses the line with a 63.7s, puts me 3rd in class best I could expect.
Second timed run was a bit of a farce as the heavens opened and the track was, not soaking as such but wet enough to loose the grip it had. All the times are down again.
So third it was and another cracking weekend despite the weather.
Kames in a fortnight can’t wait.
Video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K0A0ZhCoF0
in-car here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YZK3wdKno
The first crossover was actually flat in my car but the 2nd is much tighter and bumpy. I never needed 3rd gear, just bounced the limiter in 2nd a bit but I guess you have closer ratios? (mine was S2 111S)
