Building, racing, crashing race cars with the 750 Motor Club
Racing the Fury
This time it was back to Cadwell. So far I haven’t got any photos to go with this writeup but I’ve every hope of one or two arriving soon. We had a fantastic weekend in Cadwell. It only a rained a little on Friday and the rest of the weekend the sun shone, the track was grippy and there was lots of motor racing. Windy though, I seem to have windburnt extremities. Don’t ask…
New: I do now have a couple of photos. Many thanks to Dave Hackett for these.
Hmm, an eventful weekend was had by all. The forecast was pretty rubbish but as it turned out it was fine, just a few drops of rain on Saturday morning and after that it was sunshine all the way.
The weekend started, though, in a rather bizarre manner. I had spent Wednesday through Friday in a meeting at UKC in Canterbury. So, on Friday afternoon I drove back to Cambridge, practically passing Brands on the way, packed up the bus and drove straight back to Kent. On the way we were parked in a curious long car park that is apparently called the M25. This car park stretched all the way from the M11 to the Dartford crossing and seemed to be caused by the toll booths. In a rational world, of course, the tolls would be reduced or eliminated at peak times.
That’s the unmistakable sound of me banging my head into a brick wall. At least that’s what I feel as if I should be doing after last weekend at Snetterton. To say the weekend was frustrating doesn’t come anywhere near it.
We got there last on the Thursday night and parked up in the area of the paddock nominally reserved for RGB. Mind you, we appeared to be a in Stock Hatch city. I was testing on the Friday and, apart from worries about the weather, looking forward to it all.
Finally, we’re back racing at Oulton Park. I came here first in 2004, in my first season and I’ve been waiting to come back ever since as it’s a truly great circuit. However, as it’s been so long it seemed sensible to do some testing. So, I signed up, as did lots of other RGBers, for the testing that was running on the Friday afternoon before the race day on Saturday. (You might wonder about the odd dates; I think it’s a result of yet more noise problems at circuits like this. After all, it’s only been there since 1948 so you can understand how people who move 5 miles away in 2005 are going to be surprised and dismayed to find the distant whine of racing cars disturbing their peace.)
The photo here is nicked from Buzz’s photo site. Buzz is supposed to race with us but has had such a bad run of luck that he licking his wounds at the moment. I think he might have said that he’s planning on getting out at Mallory though.
Well, it was back to Silverstone again for the club’s annual August bank holiday meeting. At this meeting all the club’s formulae are racing so it’s pretty packed and hard to see how they could run it anywhere other than at Silverstone due to the amount of space available there. Problem is, it’s a completely awful circuit for spectating at. I did rather well here last year so it’d be nice to do reasonably well again.
This photo was taken by Mark <something or other> who’s talking about coming racing with is. I’ve shamelessly nicked it off his on-line photos, I hope he doesn’t mind. 🙂 (You might also be able to tell that I washed the car before the race!)
So, after the first race I was set to start the second. I didn’t really have anything to do with my car although Colin needed a bit of support as he was pretty hacked off about the attack of Mondeo man.
On the grid I was right behind Colin who was behind the Mondeo. Unfortunately, Chris Allanson pulled off on the green flag lap. There was clearly something wrong with his car but I didn’t manage to catch up with him to find out what it was.
I spent the weekend a couple of weeks ago in Anglesey again. Colin and I had entered for the Welsh Racing Drivers Association races there. I did these races a couple of years ago too and had had a great time. After the 750 meeting a few weeks ago it was hard to resist.
The photo here, by the way, I’ve nicked from the WRDA site. I hope they don’t mind… This is just after thestart of the first race on Saturday and I’m in 7th place having had to take avoiding action from that Mondeo in front of me which made an attempt at knocking me off the track. He later on made another attempt on Colin (who’s actually in the lead here) which battered Colin’s already considerably battered car rather seriously.
I’ve been looking at the data logs from Donington. I was rather amused to see this picture of my complete race there. As you can see, the bit to the start/finish line was almost as long as the rest of the race.
No worry, I’ve lightened up a bit now. I’m actually doing some races next at Anglesey with a different club. Hopefully that means I can relax a bit and get my brain back into gear.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I really might as well have stayed at home.
Before telling you the complete story, here’s a photo. Many thanks to Dave Hackett for this rather stylish attempt.
Well, that wasn’t quite what I intended…
Much like last time out at Brands I came to Cadwell wanting to get under the 1:40 barrier which I’d never managed before. I wasn’t testing this time though, although I had signed up for the Allcomers/Hot hatch race on the Saturday to try and get at least a little testing in. Hence, we got to Cadwell on the Friday evening and set up in a surprisingly empty paddock.