Prescott 23rd/24th June 2007 Results

PRESCOTT Saturday 23rd /Sunday 24th June 2007

Midsummer Madness....

Another memorable weekend for many reasons but mainly the weather!

The weather forecast all week leading up to the event had looked ominous with various levels of rain predicted for the weekend. Saturday started rain-free but with a damp track from heavy overnight showers. Fen took her first run and produced a very respectable 52.91 sec run. I then took my first run up the hill and hit a rumble strip hard going through the esses that caused a lower wishbone failure and a skid to a halt. No other damage was done and the car was recovered by the excellent and helpful rescue crews. This put us out of action for the rest of the day while we went off site to Dialynx Performance to instigate repairs. We delivered the car back to site early evening in readiness for Sunday.

Well what can I say about Sunday other than RAIN! We arrived onto site at 8.00am it having rained all the way from Somerset. The rain just never stopped all morning. It was wet enough to delay the start of the meeting whilst we all inspected the lower section of the course and the marshalls dug drainage channels to funnel the worst of the rivers of water off the track. A bigger problem was that we only had cut slicks on the car and not full wet tyres....and we both knew that we had never driven the car in the wet before....

Fen went up first and was just glad to get to the top - visibility was poor in the car with heavy rain on the outside and condensation on the inside of the windscreen. When it came to my turn conditions were still as bad. I drove too slowly, missed gears, and generally dawdled up the hill to record a 58 second time. This was SIX seconds off the pace of the other fwd cars, most of whom were running on road tyres.

As the morning progressed the rain eased and a dry line started to appear, but half an hour before the lunch break the rain came down again and we went into the lunch break with a sopping wet track once again. But then it stopped raining. After an hour for lunch the track was noticeably drying even without cars running on it to dispel the water.

Our time came for the second runs. The track was drying by the minute - how far can we push this? How much grip is there out there?

Fen went first and slotted in a 55.06 second run - excellent run in the conditions and valuable points gained for the BWRDC championship. I watched the times of the other class runners and noted that the fastest of them, Peter Harriman had just clocked a 49 second run on (what I thought were) slicks- two seconds under the best times of the road-tyred cars. The cut slicks on the car were going to be the right choice after all ... The event was then stopped for 5 minutes to recover a car that had gone off ... all the time the track was drying out ...

48.42 seconds later we had the class win. An unbelievable result considering what we had been through all weekend! It was only after this that I found out that Peter Harriman had recorded his 49 second run on wets and not slicks....

Ash Mason, driving a Westfield also secured a class win so after 5 rounds of the UK Changes Midland Hillclimb Championship he and I are STILL joint overall leaders with 5 class wins and 4 class records each - it couldn't be closer!

An enormous thanks to all who contributed to the weekend. Fen & Steph and Mum & Dad for catering, Keith at Dialynx for the on and off site support and to all those who offered their help and support in any way to ensure a successful weekend

We have a few weeks break now to prepare for the next meeting at Loton Park in August.

Thanks to dad and Steph for the pictures below:

Wet Sunday start for Fen's first run:

Discussing wet weather tactics:

Fen's 'T' shirt:

Fen on a committed last run into Orchard corner in damp conditions:

Class win and successful day - time to relax and smile - note the wellies!:

Collecting class award: