Shelsley Walsh – 4th June 2006
Thanks to Nick for his excellent effort, stepping into the breech as normal, with the Loton report and results, covering for my holiday absence in Swindall country. I must confess the disappointment at having to miss Loton was somewhat tempered by reading what I did miss – particularly as it was a beautiful sunny day, that Sunday, in Scotland. Mr G seems to be on somewhat of a roll currently (not literally fortunately) and his excellent result at Loton was about to be repeated at the rather sunnier first Shelsley of the year.
It was nice to see some of our old (I use the term advisedly and generally correctly) chums with Messrs Bury, Robinshaw, Morrison and Shute all making appearances over the weekend.
Despite the good forecast I found that old habits die hard and I was still at Shelsley at 6:45 am to get my chair in the line! In the end, as suspected, there was no difficulty for anyone to get a third run if they had wanted as the practice day went quite smoothly. As always with Shelsley, the relaxed practice day regime makes it difficult to give any sensible blow by blow account. Dave Elliott was our latest arrival just getting there before the 3pm guaranteed two run time and indeed, in his haste, nearly bypassed the scrutineering process altogether! Both Greg and Andy had only run at Shelsley once before, and not in our class, so we had no PB’s for them. Andy, now at last with new correctly sized wheels and slicks had the 30 capable of taking some of that awesome power so he was off on another learning curve.
No-one improved on their PB on their first runs. On the second both Nick and Jane did beat their PB’s, as did Dave Richardson though of course he was now in the 18 compared with the time set in the 6. Most of the class took a third run and most improved. Mr Matty just 1/10th off his class PB and Dave Rose a similar amount off his (practice) PB of a couple of years ago. Dave Hampton was still getting to grips with the 69 since it does appear too highly geared for our normal tracks. Also Shelsley is not the best venue to fully explore the handling potential (tell that to Mr Glazzard!) Botty was going well but was still struggling to compensate for the lack of the car’s former cc’s. Paul, JC and myself set the handicaps though determined that we would try and pay back the class joker (Mr G – who else?) by initially publishing a very stiff handicap, tighter than mine. He had done an excellent 34.45 and we gave him a 34.25 handicap which we gave to the organisers. The sheet we displayed in the morning however showed a 33.30! I was given 33.35 (an awful retribution on doing the silly 33.32 last September!) Nick had been wound up a bit on the Saturday evening about what his handicap might be and initially determined to not look at the handicaps at all. Eventually his curiosity got the better of him and the result was extremely gratifying to all with an explosion of expletives and cursing!
Unusually for us at Shelsley, on the Sunday, we were not the last class and we had our first timed runs at just after 11 am, this time in strict class order.
Dave Elliott was first and immediately took 2 seconds off his practice time and went 0.47 under handicap with a 38.53, easily a PB. Grayham Parker also had a PB run with his 36.51 being 0.24 under his target. Ian P, car freshly polished (yes that’s right, Ian Parmenter!!!), did a 41.30, his best so far but still a little way off his set mark. Next Mr Glazzard with his normal 200% commitment produced a stonking time, 11/10ths everywhere, and got a 33.62! The first handicap we gave him was obviously the right one but with the corrected version he was 0.63 under. Jane was next and improved again but she was annoyed not to break the 40 second barrier. I felt my +2 was going well, unfortunately I wasn’t and was way off my target of 33.35. Dick was, however, going well having, it seemed, finally banished the rhubarb blues, and his 36.80 was easily his best run for a couple of years but still some way off his PB which was set with a more powerful engine. John Elliott, last of the road class, was chipping away and his 37.41 was within ½ second of his target.
Botty led off the racing mob but was not pleased with the time which he had bettered twice in practice. Tony Wallen was similarly afflicted. Greg however, was continuing to improve though some way away from his handicap. Dave Hampton was still finding the 69 gearing/engine peakiness difficult to handle, not to mention learning the single seater RH gearshift so though he improved it wasn’t enough. He will be looking forward to the wide open Angelsey spaces to learn the car a bit better.
June was enjoying the 20/22 now that the misfire had been cured with a visit to a rolling road. Andy Bradshaw was a bit slower than his best practice time. His main aim of the weekend had been to achieve over 100mph over the finish – which he did!
Dave Richardson was steadily improving with the 18 which was receiving a lot of attention from the paddock crowd. Steve Millward improved to within 0.40 of his target but next up, Dave Rose went one better, possibly aided by his mouse mascot, and achieved his PB by some good margin and went 0.14 under handicap. JC clearly had his sights on a new record with the good conditions got close with a 31.97. The Gaffer was chipping away and got to within 5/100ths of his 32.58 class PB but still wanted to get into the 31’s that he had achieved on one of the more ‘celebrity’ events.
So after the first run it was Nick from Dave Elliott and the Grayham Parker and Dave Rose fourth.
Our second runs came around 3:30. Dave Elliott couldn’t improve and neither could Grayham Parker who had fuel starvation up the final straight. Still needs a bit more work understanding his new tank! His time was still close so a further improvement would have been on the cards. Ian Parmenter was also slower. Nick went into hyperdrive mode again and tore off up the hill. There were some close shaves with the banks on the way up to Esses but eventually the (almost) inevitable happened and his nearside rear wheel clouted the top Ess exit bank but nevertheless this only dropped him 0.19 to his super first run time. Fortunately subsequent investigation has revealed no apparent ill effects to the car though I have suggested that he takes it very steadily at Angelsey though, as I have observed before, Nick’s very steadily is merely marginally less manic! Jane was very please with her 39.76 which, though some way off her handicap still got her into the 30’s
I improved again and though it was, I thought (hoped!) a quick run, it was still only my second fastest and nowhere near the time last September when I had the same post run ‘shakes’ that Nick had this day. Dick was a little slower as was John Elliott. Botty was next and improved to 33.06 but this was still ¾ second from the mark we had set him. Tony Wallen sorted things out this run and did a PB with his first venture into the 33’s with a 33.97, 0.03 under handicap. Greg, with a 37.24 set his PB but was still some way away from his target time. Dave Hampton was a little slower but June was just slightly (!!!) pleased with a great second run, her 35.90 being 0.60 under handicap. Andy Bradshaw had now worked out how the 30 would go on slicks and took a couple of seconds off his previous best to go to 34.51. I still don’t think he managed to use full throttle! Dave Richardson was also better understanding the 18, and now, having regained some confidence in it’s braking capability, got down to 40.05, just 0.55 over his target. Steve Millward was a few hundredths slower than his first run whilst Dave Rose improved a couple of hundredths. John Crook was very determined on this last run and was somewhat p*ss*d off to just exactly equal, but not better, his 2002 time of 31.71. This was the third time he had done a 31.71. An almost undesirable consistency! Last man was Mr Matty who, whilst getting a good improvement to get a new class PB, only 0.12 off his handicap, was still disappointed not to have dipped into the 31’s again.
Anyway, another great event for the ‘red shirt’ brigade, with a well deserved victory for Nick with an equally well deserved second place for June. Dave Elliott was third, Grayham Parker fourth, with Dave Rose taking fifth. On Road scratch it was Nick from me then Grayham. On race scratch, it was JC with Paul in second, beating Botty this time who was third.
In the championship Nick has established a pretty good lead on 29 points already only dropping 1 point! For everyone’s sake at the end of year ‘do’ we must try and take points off him otherwise we will have to listen to another reading of ‘War and Peace’ as his speech!
Tony Wallen is a good second on 22 with Dave Elliott third on 17.
Race scratch has John Crook on a maximum 15 with Botty on 11 and Tony on 8 from Paul on 6 (having missed Loton). On Road scratch it is Nick on 14 from me on 9 (having also missed Loton) and Grayham on 8.
Off to Angelsey. Let’s hope for some more good weather!
Jon / Twiz
