Sprint – Castle Combe 27th March 2010 - Keith Attwood

Words by Keith Attwood

Published: 03/01/2012

Video here: http://www.vimeo.com/10496632

Full results here: http://www.bristolmc.org.uk/2010_Results/GWS_Final_Results.pdf

Now I don’t have a trailer to transport my car and at this point in the season also no ‘support vehicle’ to transport spare wheels, large tools etc to the event and as you have to be at the venue pretty early I had to make the decision the night before on which tyres to run. The weather report was mixed, I could expect heavy rain, or sunshine…. brilliant. I decided on the Saturday that I would use the R1Rs. Now I had only fitted them that day, so they’d get 25 miles running in on the way to the circuit, possibly not the best plan, but better than using 888s in the pouring rain, if it was going to rain that is.

The sprint is held over 1¾ laps of the circuit (from the exit of the pit lane, one full lap then return to the pit lane) with the practise being only one run, but over 2¾ laps. This takes a great deal of organisation on the marshals for it to run smoothly, but also requires basic counting skills from the competitors, which some were apparently lacking. My practise was ok ish, but not setting the world alight and it had also seemed that I’d made a mistake with the tyres, the track was damp, but it was drying and the other competitors in my class had banked on this or had the facility to bring more than one set of tyres to the event.
It would seem I would be in luck though as the heavens opened and rain of biblical proportions bucketed it down. Well this is bad for everyone really, but as I wasn’t due to run for another hour I assumed that it’d subside by then, but we would be left with a wet track. But nope, my class was suddenly called due to the single seaters not being willing to run in these conditions, so it was with slight trepidation that I made it back to my car and started her to try and get everything up to temperature in short order. The first run went, pretty well considering the weather and by the end of the session I was lying in 6th out of 18 entrants, not too shabby! If the conditions stayed that way I was certain that I could improve. But no things started to dry, and fast, but it also transposed in me not being confident in track surface and I wasn’t willing to take risks on the grip level in a car I’d have to drive home that afternoon. But I did improve, by 9.5 seconds, unfortunately others improved to a greater extent and I dropped down to 8th. Still I kept it out the barriers, unlike some that day, I learnt a lot and I got to drive home. Actually I did have a casualty of the day and that was my iPod that drowned in the monsoon.

Results: Class B3 Roadgoing Specialist Production Cars ‐Car engines over 1800c