Tel's Tales Issue 027- Croft 2014

Entry posted by Terry Everall April 22, 2014

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Tel's Tales 027 – Easter Monday at Croft 21 April 2014

Following the 3 Sisters sprint a few people had repairs to make. Matt Turner had discovered the correct way to fit a clutch to his R1 and was back in action and I had a completely rebuilt Flatshifter fitted after it failed to provide ignition cut last time out, making gear shift slow. There were 18 WSCC drivers so a good turnout and the weather was a bit nippy but dry and at times sunny and after the earlier forecasts during the week, which suggested rain, we were all well pleased. Before the event started Richard Kerr and partner in crime Luke Algar had not been able to finish the supercharged duratec car so Richard was kindly offered a double drive with Paul Aspden ans Luke was doubling with Nick in the turbo charged Force. For those with an early start on Monday morning we drove through sunshine and rain and apparently, when half way there, Lee Smith ( car on trailer) realised that he had left the car keys at home so as John Williams was in convoy with him he did Lee a big big favour and tear arsed it back in his Westfield to get the keys!

Before I get into the detail I have to say that everyone really enjoyed the day and were buzzing at the technicalities and commitment required to be fast through some of the bends. There could have been an extra run if the single seater boys could have avoided spinning so often or breaking down. Also there was no time display for competitors or spectators and we had to wait up to 30 mins after our runs to get the times so we used this as “wind up time”.

Most of us had either walked the track or borrowed bikes to cycle round and remind ourselves of the layout and some of the tricky corners we had to tackle.

Practice runs saw Steve Everall spin off at high speed attacking Barcroft too hard, the electric car of John Roberts silently cruised around, John Hoyle broke the class record in P1 by over 2 seconds but decided to swop his 4.44 diff to his 3.92, or is it a 4.1,? as he was topping out down the straight to Tower ( it took about 35 mins with help from Justin!!!! pretty impressive). Phil Nicholls was going well in his modified engined car which has more grunt now. It was good to see Paul Aspden back out in class E but an oil leak from the crankcase breather needed a slight modification (new part fabricating and fitting) but he was on the pace against Richard Kerr and Andy Hargreaves in the R1 who was also going well.In G, Matt Turner, “Tiny Tim” Nunn and I were doing battle and Matt was a little concerned about his possible lack of power on this high speed track. Nick Nad Luke in the Force had a miserable day as the car was not producing the anticipated power and also broke a rose joint on the rear suspension so Luke drove home and back to get that fixed in time for a final run late in the day.

We had 2 practices and 3 timed runs and Jason Brown took the points in class A from John Williams. Class B saw Lee Smith demolish the timing gear in his efforts to catch Phil Nicholls and newcomer Simon Rossinelli but Phil was quickest with Lee's last run being a Fail. John Hoyle, until the last T3 runs was the quickest Westfield out there never mind the fact that he eventually destroyed the record in class D reducing it by nearly 6 seconds to 81.90 secs form a Target of 87.73 secs with Steve trying hard but not improving on his T1 time and finishing with 91.59 secs. Class E was so close but Andy Hargreaves finished with 87.03 secs beating Paul on 87.06 secs by 0.03secs and both beat the Target Time so that was great driving. Richard Kerr was happy to get a drive and bag the points for class F with 88.81 secs but the double drive ended as Paul decided that the oil pressure was dropping too low and needed sorting out. Matt scored well on class G with his T2 time of 83.51 secs and Tim and I battled it out to the end as we pushed harder all day long and fed off the paddock craic and the adrenalin. T1 saw Tim quickest with 82.68 secs but in T2 and T3 I reduced the time to 81.59 secs against Tim's best of 82.32 secs (beating Target) so I bagged the trophy and the points as well as being the quickest Westfield on the day. Class H saw our mates Del Hodder and Gary Bunn at it again with very similar times with both their last runs being there quickest with Del on 82.19 secs and Gary just pipping him on 81.75 secs but they were not challenging the Target Time. The Electric car managed a best of 99.75 secs and we would like to see it out again.

So those beating target and scoring more than 100 points were:

Terry Everall

Tim Nunn

Paul Aspden

Andy Hargreaves

John Hoyle

The Yorkshire Mafia team stole the majority of the points, are dangerous and are not to be approached unless you are offering a bribe or a beer...!!!

So there you have it, the bike engines stood up well against the big power cars even on a big circuit, the Novices are now well integrated into the Westfield paddock scene and are putting in good times already and we are all looking forward to next years event on Easter Monday...

Hope to see some of you at the Harewood weekend and hoping for more good weather!

Terry.everall@virgin.net

Speed Series Correspondent

Class G competitor