Tel's Tales Issue 056 -Curborough Fig 8 August 2015
Entry posted by Terry Everall
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TEL's TALE's 056/2015
Curborough Figure of 8 : 2015
A big break for several competitors since Blyton saw a split of events betweeen the Loton Park hillclimb weekend (which seemed a little expensive to me) and Curborough. Clearly I chose Curborough having enjoyed the new layout last year. There were 8 Westfield's as Adrian Clinton Watkins had withdrawn and was going to Loton Park. An early start for me and Steve as usual saw us arrive bang on 0730hrs for me to find that some pea brained Carteringvan person had parked his car and padlocked trailer in my allocated spot. So I blocked the paddock for 15 mins whilst the culprit arrived, without his padlock or car keys to ask what the problem was! In the end he moved the stuff and turned out to be quite a nice guy. It was good to see Ash Mason back in his narrow bodied Westfield after several years campaigning a single seater and next year he tells me he is entering the speed series and as a very experienced driver he will do well. Dave Cleaver was at last fully recovered from his ankle operations and was pleased to be back in the paddock with his car and his notebook where he logs all his secret testing data including tyre pressure and other elements of his car set up. The figure of 8 layout is very testing at the crossover points and it takes a long time to get through the entries so we would only get 2 Practice and 2 Timed runs with a cloudy but dry day.
In practice P1 everyone went ok with no real drama but the visibility of the crossover sections seemed difficult and needed a lot of concentration and bravery to get the line right and be quick through that part. Mike Skidmore's vauxhall redtop car sounded like it had a misfire at low revs.
In P2 we saw some action as Steve Everall's aggressive style caused such a vibration to the car that the glass out of both wing mirrors fell out (he even found one at the side of the track at the end of the meeting). Mike' misfire persisted so a change of plugs cured that ready for the timed runs. Dave Cleaver was going very quickly and Ash Mason was pulling 120mph through the finish in his supercharged busa whilst I could only manage 100mph. Howard Gaskin went grass cutting somewhere near the middle cut through section ( molehill area) and broke the nose cone and the radiator so a trip to the shops saw him back with a new Polo rad but it did not have an overflow/return on it so bleeding the water system was to prove tricky. He fixed that but on start up we were alarmed to see petrol coming out from under the rear of the car which was quickly diagnosed as a split swirl pot so he was in trouble. I remembered that I carry a spare Bosch hp pump for Steve's car and I suggested he tried to bypass the swirl pot and in the time available he left the low pressure facet pump to feed the hp pump and it seemed to work ok.
T1: In class D Howard's car was running ok but he could only record a 66.00 secs run. Steve Everall was pushing hard and got down to a very good 62.85secs (PB) with Michael Skidmore chasing on 66.10 secs. The class A battle between Dave Richings and Jason Brown, who had new tyres fitted, was very very close with 66.41secs and 66.54secs respectively. John Loudon was having his own challenge in class C and was very smooth and quick with 60.09secs to set a new record. Dave Cleaver in class F avoided a big moment and went straight on at the crossover as he carried too much speed and bailed out of the turn. I was alone in class G and had a great first run with 57.79secs also to set a new record.
T2 was held up for a while as Howard's car blew all its water out of the system at the start line so maybe there was an airlock as his temp gauge did not read high! The water scalded his ankles so he was not a happy bunny. Dave Cleaver got it right this time and banked a new record of 58.30secs. Steve, Mike and I could not improve our times and John equalled his T1 time exactly! In class A Jason Brown just pipped Dave Richings with 66.05secs against 66.26 secs so a close result.
Hope to see some of you at Ty Croes in Sept and Oct.
Terry Everall
Speed Series Correspondent
Class G competitor.
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