Tel’s Tales

Anglesey May weekend  2018

The second visit to Anglesey this year was arranged by MGCC (NW) and was 2 laps of the National circuit on Saturday and 1 lap of International on Sunday with 9 Westfield drivers on Sat and 8 on Sunday. Friday afternoon saw the Westfield mob arriving in bright sunshine with wall to wall blue skies such that I even had my shorts on and my legs frightened most of the paddock. Del and Garry were preparing their car in the garage and I watched Garry cleaning their wheel rims with a sponge and soapy water. He made a great effort but failed in his task as Del rejected them and they needed cleaning again. Several of us continued our preparation in the bar until the bar closed at about 2230. 

Saturday morning came and was a bit of a shock. Where was the sun and why was it only 6 deg C windy and cloudy when the rest of the country was having a heat wave? Thermals, race overalls and fleeces were definitely needed to keep warm and we exchanged our problems of freezing cold fingers as well as steaming up visors on the start line. Richard Houlgate was out in his class B 2.3L duratech engined car along with newcomer Chris Griffiths and his 2.5L Millington Diamond engine class H car.

P1 ( the only practice as it was 2 laps) did not see too much drama apart from Steve Everall’s gearbox breather pipe coming loose and a bolt holding my cycle wing on stripped its threads but it was cured in minutes by the use of locktite and lashings of matching black duct tape.  

T1- John Loudon aborted his run as he had to deal with a large stone stuck under his clutch which made it slip. Mick Skidmore reinforced his surname by spinning at the hairpin on the cold track (that was his excuse). Meanwhile Del’s car seemed to have developed a bit of a misfire which he was trying to trace or at least understand what was causing it but it was still setting the pace. Tony Mitchell was covering both days as photographer and was clad in his warmest clothes under his HV vest but he still looked very cold as he wandered around trying to get the best pictures.

T2 & T3 – saw the competition hotting up and personal battles made the times very interesting. Garry Bunn just got the better of Del in class H . Chris Griffiths had a flat battery  issue which I eventually found was a wire on the alternator had come adrift so that was an easy fix. The track remained cold so getting near to target times was becoming very difficult despite our efforts. John Loudon and I were having a close battle but John’n missed gear change just after the start ruined his last run leaving me fastest in class G by about 0.4secs. Howard Gaskin won the class D contest with Steve. Eventually Westfield cars performed very well with overall positions as follows:

Garry Bunn -2nd

Derek Hodder – 3rd

Terry Everall – 4th

John Loudon – 6th

Chris Griffiths – 7^th

Howard Gaskin – 8^th

Steve Everall – 10^th

As usual we all congregated in the café bar at night and with the help of a few drinks and a disco (with dancing, at which Howard Gaskin excelled). A few more of us were dragged, screaming onto the floor by Julie Hodder and Sandra Bunn but it was not a pretty sight. We left at 0030hrs for a bit of sleep. 

Sunday’s weather was cloudy and cold (warmer than Saturday) due to a continual seafret most of the day so we did not see any sun until around 1600hrs and at times visibility was around 200m.

P1 and P2 was interesting as when you were flat out on the back straight towards Rocket it was tricky see exactly where you were going. Del got a rerun after a Morgan went off a nd he never got a red flag. John Loudon also wangled a rerun and the cheeky monkey cane back into the paddock to “refuel” when actually he was resetting his flatshifter. Steve Everall refused a rerun as he had water blowing onto his helmet from the header tank after overfilling it slightly. 

T1 – John Loudon continued to make lots of adjustments to his car including changing his rear springs, altering front camber and tracking. It seemed to keep him busy but he looked like a cat on a hot tinned roof. He was setting the pace and I could not match his times so I needed to pull my finger out. Chris Griffiths was going well and putting in some good times in class H but Del and Garry were having the usual close battle.

T2 – witnessed Del’s car being pushed back into the paddock from the track but it only because the car had run out of compressed air for the gear shift system. Mick Skidmore (who was battling with Steve on similar times) found his gearbox to propshaft bolts had come loose but quick action with his spanner solved that issue.

T3 – no big incidents but Howard banged in a quick time.

T4- was a bit strange as we did not run in order and just queue for the last run. Mick Skidmore had a big moment as he went off at high speed on the hill up to Rocket where he touched the grass on the outside of the track and ended up in the tyre wall suffering damage to the offside rear arch and tub. It did not look too bad so hopefully not an expensive repair. Steve Everall had to pull out of the queue to the strat as the car would not start due to either a battery issue or a starter problem.

So that was it …..John Loudon beat me by 0.06secs and Garry was fastet Westfield again.

Positions in top ten were

Garry Bunn- 2^nd

Derek Hodder – 3^rd

Chris Griffiths – 5^th

John Loudon – 6th

Terry Everall – 7^th

Howard Gaskin – 8^th

Terry Everall

Class G Competitor