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We have some cracking run outs on superb roads and as you have an aeroscreen you'll fit in perfectly! Tasters...

I thought you might ask that after our conversation on Saturday, the answer is yes, he had a little go. Pee'd me off, I had been building my speed up, he jumps in the car and straight away goes 10mph faster than me on Port Vite on his first lap. Huff.

You could form your own Party- you'll have time on your hands soon

I did the Eastern Circuit yesterday. Thank you for the good advice. @Terryathome I did come out of my comfort zone, it was quite easy to do, just by going too fast (for me). @BCF I got good at keeping my line before letting the others pass, and they were well behaved, except for the Radical, that was just too fast for the type of cars out there. I pushed the MX5 though and it behaved impeccably, I am amazed how much fun they are to drive. @Dave (OnliestSmeg) - Joint Manchester AO I took your advice and booked some tuition, they gave me the 11.30am slot. It worked out well because I went out on my own in the morning and got used to the circuit, I gave the blue cone on a Curve Grande a funny look because I couldn't work out what it was there for. After my tuition, I had all afternoon to practice, and, guess what, now I was heading straight for that cone and using it to know when to brake. My tyres did funny things by the end of the day, these are the 14 inch Nankang NS2R's With the instructor The first corner, Chapman's is blocked off from the normal way, with white blocks, and now it comes right back on itself, I was OK with that, K7 was hairy because it is so tight. Trubshaw's is easy and fast, lovely round Curva Grande, keeping left towards the blue cone, brake and into the dreaded Wiggler. The Wiggler is another very tight bend of which you are facing the wrong way as you go into it, and you have to get round the other way, not easy, kiss the yellow apex on your left and you might just miss the big yellow bit on your right. Bishop's, fine, Bunga Bunga, lovely, then very fast through Port Vite. That just leaves Ushers to the right and Twickers to the left, trying not to mount the yellow humpy bit as you go off again. This circuit is good for me because I like twisty bit's and it definitely challenged me, I didn't get to find out the top speed of the car, but I did find out that it wham's around corners without any problem. Mechanically, I had no problem, which I can't believe. I have just bought a standard 27 year old car, put some hoses, belts, fluids and tyres on and it has coped with it. I bet it is fun in a Westfield though. In contrast, I drove home like little miss daisy in her retro car, made me laugh though, I hadn't reached Gainsborough and suddenly I am constantly yawning and then the hunger pangs hit my stomach. I was in bed at 8.30pm. @tkm_dave it was great to meet you and good luck with the car at Anglesey next weekend. Here are the pictures that Glen promised you.

I spectate quite a lot at Prescott and Shelsley and they mainly seem to run this format. If competing I think I would personally prefer it to be two single day events but those that compete seem to like the more relaxed atmosphere and they will often also spectate between runs.

Suffice to say that the SSOT discussed Javelin at length at our last meeting and actions were assigned. John (Panda) has agreed to discuss Javelin at the next Club Secs meeting in a couple of weeks time! We spent a great deal of time and effort during the winter promoting the SS (Mail Shots and Facebook) and here we are less than a month into the season potentially undermining those efforts in favour of Javelin! (Who are not a car club) Last year I thought about doing a Javelin Sprint and rang them about the Insurance arrangemnts for both spectators and competitors (as Nick had raised it previously) I did not receive a meaningful answer from the guy on the end of the telephone at Javelin so I did not go (Personal Choice)! If you have more info on this point please let me know directly via email or text! I have no problem about raising the competitive issues that Javelin pose but now let it lye until we get some feedback as it is going to take some time to make changes as I think all the clubs 2017 regs will now be approved. Also talk to John direct (as he suggests above) with any other background info you may have! Some clubs will survive with or without Javelin some unfortunately may not, it needs some careful handling! Glutety

http://www.blytonsprintweekend.co.uk/sprint-weekend/ please feel free to book on and questions please ask

Weekend of cleaning in prep for next weekend. Saturday saw the removal of the seats to deep clean the cockpit and touch in some marks, no carpets to worry about but despite only being four bolts per set my arms are now ripped and bruised to hell, space is tight. All wheels removed, arches cleaned, wheels waxed and suspension cleaned up Second set of new mirrors fitted, tiny but convex lenses give great field of view. Swapped out the original and grubby 5 3/4" headlights for a shiny new pair of 7" units with LED DRLs - pretty essential in something as small as this

So this was the first outing of the year for me in the Westie. It had been a long wait as I didn’t do too much to do to the car over the winter (or have the budget) and so it just sat in the garage gathering dust. What little work that was done to the car was a tad stressful. I dropped the car at my local motorsport garage a few weeks back, but only got it back on the Thursday night. The mechanic had a two-day race meeting over the intervening weekend and his wallet, cash and some tools were robbed from the cab of the lorry (which was parked in the paddock at Snett). This meant he was understandably delayed in finishing the works on the car as he had to cancel his cards etc. When I got it back, I worked on the car until 10pm on the Thursday, again on the Friday night and on the Saturday morning. Tiring, but finally I was ready to go. The journey to West Wales to race with the Welsh Sports and Saloon Car Championship was broken up with lunch in the sun. My wife and I, along with 4 other friends stayed at a hotel near to the circuit. The place was a little tired to say the least with some quite frankly, hilariously Trip Advisor reviews. Maybe I should have read the reviews before checking-in….. Nonetheless, I got a reasonable night’s sleep. A rarity for me before a race (see my previous Blogs). I got up at 5.50am, had a quick breakfast and my mate and I set off to the circuit, arriving at 6.50am. It was a bright morning and I was looking forward to racing at Pembrey in the dry for the first time. After sign-on and an uneventful scrutineering, I set up camp in Pembrey’s inner paddock. Qualifying was at 9.00am and I had to be in the assembly area 20-minutes before. Not a huge amount of time to get ready so it was all go. Sitting in the assembly area I was a little apprehensive as I have not driven the car at all since the previous September, except only for giving it a run down the road to bed in the new rear pads. As expected, I was properly rusty. Qualifying was over in a blur and my driving was annoyingly inconsistent. Still, that was to be expected without testing/practice so I dwelled on the positives (what few there were!). I posted a 1.08, which was a second quicker than my dry qualifying time of the previous August. I was happy with that, 11th out of 20. The first race was after lunch so it was a bit of a wait. We had to wait longer than expected as the trucks were racing and doing a great job of smashing each other to bits and generally making a lot of noise / vibrating the ground under your feet. I was on the inside line for the first hairpin and I intended to stay there. Indeed I did and I managed to get an ok start, hampered by the car in front obscuring the lights at the precise moment they went out. Lesson learnt. Despite this, I managed to get the jump on one car, although I was a little worried at one point as I momentarily had two wheels on the grass. Still, plenty of grip! I followed the pack round the hairpin and then lined a car up a car for a pass on the rear straight. I was drafting him as we went through the fast kink, mid-‘straight’, only for him to get a massive tank slapper, presumably on cold rears. He span in front of me and by backing out of the throttle a little – I didn’t know which way he was going to go I managed to avoid him, much to the relief of my Wife who was watching. Thankfully he also missed the tyre wall/bank and was able to carry on. Just as I was getting the bit between my teeth, the race was red flagged as a car had broken a wishbone at the hairpin and had to be recovered. Damn. I now had to do it all again. The restart meant a 10 minute race +1 lap, instead of the usual 15 +1 lap. I had a good re-start and managed to gain a place, only to be out-braked coming in to the hairpin, spending the rest of the race on my own from thereafter. I used the time to perfect (well I tried anyway) my lap and posted a 1.07.6, finishing in 9th. The second race was over in such a blur I can only remember overtaking two cars, both by out-breaking them into Honda. I bettered my lap time with a 1.07.3 and finished 7th overall. I was pleased with that and more importantly I was now lapping much more consistently. Cobweb’s well and truly blown away! A good time was had by all and most importantly the car and I were in one piece. Next I’m off to Silverstone with the CSCC on the 28th of May. I can’t wait to get out there again. Video added: Race 1 Re-start: Race 2: Trucks: On the grass:

Not unless you're taking up sprinting

All the best for your day Steve, have a grand one

I did Aintree on Saturday - a very well organised day. 125 competitors, between us they managed to get 784 cars over the start line, i.e. two practise and four timed runs. The day seemed relaxed with a decent break for lunch and even with this number of runs I think we finish between 4 - 5pm. Organisation is key, they had their own PA system and kept us advised as and when to go to the start area, once there they helped place us in the correct running order minimising any delays. To me, if you want to see how you can run an event succesfully, then go to their next event.

I think that a minimum of 2 practice and 3 timed runs should be possible at all events subject, of course , to abnormal delays

Yes we are here to help up in Geordieland!

In my experience there has to be a balance, and again it depends how you define value for money. I have competed for a long time and have been equally frustrated by the standard two practice and two times run scenario when the day itself is tediously slow for no apparent reason and in the eyes of the organising club seems to want to run the event for the benefit of the BSC. ( and I'm talking as a BSC entrant here). I have had equally really satisfying events when there have only been the two P and two times runs just because of offs etc etc. On the other hand I also do the Longton events who will always give as many runs as they can which is great but at the last three sisters event I did I gave up after the eighth run as it was just two much. You could see the same at the last Anglesey event when folk got fed up in the afternoon as tyres were going off. Im my view it's just some of the organising clubs need to get on the same page as the rest of us and be seen to at least be trying to give as many runs as they can where possible. I relation to Croft there is no excuse to be packing up at 3pm BUT I do recall a couple of years ago after the second runs, we were told there was no Third run so some folk packed thier car away only to be told last minute that a third run was available after all. Some folk ( eg me ) got a third run but clearly others cried foul because they didn't have time to get ready again.

So I've got my nice new fuel tank, and my nice new fuel pump (shown before the tank was modified) and it looks lovely in the back of the car... However, now I've got it all connected up, I have discovered that the integrated sender on the pump (VDO) shows as full on my gauge (VDO) when empty, and I'm assuming empty when full. So, I was just wondering if 1) there is something cheap off the shelf that can be used to correct this, or 2) i could use a spare Arduino and make my own converter? I've seen the Spidya website, but the prices put me off, and I've seen this gadget which may work if the range matches my sender/gauge, but my inner tinkerer tells me to utilise the Arduino for it... @Kit Car Electronics would probably agree

Makita 18V Li Ion, shares the batteries with other nice stuff...

Happy to provide some more feedback re: Javelin based on my experience when I have some time (probably later today). I'm not affiliated with Javelin at all, but have competed with them for the last 2-3 years so can give a good run-down if it's of any interest. Obviously I haven't competed in any MSA events so won't be able to draw any comparisons

Stephen I have spoken with competitors (including at Prescott last weekend) where value (to them) is measured in broader terms than the number of runs. Spectator atmosphere .. especially if partners attending. Club house / catering Camping facilities Paddock layout Commentary Class structure / championship structure History Event guide etc It may be that this differentiates competitors that like the classic hills to the sprints but I think it is worth acknowledging.

Here are my photos https://goo.gl/photos/8FjaD8pY2u7MKfCo8

One thing I noticed at Prescott yesterday is that they did not stop for lunch. They have enough marshalls that they just rotated and kept going. First practice was 8:30 and event finished at 5:40

I understood that if you are an MSA member you are also in breach of their rules by attending a non msa timed event. Whether they would enforce something that might be considered anticompetitive is another matter.

Hi, Carbon mods don't sell Westfield stuff anymore and have discarded all tooling / molds. (So I'm told every time I go in there!) being as their local to me I must visit at least once a month with my carbon addiction lol. Still trying to get them to make me a carbon bonnet! I'll contact Playscool today, thanks for the advice! Mark

Hi Robin We'll be there. Barry

Thanks Stuart. That AutoAid looks really good and I will be using them by the look of things for the breakdown cover.

I chickened out! After I filled the tank up to the brim I was peeved to discover that my gauge barely moved. If it was indeed a reverse sender, I would have expected it to go to empty (when full). So I had a little brain storm and bought one of these usb inspection cameras for £10.99 as I was thinking, what if my float does not move freely and is stuck against the baffle. Plugged it in on the laptop and had a look around, but due to the extremely short focal area could not really see what was going on. So out came the pump today and then I started to think, why not disconnect the fuel sender and replace it with my old (matching) sender? Took forever to mount the thing on the pump, but I now have a working fuel sender again

Well it was a great day with 14 Westfields on our pitch by mid morning! Here are some pictures to whet your appetite for the next one!

As owners of small plastic cars, that's a given!

Hi Rab I will be able to make this now so hoping for dry weather so I can get the Westie out!

It is the Comp Secs/Organising Teams of each club who need to get their ducks in a row when writing their regs. I do not know why some clubs only allow 2 timed runs and others like the WSCC have no limitation except time. We as the SSOT need to learn from these instances and ensure that the clubs we are invited to and add to our calendar will allow and run as many timed runs as "time" allows (even though their club competition may only allow a specified number to count on the day)! In the main each club needs each other to ensure each event is well attended and is not a financial disaster! The solution is jointly in the hands of each club to ensure continued enjoyment and ultimate survival. Glutey

I'll definitely be there Rab and probably in the Westy. Agree it's a really poor response yet again. Can't see there's much more you can do though. Come on Scottish contingent, get yer fingers oot or there'll be no runs this year!!!! Matt

I agree Like this?

Make 2 stickers for the gauge and swop full for empty and vice versa Job jobbed !!