2019 Speed Series Calender and update

[mark.anson]

SPEED SERIES CALENDER 2019 and UPDATE

 

 Long post alert

 

On the afternoon of this years awards do the SSOT held a meeting at the Lea Marston Hotel, where a number of topics were discussed;

Present at the meeting were Terry Everall, Nick Algar, Mark Anson, John Loudon, John Williams, and Andy Banks.

A number of topics were discussed including the make up of  the SSOT going forward.

Probably the main announcement for 2019 is that from 1^st January 2019, Terry Everall will be co-opted into the role of Competition Secretary with Nick Algar remaining as Championship Coordinator.

John Williams will continue to organise the Blyton Weekend and assist with admin and documentation.

At the AGM at Stoneleigh in 2019, Terry will be formally voted in to the committee role.

The SSOT would like to thank John for all his hard work during his time as Comp Secretary, which is difficult and time consuming role especially given all of John’s other responsibilities.

Since the end of the season, Terry Everall and I have been working to put the calendar together for 2019 and you will see that we have done our best to listen to the competitors, made some changes, which includes some new venues for 2019, in an effort to spice things up a little and hopefully attract some new competitors.

2019 should make for an exciting year.

 

Below is a list of proposed events however we must stress this is the PROVISIONAL CALENDER and is therefore subject to change depending on the organising clubs.

 

I will also now try and explain the reasoning for some of the changes in an effort to answer some of the anticipated questions from competitors.

 

The SSOT have listened to some members who were complaining about the lack of hill climbs on the calendar and it clear that some folk prefer these to sprints.

 

As such you will notice that there are now 11 hill climbs on the calendar so if they wanted too a competitor could do a full season just doing hills should they wish to do so.

The hillclimb venues are Wiscombe, Shelsley, Loton Park Gurston Down and Harewood.

 

What I can say it has become apparent that the organising clubs, especially the hills are now asking how many competitors we expect to attend these events before they offer us an invite.

Therefore the onus is on you folks to support these events or else they will disappear from the calendar as we will not be able to secure an invite if we only get one or two turning up.

 

Wiscombe is back on however the only weekend we could secure is at the end of April which is quite early but that was all that was on offer from the organising club.

 

Loton Park is still a full weekend as before.

We did attempt to secure a second Loton weekend and we thought we had agreed this however Hagley had a change of heart and we just have the one weekend at the moment but we are still working on this at the time of writing.

 

Harewood has moved to an earlier date as we felt this would be better weather wise and avoids other clashes:

 

Shelsley :You will notice that we have lost the Shelsley weekend we have supported as club for several years. This is entirely out of our control and we are disappointed especially in light of last years successful WSCC weekend. We have not had much in a way of an explanation but it seems that MAC have made the decision.

Nevertheless we have been offered three single events which we have accepted.

 

Gurston is now a full weekend instead of a single day.

 

I know I’m repeating this but I cannot stress enough that we hope these events are supported well or we will lose them if we do not…..it is that simple and it will be out of the control of the SSOT.

 

Snetterton. Unfortunately B19 despite their best efforts have fallen victim to MSV,s renown customer care policy and have been unable to negotiate a weekend, so sadly  Snetterton is off the calendar.

We do however have four new venues on this year which we are excited about as they haven’t appeared on the WSCC calendar for several years.

Castle Combe (yet to be confirmed) is back on the calendar and we have also secured invites to Goodwood, Lydden Hill  and Knockhill.

 

I paid a visit to Knockhill this year with the BSC as an observer and a fact finding mission and Terry has done a great job in securing us an invite.

For those not familiar with Knockhill the event is part of Superlap Scotland.

We are given a time slots between the other races and drivers have to be ready in  their cars ready to run, when its our turn.

That said from what I could see the organisers run very professional operation and it all works very well, and I can recommend watching the Legends race it they are there. There are also plenty of spectators which makes for a good atmosphere.

The only slight negative is the paddock can be quite tight for space but everyone seems to manage fine. There is also a restaurant that does food too and some other stall selling other items.

 

Hopefully that answers a few questions some of you may have had and hopefully addresses the concerns of those who were complaining about lack of hills and events in “the south”.

 

Mark Anson SSOT.

 

Date	Round	Event	Club
Sat 23 March 2019	1	Castle Coombe ????	Bristol Motor Club
Sat 6 April 2019	2	Ty Croes	LDMC
Sun 7 April 2019	3	Ty Croes	LDMC
Sat 20 April 2019	4	Goodwood	Bognor Regis Motor Club
Sat 27 April 2019	5	Wiscombe                  HC	Woolbridge Motor Club
Sun 28 April 2019	6	Wiscombe                  HC	Woolbridge Motor Club
Sat 4 May 2019	7	Ty Croes	MGCC  NW
Sun  5 May 2019	8	Ty Croes	MGCC NW
Sat  11 May 2019	9	Curborough Fig 8	BMMC
Sat 18 May 2019	10	Blyton	LDMC
Sun 19 May 2019	11	Blyton	LDMC
Sat 1 June 2019	12	Shelsley Walsh          HC	MAC
Sat 1 June 2019	13	Pembrey	BARC Wales
Sun 2 June 2019	14	Pembrey	BARC Wales
Sat 15 June 2019	15	Lydden	Borough 19
Sat 15 June 2019	16	3 Sisters	LDMC
Sat 29 June 2019	17	Aintree	LMC
Sat 6 July 2019	18	Harewood                  HC	BARC Yorks
Sun 7 July 2019	19	Harewood                  HC	BARC Yorks
Sat 13 July 2019	20	Blyton	WSCC
Sun 14 July 2019	21	Blyton	WSCC
Sat 20 July 2019	22	Gurston Down           HC	Gurston down HC
Sun 21 July 2019	23	Gurston Down           HC	Gurston down HC
Sun 28 July 2019	24	Shelsley Walsh          HC	MAC
Sun 4 Aug 2019	25	Hethel 1.25 lap circuit	Borough 19
Sun 4 Aug 2019	26	3 Sisters	LDMC
Sat 10 Aug 2019	27	Shelsley Walsh          HC	MAC
Sat 24 Aug 2019	28	Curborough Fig 8	BMMC
Sat 24 Aug 2019	29	Loton Park                 HC	HDLCC
Sun 25 Aug 2019	30	Loton Park                 HC	HDLCC
Sun 1 Sept 2019	31	3 Sisters	LDMC
Sat 7 Sept 2019	32	Aintree	LMC
Sat 7 Sept 2019	33	Knockhill
Sun 8 Sept 2019	34	Knockhill
Sat 14 Sept 2019	35	Mira	MAC
Sat 5 Oct 2019	36	Ty Croes	LDMC
Sun 6 Oct 2019	37	Ty Croes	LDMC

[Marto303]

I know I’ve been a critic of the calendar and suggested changes in the past, so let me be the first to say “Thank you” for listening  and keeping some of my much loved events down south and introducing or re-introducing some venues we’d dropped or lost. Looks like a good calendar for 2019  great job SSOT. 

I will personally support as many of these events as I can 

[Howard]

Thank you Mark, and everyone involved. I know it's difficult keeping everyone happy, so your efforts really are very much appreciated. 

It's kind of ironic that I had my most successful year this year, and only did one hill - Gurston - and that was my worst score, as I've previously preferred hills.

I'm not planning on chasing the championship next year (I say that now ) so I'm looking to do events I've not done for a long time, or have never visited, rather than going after points. Looking forward to it 

 

[Simon Waterfall Syman84]

Well done everyone looks great. 

Just one thing is knockhill a typo two events but both on the same day?

[Tony Smiley]

Looks brilliant.  I'm looking forward to a full season next year.  Thank you for all the effort put in to the events organisation thus far.

[woodman]

Well done.

good spread of events

[S2T]

I compete in the Super Lap Scotland series at Knockhill and have done so for the last couple of seasons. I will be doing SLS again this year but also plan to do a number of the Sprint Series, even though I live close to Inverness!!

The Sprint Series event at Knockhill will be run clockwise one day and anti clockwise the other, truely it is like two totally different tracks, personally I prefer going anticlockwise, though coming into the hairpin from 120mph kind of focuses the mind.

In previous years the September event is the 3rd most popular with the public after the Touring Cars and Superbikes, so expect c10000 spectators

The purpose of this note is if anyone requires information about Knockhill on and off track and accommodation then feel free to contact me

[Craig Spooner]

Well done good spread of events

 

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

4 hours ago, syman84 said:

Well done everyone looks great. 

Just one thing is knockhill a typo two events but both on the same day?

2 days - now corrected

[mark.anson]

Thanks for the comments folks, looks like we’ve done something right. 

Let make next season a good one.

[Terry Everall]

Looks like we addressed several of the issues Mark so thanks for your help

[maurici]

5 hours ago, mark.anson said:

looks like we’ve done something right. 

Dont sing the victory tune yet... wait to the target times... 

Just kidding. It looks really apealing. Not sure yet about may plans for next year...

They may go from "not even have a license" to go for it 100%, still to deciede early next year... but I really hope I will be able to come to put some order in the roadgoing classes... thoose newbies are starting to go fast, and someone has to stop them.

[tc3nitro]

I am really hoping to compete in some of these next year.

May need a little help getting me and the car sorted though if anyone is close to Wetherby and willing to offer some assistance?

[Onliest Smeg David]

Well that's one hurdle negotiated! 

Many Ta's SSOT

Next hurdle is much bigger - Novice Championship appears to be at deaths door! with only 1 competitor (only 3 in 2017)

& My challenge is to get the road driving itches scratched then get into a more competitive Westie and get back into this fantastic sport.

[Terry Everall]

Dave 

There were 8 Novices registered in 2018!