Anglesey 5/6th October report

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This was to be the final rounds of the Westfield Speed Series Championship in 2024. The event was organised by Longton and District Motor Club. And there were high expectations that this again would be another successful event. 

 

The running order was with the most powerful cars having the initial runs. So this meant that the British Sprint series competitors were the first to line up on Saturday morning. It was still a little bit greasy and Pete Golding managed to spin at the cork screw, this set the scene. Dave Smith in his Westfield Sports 250 with a highly modified engine reported that he had a plug down on the first practise run. Worse was to occur to Harry Moody in his megabusa. He had had problems with his drive shaft at the previous event at Harewood a couple of weeks previously and had replaced the drive shaft joint and tested it on the drive where all was well, however, 200 yards into the first practise run and the drive shaft pulled out again, so that was it, game over for Harry. In the first timed runs, it was still proving to be slippery. Dave Smith reported a spin along with Mick Dent having a tank slapper. As the day progressed, the weather conditions improved, and some good times were recorded, Dave Banner took the class record with a 52.81, Chris Boyd was happy to get back to seeing some of the times that he had set several years ago in his Sylva Riot. Steve Arkley had a good day until his final run when he suffered issues with his fuel pump, which was diagnosed as a loose connection after the run! Howard Gaskin had started the day on his Uniroyal rainsport tyres and decided to change them to his Nankans, but went slower, so he went back to his Uniroyals and ultimately three seconds faster He had suffered a misfire off the line going up to Rocket, but that cleared throughout the day and managed to finish the day on a 59.99. So he was happy with his result. Dave Smith. reported to be having a good day and was managing to get into the 55 seconds, but couldn't do any better, However, this did result in him setting a class record for the road going class.. Mick Skidmore was on form and managed to beat his PB by 0.5 seconds. John Loudon. was second in both runoffs in the British Sprint series and managed in the progress to set a new personal best beating his old time by 1.42 seconds. Mark Bishop had had a brilliant day and was looking forward to Sunday. Also going well was Stuart Gilks and he was having a good day as well, he was running with a interesting tyre combination with Avon 888 on the rears and Uniroyals on the front. He was sharing the driving with his daughter, Louise. Ian Davenport was back out again, he has not done many events in 24. was enjoying the camaraderie. at Anglesey.

 

On Sunday, the weather forecast for the day forecast rain from late morning. So the organisers wanted competitors to get in as many runs as they possibly could in the morning session before the rain came. However, the rain did not materialise and a dry day was had!

 

Overnight, Mick Skidmore had altered the gear ratios in his gearbox so he could have more top speed on the back straight as we were running a different circuit combination. Dave Smith had also changed class and gone from road going into the slick tyred class. Howard Gaskin kept the same tyres on that he had switched back to and the misfire was gone. So all went well on Sunday for Howard who may be retiring from competing.........Ian Davenport, on the other hand, switch to Uniroyals and had a good run.

 

Dave Banner had the misfortune of a rod coming through the side of the block in his megabusa, so an early finish for Dave.

 

We managed to run through the afternoon in dry conditions with no other major incidents to report.

 

So this concluded the final round of the championship and the points ended up being. equal for Dave Banner, and Dave Smith, both scoring. 10 maximum points on 10 rounds. So the result for the Westfield Speed Series Championship was a tie between Dave banner & Dave Smith.

 

Competition throughout the season has been great and hopefully there will be more to be had in 2025. If you are thinking about competing. I would seriously recommend it. It is just great fun and a great set of people. and some really good circuits to visit, here is to 2025.