Brighton Speed Trials, Sat 13th Sept

[david.c]

Just been looking at the photos...............AWESOME  

When is this on next year?  I have got to get this on the calender early    

David

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Brighton Speed Trials are on the second Saturday in September - every year. 2005 is the centenary.

[Nick Crush]

We got a class win, a 13.01@109mph. Not overly impressive but all the times on the day were about 0.7s off (what you would expect at the Pod/elsewhere) due to the traction off the start line at Brighton.

Had a few moans from other competitors (mainly the Minis) in class about running the car in the road-going class. What made me laugh was that the over 1400cc road-going class was pure Caterham/Westfield/Fury/etc, we're in the under 1400cc (naturally) and yet still get hassle. Even though the car was driven 200miles to the event and was the only one with road-legal rubber on and the only one not trailered there!

*shrugs* Anyways, roll on Santa Pod

Graeme.

Just thought I would put the record straight here -

Class 1 is not a road going class but one for Modified Production Cars. There is also a class for Sports Libre Cars.

The Blue book defines road going as 100 made in a 12 month period with that engine. K series, x flow & XE engineed sevens have been made in sufficient numbers to overcome this rule.

A Locost certainly is not a production car with or without that restriction and certainly 100 Caterhams have not been made with blade engines. Additionally the block of any engine must be easily identifiable as a one of which 5000 units have been made. Seven type cars cannot be justified as production when they need SVAs to get on the road.

I have been competing in speed events for 10 years and have never had to protest a cheating competitor. Unfortunately I did not have £125.00 on me to make the protest official but after speaking to the head of the technical department of the MSA in the afternoon he confirmed our interpretation. The interpretation used at Brighton would mean that any car could have any engine. We'll be having group B cars in the class before too long.

There are special classes for bike engined kit cars surely it would have been more of an achievement to have beaten them as cars like yours will always be faster than a saloon car which weighs 50% more than yours! If you thought the class was for road legal cars why was yours and the Caterham using list 1B tyres (Avon FF tyres.)

Westies & Sevens should fight each other surely there can be no satisfaction derived from an easy target?

[windy]

If you thought the class was for road legal cars why was yours and the Caterham using list 1B tyres

I thought 1B tyres were road legal. A032R's are E marked aren't they? So are most others.

[Nick Crush]

Quote  

If you thought the class was for road legal cars why was yours and the Caterham using list 1B tyres  

I thought 1B tyres were road legal. A032R's are E marked aren't they? So are most others

They are E marked as are the Avons which makes them RTA road legal but not accepted in road classes (std production & modified roadgoing) for speed events hence need for list 1A

[gee_fin]

Hmm, interesting viewpoint. If you looked at the over 1400cc section of our class it was Caterhams, Furys, Westfields etc. all running the Pinto/Cosworth/Vauxhall/K. The only one of which passed 100production units would be the Caterham K. This would mean that *all* Seven type cars would be pushed into a single seater class which has never been the case.

Also, if we're going to split hairs here, the rules that we were sent (and were confirmed by phone beforehand, and again on the day) were that it was road-legal rubber hence why we ran road-legal ACB10s. Which, funnily enough, ourselves and the Caterham were the only ones keeping to - the other cars running slicks.

I sense some bitterness, and to be honest I am not suprised - as usual the MSA rules are open to interpretation and pretty much any car can be found to be in breach in some way or other. We ran to the rules we were sent and the years that we have ran there before, and from what I can see, we were the only ones in class keeping to the letter of the law.

Graeme.

[windy]

They are E marked as are the Avons which makes them RTA road legal but not accepted in road classes (std production & modified roadgoing) for speed events hence need for list 1A

1B tyres ARE permitted in MANY clubs sprint & hillclimb events for their roadgoing classes contrary to what the MSA issue as guidelines (e.g. Boscome Sprint - TR Register, Goodwood Sprint - Brighton & Hove) . It is permissible for the organising clubs to do this it seems. If you don't like the events where the organising clubs state in their supplementary regs that 1B's are permitted then I'd suggest you protest to the MSA or find the events that only permit 1A tyres.

[Matt Seabrook]

Seven type cars cannot be justified as production when they need SVAs to get on the road.

Jap imports (ie MX5 and the like) also need an sva so would that mean they are not production cars    

[gee_fin]

Looking further into the rule book....

Now the Blue Book does not say one hundred cars with a specific engine, it actually says that the car/chassis must have been made in quantities of one hundred (which obviously the SEi Westfield has far far exceeded). The engine must have been available as a production engine through normal channels in quantities of over a thousand. But the Blue book does not say that they must have been together, which is where the interpretation/clashes occur.

It is a Modified Production class which must be road Legal. The Westfield SEi is a production kit and it's been modified, the Caterham is a production kit...

The trouble then could appear as I assume that a Caterham. Westfield, Mini etc. with a full race 1300cc Hayabusa engine, traction control, launch control, 4wd, slicks all at at cost of £60,000 could run in there. Although you'll likely also find that there are then limitations as to what you can do with the engine too.

I believe that we and the Caterham were the only cars competing in road legal condition as the other runners were on slicks, so if anyone should be in Sports Libre it'll be the others in the class not ourselves.

Running in Sports Libre, the competition is Mallock

single seaters in full race trim running drag slicks and doing 10.5 sec 1/4... Hardly road-legal or production.

For speed events there is usually a modified kit-car class or suchlike. Brighton & Hove Motor Club don't have a seperate kit-car class ala sprinting/hillclimbing, they have the modified road-production class that we run in, and have been running in for years. The only change has been that since the 2000cc Vauxhall lump was dumped in favour of an 998cc R1 engine in our car we have moved from the over 1400cc class to the under 1400cc class.

As always, we run to the rules of each event, if you feel the rules are not correct then I would suggest going to the B&H MC commitee and petition for a change to their event rules rather than seemingly hypocritically accusing someone abiding by the issued regulations of foul play.

Best Regards,

Graeme.