AMOC Silverstone - 6th April 2013

[Chigley]

Who was it that came to grief in the assembly area before the Touring Greats? We saw loads of dry powder extinguisher dust coming from there and a certain A105 was missing from the race; connection or coincidence? If it's a connection it had nothing to do with me chatting to Andy during the lunch break.

[robhollyman]

Originally Posted by Chigley

Ah but ask him where and when he neatly parked up in qualy.

yes, I stupidly thought that if i did better than last year I'd be happy. whilst parked at beckets after 4 laps of qualifying I had done better than last year, but still not happy!!!

my throttle linkage came apart at the peddle end. which meant I had the next 2 hours upside down in the footwell of the car trying to bodge it together for the race.

in the race the brakes over heated after 4 laps and i had to nurse the car home for the next 40 minutes, my big red brakes callipers have now turned into big black brake callipers.

but it was a very good day, we had some great grids, big crowds and good weather.

[Brian A]

Originally Posted by zefarelly

. . . looks like you had to work hard for it, hope it was fun, the result looks most agreeable.

Very pleased with 6th overall and a class win for Minnie, although Michael Peet in the Rapier had a better start and took some getting past. After my pit stop, I didn't see him again and he was 17 seconds behind me at the finish.

I arranged with the assembly area marshalls that I could pull off there on my slowing down lap so as to jump straight into the Lotus Mk IX for the 50s race. This race was tougher as the driving position needs a comfort makeover and I am clearly running the wrong diff ratio as most of the time I wasn't even getting into top down the old Club straight. I was having a good battle for the class with Neil Perkins in the RGS until he pulled up. Eleventh overall was a good result for 1100 cc against all the big boys out there.

The best thing about the day was the weather after all the bad news of the past month or so. I sat and watched a cracking Equipe GTS race from the BRDC grandstand, sheltered from the very light wind, I finished up with a touch of sunburn - should have thought to take the sun cream.....

Back to Silverstone in a couple of weeks for the VSCC meeting. Hopefully the weather will repeat itself.

[LAK]

Okay so I'm gonna be less tardy about getting my report out! We were really looking forward to Silverstone - Jason would have his first race in my baby Fiat, we had a new engine and well, we always have such a fun time racing with Julius and the HRDC chaps. Made a heck of a lot of friends and Julius always puts on a great day.

Anyway, we trailered the baby Fiat up and Jason was most insistent that I took first stints in both practice and the race. I've had too many second driver curses over the last couple of years and not just that I know the Fiat a bit better so could assess if the car was going okay or if we had problems.

I love getting "pole" in the assembly area - always a chuckling point for the marshals, teams and spectators. One day I will get a proper pole in the car and then they'll stop giggling

Anyway, out I went for first stint and it was obvious the car was going well - I got overtaken but cars didn't zoom past, I could get into their tow and wave at them! All was going to plan until mid way through my stint and the drive shafts started to bang after a particularly fruity bit of Corning around Luffield. Oops. Lots of vibration but the car still seemed to be going well so I handed over the car to Jason with a smile and let him out to play. I would like to say he enjoyed it but he said the vibration and "noises" rather put him off and he doesn't share my small engined under dog fascination - V8s being more his thing.

Anyway, we were absolutely delighted to be on class pole - initially we thought by 3 seconds but an amended grid saw Mark and Mike Jordan (yes, really!) only a second behind. Um, no pressure then!

A long wait but we had friends with us (normally the kiss of death for us) and the AMOC race days are always nice and relaxed, especially during the very long modern Aston race with only 10 cars...I'm sure it was exciting. Jason also spent time trying to sort the drive shafts and reattaching something important that helps to stop the car digging in and flipping. Yep, important!

Off to the grid and drama. Roberto was driving a Zephyr which decided to dump a lot of water behind us and then horror, up front a car was on fire. We stayed well clear as it got dealt with and it was only some time after the smoke cleared that we saw it was no other than friend Andrew. He'd left by the time we finished so we're not sure of the issue or damage - light I hope.

After that drama (and my glasses breaking but no matter I was wearing my prescription sun glasses) I'm not sure we were all ready for what the next 45mins would bring. I thought I made a terrific start until I saw Mark in the Moggy go past - um, work to do. The great thing about the Fiat is the tiny width and the weird angles it can take so thankfully I got past Mark (and a couple of others) within a couple of corners. I started to pull a little away until the third lap when, yep the drive shafts went bonkers again. Vibration, noise, then a slipping clutch meant Mark made up time and we battled non stop for about 8 or so laps. It was fierce - Mark got past, I got past, he late braked, I made the Fiat wider - I tell you it was wild and all this time I was fearful the driveshafts would finally give up but they didn't. Unfortunately it was a drive shaft failure on the Moggy that bought our fun to an end - I'll admit to being a little relieved given how fragile I thought the Fiat was but it was such a terrific battle that I wish it could have gone on forever. Sadly that meant Mike Jordan got the second driver curse and Jason has to wait a little longer for a battle with a BTCC legend.

I took it fairly easy after that, finding a great rhythm and was a little sad to see the board come out. I'm so used to doing these races solo that anything less than 40mins+ seems like half a job. Jason had a lonely race, moderated his speed, controlled the situation and brought the car home, still banging and vibrating but a class winner!!

That should have been enough but Julius very kindly awarded us the drivers of the day - we'll share the fantastic watch but really Mark should have a time share as without his great battling, very fair but close racing, I doubt many would have noticed the odd little red car with yellow wheels - well okay maybe they would but they would not have enjoyed a very fine battle.

It was a very special day, not only to catch up with old friends and make new ones (John in the Abarth and his crew rock) but it was our first race without Charles Beever who left us only a few weeks ago. Victoria was so brave to come to the day and award the Charles Beever trophy to race winner Peter Burton. Charles was very much missed but not forgotten.

So there we go, a long update but as you can tell we had a lovely and rewarding day. To top the weekend my running mate and I did another duathlon this morning (she runs and i bike - perfect!) and we got a team PB in the sunshine. Good weekend all round and we greatly look forward to Oulton in My.

[percy]

LAK - is this you?





There were some great battles going on all through the field in that race - great to see the A35's 3 abreast at Becketts

[pauln]

A good day marshalling at Becketts all round, though I wish I could say the modern cars were exciting. A race that long needs more than 10 entries. More than made up for by the rest of the bill - particularly Equipe and HRDC.

Louise, it was an absolute joy watching your battles. We never knew which of you would come to us in front until the Moggy died.

A real bonus for me in coming up with the best prize in the marshals' raffle. Very much appreciated. Thank you.

[LAK]

Originally Posted by percy

LAK - is this you?





There were some great battles going on all through the field in that race - great to see the A35's 3 abreast at Becketts

Hi Percy. Yes indeed - what a great shot! If you look closely you will see me turning to the right to check out the passenger mirror for the Moggy. He had a wonderful way of just sort of appearing from nowhere. When he dropped out it took me some time to work out that he'd retired - I thought I'd look up and he'd be in front....

Paul, pleased you enjoyed the battle, congrats on the "win" and thanks to you and all the marshals for looking after us.

[percy]

A few more, starting with the 911 of Mr Hollyman



I used to drive a 1958 A35, but it didn't handle anywhere near as well as these 3



The spoils of victory...

[AGD A105/6]

I can now confirm that if you're going to have your car catch fire, the optimum place to do it is when you're surrounded by an army of the world's best motor racing marshals and fire crews. Thanks to their prompt action I still have a car, repairs are under way and I hope to be at Donington - Oulton is probably a trifle optimistic.

Damn' frustrating as up to that point, it had been a great qual and very sociable day. The grid times around me were very close, and I was looking forward to an exciting race. Still, great to hear that Pete Burton claimed the victory after his bad luck last year.

[AnneReed]

Have to echo the comments of others, in that it was a great day, with some very good racing.

Louise - thoroughly enjoyed watching your race, had to head back to the pit garage before Jason came out but pleased you got driver of the race trophy.

I've now found a commentator who will use Twitter, so hoping to get spectators to put forward their 'Driver of the Race' from next meeting onwards.

Andrew, I was sorry to see the car with all the extinguisher powder around your car in the assembly - glad it's not too bad.

Good to meet Percy and Bauble. Thank you for coming to help with the pit lane photos - even though I did get it sorted just prior. I hadn't realised I looked so short - but looking at Percy's photo below, I guess I do!

We've got a photo gallery set up on the AMOC site http://www.amoc.org/forum/index.php?...sa=album;in=74 and am hoping those at the meeting will add to it. At the moment only Members seem to be able to post to it - looking to see if this can be changed. Brian - the photo of you receiving your trophy is there.

Gibberish - liked your photo of the assembly area - you can see my car (Number 53) although David drove it in that race. We both had brake problems throughout and David did absolve me of blame on my 2 spins (typically in front of the main display stand!) when he took them apart afterwards.

Thanks

Anne

[Teddington Ted]

A fantastic day's racing - I had a brilliant time in Equipe GTS and 50s grinning from ear to ear under my balaclava in both ! You really have to think and work hard to get past an XK.

My sense is that AMOC Racing is on the up so let's make sure that the grids are strong at Oulton (they were weak last year).

I am particularly pleased to see the HRDC cars at our meetings as they really add colour to the race card.

Does anyone race a Standard 10 ?

Mark

[bauble]

A great day's racing in decent spring sunshine with very good company.

Pictures can be viewed at rbmapics.com

Thank you AMOC. Another fabulous meeting.

Bob.