British Rallycross R6 - Lydden Hill

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by Sarge

It's Binks' old Evo, not Steve Hill's.

Shame to read that its not Steve Hills Evo, as I assume thats just sitting in a garage somewhere gathering dust, would be good to see that car back out on track again.

Great to see another name stepping up to the Supercars though.

[tbtstt]

Forgive the double post, but has anyone seen any sort of a timetable for this weekend? I've asked on Facebook but got nothing, just wondered if anyone here has seen anything?...

[AlamakiRX]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

Forgive the double post, but has anyone seen any sort of a timetable for this weekend? I've asked on Facebook but got nothing, just wondered if anyone here has seen anything?...

Same as all other August BH weekends;

Sunday starts 12.30
Monday starts 9am

Would assume practice and 1st heats Sunday, remaining heats plus finals Monday.

In between the RX there will be Terry Grant Stunt show, Drifting, FMX and BMX.

Hope that helps.

[chunder]

Is there any practice on the Monday?

[Rallycross!]

Originally Posted by chunder

Is there any practice on the Monday?

Usually, when one event is carried over 2 days, drivers are only 'required' to do a warm-up, so yes, kind of!

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by AlamakiRX

Same as all other August BH weekends;

Sunday starts 12.30
Monday starts 9am

Would assume practice and 1st heats Sunday, remaining heats plus finals Monday.

In between the RX there will be Terry Grant Stunt show, Drifting, FMX and BMX.

Cheers Alamaki! I assumed it would follow a similar structure to previous Bank Holiday events, but would be nice to have got the official word on that.

I see Steve Hill, Ollie OD and John McGovern are listed as withdrawn from the RX150's.

[Hickey]

What we learnt yesterday is that for reasons unknown to everyone and in defiance of all sorts of logic, they squeezed most of the second heats into yeaterday's schedule. Those attending today, for the longer of the two days, prepare to stand around watching sldrifting and men clearing the circuit of dirt...

[chunder]

I rather enjoyed it today, wasn't really expecting much due to the rather sparse grids in some classes, but the action was good.

As for the drifting, it lasted far, far too long. It should have been a half hour no more and most of it was taken up by Shane Grinch going back to the pits every time he ran to fit another set of tyres.

I don't mind this stuff being there, but having pretty much a meeting of their own was ridiculous.

On to the meeting, only gripe here being the silly grids, Minis, Swifts, Juniors, far too many strung out pointless races for a couple of blokes running a series and no one else, utterly uselss and you could actually see people leaving during their finals, that says it all. Get rid of them and have a Superfinal.

The Retro's were magnificent, so sad to see Tommy roll, was right in front of me and looked a stinker, that damn kerb again!

But the rest of them were brilliant, far better than the Modifieds and hey presto, what is most of the grid in Retros made up of? Formula B and C cars, its not rockets science is it you stupid, idiotic MSA cretins.

Anyway, Pauwels went as well as I have seen him go, laughed out loud when Jansen took out hissy Fit, and was impressed by a few guys. The geezer in the black 3 series, buy him a better car as he is a top talent! Can Bellerby be in a race and not hit people? Will someone please scrap that pile of a Lancer that has never run right in 5 years? What was wrong with Jobb?

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by chunder

I rather enjoyed it today, wasn't really expecting much due to the rather sparse grids in some classes, but the action was good.

Blimey - positive vibes!

Originally Posted by chunder

As for the drifting, it lasted far, far too long. It should have been a half hour no more and most of it was taken up by Shane Grinch going back to the pits every time he ran to fit another set of tyres.

I don't mind this stuff being there, but having pretty much a meeting of their own was ridiculous.

Agree totally - the drifting was ok for a couple of runs but after that was just tedious. I've seen enough drifting today to know not to go to a dedicated drifting meeting (I had been thinking about taking a look at one - not any more).

Originally Posted by chunder

On to the meeting, only gripe here being the silly grids, Minis, Swifts, Juniors, far too many strung out pointless races for a couple of blokes running a series and no one else, utterly uselss and you could actually see people leaving during their finals, that says it all. Get rid of them and have a Superfinal.

They should lump the Swifts, MINIs and S1600's in together and be done with it (glad to see it was done in the heats).

Originally Posted by chunder

The Retro's were magnificent, so sad to see Tommy roll, was right in front of me and looked a stinker, that damn kerb again!

But the rest of them were brilliant, far better than the Modifieds and hey presto, what is most of the grid in Retros made up of? Formula B and C cars, its not rockets science is it you stupid, idiotic MSA cretins.

The retros were certainly good to watch and I'm glad Tommy was ok after that accident, it was certainly a big one but the cage did its job well.

Originally Posted by chunder

Anyway, Pauwels went as well as I have seen him go, laughed out loud when Jansen took out hissy Fit, and was impressed by a few guys. The geezer in the black 3 series, buy him a better car as he is a top talent! Can Bellerby be in a race and not hit people? Will someone please scrap that pile of a Lancer that has never run right in 5 years? What was wrong with Jobb?

Pauwels was on it today, he's had a few good runs at Lydden though so it was no real surprise to see him near the front. I actually thought the Liam/Jansen incident was Liams fault - it looked like he thought he'd passed jansen and moved back onto the normal line too soon and just clipped the front on Jansens car - turning himself around in the process. Vince Bristow in the black beemer is certainly a proper clubman racer - that BMW is road legal and is also used on stage rallies! No idea what was up with Jobb or the Evo.

[chunder]

In which case Mr Bristow would be my man of the meeting, 4th place in Supermod was a superb result in a no doubt heavy car!

Cage was amazing in Tommys car, they are planning to rebuild it, apparently it really is an old 80's Welch or something job!

I went to see drifting many years ago at Silverstone when the D1GP guys were invited, I knew then it was only worth a half our but today was silly, BMX and MX fair enough, they didn't last long, neither did Terry "seenhimamilliontimes" Grant.

Bigest shame was poor old Hrolffson, what a bad day, and such a shame to see Teurlings out too, that car is so low tech but he somehow gets it round, such a shame.

[Pozi]

Good days racing, did anyone else hang around after the main finals and catch Julian Godfrey doing some rapid laps in his road legal RS200?

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by Pozi

Good days racing, did anyone else hang around after the main finals and catch Julian Godfrey doing some rapid laps in his road legal RS200?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I was at Lydden extra early this morning as I missed the Pikes Peak RS200 running by minutes yesterday.

Pulled out of the car park as the Stock Hatch guys were finishing: would have hung around a bit longer if I'd have known another RS200 was going to take to the track!

Have to say I really enjoyed the weekend. Some odd timetabling decisions (rushing to get heats 1 and 2 done yesterday, then having a bit of a sparse programme today for example), but some great racing. Watched the Tommy Graham crash from the start of Chessons Drift, looked very violent from where I was. Didn't actually see him get out of the car, so relieved to hear he was OK: I hope the car lives on as well!

Would like to see a video replay of the start of the third Supercar heat. Not sure who instigated it, but from my perspective it looked like one driver trying to barge through massively exacerbated the situation.

I enjoy watching drifting, but even I thought it dragged on a bit. I was glad they ran a proper top 16 drift competition, as I always think its stupid when they "try and introduce drift to a new audience" by just letting the cars tear around the track for 10 minutes. It teaches nothing about drift competition to those who haven't seen it before. At least everyone there today actually watched a drift competition.

Unfortunately it seemed to lose its way about midway through, and the feedback to the crowd wasn't great: be nice to let everyone know who has won what.

Gripes aside though, I still enjoyed myself. An excellent warm up for next weekend!

[BertMk2]

This is what I caught of the Tommy Graham crash:

[rs 200]

I think the august bank holiday rallycross has finished ,what is going on if the time wasters on track ,drifting ,donuts etc had not been there from 12 oclock to 3 what would we be watching ,I think 1 day would have done ,
what a great shame to see tommys escort like that I do hope he sorts another one out but know these things are not cheap anymore ,and the lancia seems to have gained a few hundred hp since last meeting ,it sounded like a proper supercar and he passed the noise test ,what is going on with these super cars they are far far to quiet ,godfreys sounds like its running on batteries no noise at all .I could so watch retro all day than this modern soundless under steering anti climax cars .
to me the most watered down rallycross event so far at lydden .
If we loose erc event I think its days are numbered now at lydden

[Thundersports]

I went today having not been for a few years after witnessing the "Joker lap" being introduced. Lydden itself is alot tidier the toilets, car park and catering all a huge improvement so top marks. Rallycross itself isn't what it was with half arsed championships and the usual 2 suspects being over aggressive in the Supercars. This i'm sure puts off alot of competitors. The racing in the well supported classes was good and the Retro class seems to have alot of potencial, I was gutted to see Tommys Escort wrecked though.

Finally wtf is this drifting thing about I nearly went home as it went on and on, the other public around me felt the same and had no interest in it. So for me would I go again..............Yes but only if there was no drifting rubbish.

[Hickey]

In that case thundersports, I recommend the march meeting with the Belgians as support instead of fritters! Agree with a lot of the comments, the action was good, the retros are getting really good, some cracking racing in the rx150s, some top drivers there.

Drifters are good enough for a lunchtime time filler, and agree with Steve that good to see an actual competition so can properly make my mind up that I don't want to see another! Same with stunt car, great time filler, both need about 10% track time and the rest rallycross, then would have been very good.

[chunder]

After watching some of the Scandinavian stuff and Benelux cars on youtube recently, this BMW lad might be onto something. A few of the cars in those series are running sixes now.

If you watch asphalt rallying in Belgium and Holland and to some extent Germany a lot of cars used are things like M3 BMW's from the 90's, older style 911's, Nissan 350Z. They sound great, look good and have enough power to slide about, and they are modern. That might be somewhere to go?

Most Supermods are turbo now and these rather daft Lotus's. fine though theya re are a little against the sporting spirit, even if today Emery made them all look silly. But his car is sorted and powerful.

This is the class that needs the work, as the rest are stocking fillers and wouldn't be needed if there was a decent 30 car Supermod grid. You could get rid of Minis, Hot Hatch works well. no need for the Swifts either for that matter.

But until you sort Supermod I cant see a change.

Shame the RS200 wasn't out today, so many people asked about it, seems stupid to not run it, especially when we had to endure an hour of that utter drivel drift stuff.

[The SpeCTator]

After every Rallycross meeting at Lydden a thread contains the words "the meeting could have been run in one day"

Its great for the track to get 2 days of revenue, but "more padding than a DFS sofa springs to mind."

[chasing cars]

Decided only to do the Monday and was expecting to see all the 2nd and 3rd heats plus finals so was rather disappointed that they ran some of the 2nd heats on the Sunday. I don't know if it happened but anyone who failed to finish 1st heats and was unable to sort the car for 2nd heats might as well have packed up and gone home and missed the Monday altogether.

Still don't get drifting and Im not sure how they think that drifting and rallycross would interest the same crowd. It certainly went on for far too long but in fairness there wasn't a lunch break so I guess its better to have it than to look at an empty track for 2 hours like at the ERC.
Personally if they want to carry on with this mayhem (daft name) weekend then it would be better to have the drifting on the Sunday and all the rallycross on the Monday.

Gutted about the Escort but cant really blame the kerbs when a driver for whatever reason decides to try and completely shortcut the chicane.He wont try it again!

The 3rd heat accident looked like a combination of someone being overly aggressive off the start line and a situation which has been waiting to happen where a driver from the inside decides to move over to take the joker. As usual it was the drivers with the smaller budgets that suffered and the big budget driver able take the restart.

[leonidas]

Rallycross' decision makers confuse me. They dumped the rallycross clubman series as they said there wasn't enough time on the schedules. Then they fill a big chunk of the meeting with drifting rubbish and stunts... I didn't meet anyone who was interested in it.

Retro rallycross was great and it may just rescue the sport in the UK. With the extension of the historic rally classes to 1985 next year there might be a few more people prepared to build 'crossover' cars.

[silver bullet]

Originally Posted by chunder

This is the class that needs the work, as the rest are stocking fillers and wouldn't be needed if there was a decent 30 car Supermod grid. You could get rid of Minis, Hot Hatch works well. no need for the Swifts either for that matter.

But until you sort Supermod I cant see a change.

So what would you do to sort out the Supermods?
Bearing in mind that that class supplied a fifth of the total entries, had the most diverse field of cars, and caters for competitors who have a half decent budget and well developed cars, right down to the clubman racers who are out there having fun for as little as 2-3 k.
How would you get more cars out there without looking the ones we already Have?


and yes Vince Bristow is a so smooth in that BMW!

Drifting ............ I appreciate the technology, I can see the skill, but I don't really get it.
If I had a car with that much power I would want to drive it as fast as I could for as far as I could, and see how fast I could get it round the corners, not how sideways.


From a competitors point of view I actually really enjoyed the weekend, but I would have rather done two heats on the Monday, and the siteing of the FMX was a little distracting to the spectators stood on that corner.
The Retros are getting better every meeting. There is actual close exciting racing going on now, whereas 12 months ago it did look rather like a demonstration event.

Finally thanks to all the officials, and the organising team, and a big thankyou to the orange army, the real heroes of the meeting. Without them we wouldn't have meetings to race at and, to watch.

[Belgian Blitz!]

Sorry to dissapoint some on here,but there were many people this weekend that came up to the swift camp with serious interest to getting out in one,it looks like the scene will be growing again next year.
There will be a new junior driver out at Pembrey and rumour has it,that Drew Bellerby will be doing the next 2 rounds.
As for the senior swifts,the monster drift duo Baggsy en Butsy enjoyed themselves so much they said they want do more of it.Great to see one of the original drivers,Richard Elliot back out again,he said he is likely to be out at the last round at Croft.
Speaking of Croft i was told that the Grand Prix will be split into front and rear wheel drive(no other splits in classes),with the best 10 going trough to contest the Grand Prix final.
About the weekend itself,it was run the wrong way round in my opinion,but i have a feeling the organisers will do something about that.
As for on track Rallycross action,it was a great weekend,with some fierce battles going on.Shame about the crashes,but it's one of the risks of racing cars.
And in the end i collected my first British RX trophy for getting second in the Swifts.
Roll on,Pembrey

[chunder]

The Supermod category is not varied, it contains far too many cars that have no place on a Formula B or C grid. Varied is Escort, Mini, Nova, Corsa, 205, TR8, Metro lol.

A Xsara or Megane or MG wth a roll cage in it is certainly NOT a Supermodified car is it? Its Top Gear stuff which is great, but it's standard cars really. I guess there is no back yard collection of rallycross cars as there used to be, you couldn't turn up in the 80's and 90's with a modified road car, it HAD to be fairly modified to start with and thats the main difference to now.

It is not their fault and they are out there competing, but let's face it, a lot of cars in the class are fairly hot hatchy with a few mods to make them "modified". Again, it's a start and a lot of these guys will develop their cars over time and that's a good thing.

AS I say, this is not their fault, not an attack on them, but for me a Modified car in the sense of the word are the Minis in Retro, Emerys car, the Irish Corsa, Ray Morgans Escort. THe Lotus;'s even, though they should be banned in my eyes.

I know there isn't a lot that can be done straightaway but if you want to have sort of mega hot hatch then create that class awell then, why not there are already about 10 classes!

People want to do Swifts because unlike the rest of rallycross they are accessible, they make themselves available and are relatively easy to drive and get into, you can turn up and drive and that is thier key to success, I wouldn't say they are any more great than anything, and their racing this weekend was woeful really, what I saw of it, very processional.

But these are minor gripes, Supercar was excellent, Hot Hatch seems to be good, Retro is getting there, but again a few very basic cars are great for numbers but very tardy!

[schanche]

So reading the above posts, The August bank holiday rallycross meeting is a no more successful event ruined by the old guard and there Desiree to add anything possible and to stretch out one day of great rallycross into a two day pantomime. Time for a rethink and sit down with IMG organisers,a European rallycross weekend in August will draw big crowds back to back weekends with France or Germany would be far more successful. The Brit/Belgium weekend is a success over two days.

[leonidas]

Originally Posted by chunder

A Xsara or Megane or MG wth a roll cage in it is certainly NOT a Supermodified car is it? Its Top Gear stuff which is great, but it's standard cars really.

To be fair its always been the case that some supermods were much more modified than others - its just that the spectacular cars at the front are the ones that we remember!

There was (and maybe still is?) a rule that you have to enter your car in the lowest class for which it is eligible. But where else are these standard cars going to go at the moment? There isn't a clubman or stock class. That's the problem.

I suspect people are buying Swifts because there is nothing else easily affordable - the BRXC has effectively created a 'closed shop'.

I agree on the Lotus. A simple rule restricting Supermods to sedans would solve the problem. GT cars should really be in Supercar. But I can't see it happening.