Longcross Cheiftain Sprint today 23rd April

[Bilbo]

Hi All

 

Well it was WET ☹️ with a few spins and offs. I think I must have put up my slowest ever times and I am not offering any excuses 😳. The front kept going light and nearly powered out of the circuit on the banked track on a slightly dryer run. Oddly the new SOFT, not scrubbed in, A048 were often giving more grip at the back than the front. The back offside rear is noticeably more run in than the rest so the cars was not well set up.

 

The Yump is much more down hill than it looks on the Video

 

Big thanks to Sutton & Cheam Motor Club I have to say they are a well organised butch processing the car through Noise check, Scruitineering and signing on amazingly quickly with 4 Scrutineers in attendance plus an impressive amount of Marshalling. *thumbup* *thumbup*

 

I have not seen any times but the quickest will no doubt be in groups using list 1a tyres or wets. The track finish changes all over the place with one half of the car often on one road finish and the other side different.

 

I left after the first timed run which was after lunch I was never going to stay to the end anyway as I wanted to be home before my older son went back to Uni.

 

On the way home the skies opened on the M25 on the way back lots of aquaplaning even at 60mph with visibility down to a 100 yards, so I hope it never went over Longcross. I even managed to ran out of petrol on the way home as the garage I intended to fill up at was out of petrol . Still only a small delay as Oily Rag picked me up a gallon from the next Petrol station a quarter of a mile away. 😬

 

Oily Rag and me got a few grins driving round the 2 convoy runs in sunglasses ] Still rather essentual in a car with brooklands.........

 

Oh the noise check I passed at 100dB

 

It was nice to see you all after a long break for me from sprints and track days.... see you again later in the year

 

'Can you hear me running' ......... OH YES and its music to my ears 😬 😬 😬

1988 200 bhp, 146 ft lbs, 1700cc Cosworth BD? engineered by Roger King, on Weber's with Brooklands and Clamshell wings, Freestyle Motorsport suspension.

 

Edited by - Bilbo on 23 Apr 2006 18:40:52

[Richard Price]

I have not seen any times but the quickest will no doubt be in groups using list 1a tyres or wets.

 

I spoke to Andy Griffiths just after the last run - he improved by 5 seconds on his last run ❗ ❗ ❗ (on ACB10's!)

He thought he'd got FTD

 

 

 

 

 

I guess he'd of been even quicker on his last years Stunners 😬 😬

 

Edited by - Richard Price on 23 Apr 2006 18:52:19

[KenEvans]

I spoke to Griff half an hour ago and he confirmed he got FTD

 

I was very sorry to hear about Mark's car though - Longcross is certainly unforgiving as is an R500 with list 1A tyres! Hope you get it fixed soon Mark.

 

Ken

[Silver 21]

It was very wet, my car did not feel good at all so I left after the first timed run. (too much power for old RE720's)

 

By Kens comments did Mark have an off on his second timed run???

 

Graham

 

Lotus 7 Club General Secretary

 

[martin b]

Having got home safe and sound I would like to thank everybody for making my first foray into sprinting a welcoming experience for my son and I 😬

Longcross is certainly intimidating especially in the wet would have been easier if the gravel had stayed at the sides of the road, there seemed to be ornamental cars parked in the gravel too

Graham i'm afraid Mark did leave the tarmac, he is fine physically although I feel his wallet may be somewhat lighter

On a brighter note it was good to see Neil C mixing it with the big boys in Class 2 on his premiere in an SV as well

 

Heres hoping for a dry Llandow (Mark you have my sympathies)

 

Martin

[Clawhammer]

Graham

Unfortunately Mark had a major off at the final chicane, I am sure he will post details of what happened. He is fine but his car is a bit of a mess! Front offside impact with tree! (Heavy!) On a lighter note, enjoyed my day having decided to invest some money in decent tyres I was really pleased with my first outing although after 5 runs meeting red flags, I decided to call it a day and not complete my second timed run. Hope you get your car sorted soon and look forward to seeing everyone at Curborough.

 

Regards.

 

Robin

 

Mark, hope there are no side effects from your off today and that you get the car sorted asap.

 

Yellow and Carbon cycle wings dodging the horses in the New Forest

[Silver 21]

Mark

 

Sorry to hear about your off, hope YOU are OK 🤔

 

If theres anything I can do to help in anyway let me know,

 

Graham

 

Lotus 7 Club General Secretary

 

[Gambo]

☹️ very sad news Mark. Seem to be a few 'trums of the road at the moment. ☹️

 

RED 2.0 HPC

[Bozz]

Mark

 

Glad to hear your'e OK after the spill even if the car isn't

 

I left just after the 1st timed runs so missed all the drama.

 

Bozz

 

 

 

My Chocolate Orange here

[Mark Durrant]

Thank you for all the kind words on here and the support at Longcross it just shows what great people we have in the club . I'm OK and will return as soon as the car is fixed, which after all is only metal and can be replaced even if it means so much to us all. I'm off for a stiff drink and to reflect on the mistake from which I will certainly learn.

 

Congratulations to Andy Griffiths for FTD and all the others who put in some great performances and see you at Llandow but not in the R500 ☹️

 

Mark D

Comp Sec

 

[Peter T]

Mark, what happened??

Sounds like you had a spin in your car?

I hope all is not to bad. Give me a shout if i can help in any way. *thumbup*

 

R500 Mango Madness

[Englishmaninwales]

Mark

Glad to hear you are ok.

 

malcolm

[Harry Flatters]

Tough break Mark ☹️. As I said earlier, anything I can do....

 

*arrowright*Harry Flatters *arrowright*

AKA Steve Mell - Surrey AO and Su77on Se7ener

[Steve Robinson]

Mark, really sorry to hear about the car but glad you're OK. The passenger ride with you suggested the new car was going to be a handful in the conditions, the way the power kicked in was awesome.

 

Hope you get it sorted quicky and cheaply!

 

Steve

[Jason Plato]

Realy sorry to see anyone of us have an incident - we were all very concerned when the rescue crew left the startline and we heard that "one of ours" had gone off on a fast section ☹️ . Just glad you are Ok Mark. That was a big un.

 

The one thing that struck me was the forces that had been disapaited by the full cage. The forward legs on thew drivers side appeared to have been bent with the chassis. I'm just gald you had that cage fitted.

 

It was strange but I felt realy uneasy about longcross yesterday right from the first practice - I had a bit of a tank slapper coming onto the back straight at about 90mph andn just held it together - I suddenly realised how close those bloody trees are, and that realy made me throttle back all day , I must be geeting old

 

Congrats to griff on a fine drive and FTD (Darren I told you you needed to go back out ! 😬) - Griff must have simply left his brain in the trailer as that speed was pretty suicidal round there yesterday in those conditions good drive

 

see you all next weekend

[Steve Robinson]

Dave - interesting you felt like that as well as I thought I was being a bit of a lightweight in not driving hard. It did all feel a bit risky.

 

Seems a number of us took the option to go home rather than push it, i'm guessing Llandow won't be the same story 😬

 

Steve

[Tam]

Well I had been warned that Longcross was scary, and it was 😳 I learned a lot about the car's limits yesterday (and my own), and with a spin (luckily it stayed on the tarmac) on the first practice run it set the tone for a rather sedate set of timed runs ❗ It was sad to see Mark's beautiful car looking a bit sorry but here's hoping its soon sorted

 

Great to see everyone after the winter break. Looking forward to Llandow .

 

Tam

[robmar]

well I really enjoyed yesterday, I know aa lot didn't, and even tho my last timeed run wasn't good enough I thourghly enjoyed it

 

I have the official scores and will be hoping to get some unoffical scores up

 

the l7 club had the 5 fastest times and I think 7 of the top 10 (need to confirm Jerry Pike runs in our chmapionship....)

 

and just for a change it was only a 30 minute drive home....

 

rob

 

 

My MSN Space and Blog - Syndicate Using RSS

[DSL]

Must say I had rather enjoyed the day, right up to the point at which Mark had a big un *thumbdown*

 

Very relieved to see him unhurt after such a high speed shunt *thumbup*

 

Congrats to Griff on FTD, a great drive in difficult conditions 😬 😬

[GTD]

I have to confess that I spent my day backing off the power! Until I backed off for real into the gravel by the hairpin!

 

Not destined to be my best ever Caterham memory, especially seeing Mark's car at the end.

 

But great to catch up with so many people again after the winter lay-off!

 

 

[neil.cavanagh]

Well a bit of a baptism of fire for my first ever sprint, but still very fun!

 

It was a bit worrying to be sitting on the start line about to go, just for the red flags to suddenly come out, and the ambulance and recovery vechicles scream off to rescue someone.

 

I was very relieved to hear all were ok though.

 

Now I just need to work on my braking points and commitment a little more so I can really challenge in class 2. Still, I'm pretty happy with my results overall, and hopefully showed a few people that SVs aren't just for touring... 😬 😬 😬

[Mrs Kipper]

Mark, very sorry to hear the news ☹️ But as we found out with Kipper Jnrs car (twice), they can be rebuilt and come back as good as new.

 

I am afraid that Pat and I took the easy option yesterday and packed up and went home at lunch time before the timed runs. My car was OK in a straight line but I had know confidence in it at all going round corners - which there are a few at Longross.

 

It didn't help that on the second practise run, I handed over the car to Pat, she went off from the start, disappeared around the first corner and within a few seconds they brought out the red flag . A frantic run up to the nearest marshall with a radio confirmed that the car that went off wasn't green - big relief.

 

Anyway, just looked at the weather forecast for Llandow and Mr Jackson has woven his magic again 😬

[Shaun_E]

As Neil said, a real baptism of fire (or should that be water?) for my first ever sprint. A surfeit of power over grip and not having the requisite skills to deal with that made for an interesting day. I did learn an awful lot about my car and it's handling and even managed to hang on to it when I went sideways through the hairpin on my first timed run. A few seconds later though, a major fishtailing session which I just managed to keep on the blackstuff led to me backing off for a time slower than my second practice. Timed run 2 got me within a second of my second practice run and I was happy to leave it at that. The off camber twisties were really nerve racking as the car just wanted to drift away from the apex and I didn't have the confidence to know when it would stop. Any time full power was deployed, even in a straight line, the car would just fishtail. I'm sure the course is very exciting in the dry but in the wet it was just terrifying. Still, I had a good a day and learned loads including many tips from more experienced sprinters that will stand me in good stead for the next one. See you all at Llandow.

 

Yellow SL #32

 

Edited by - Shaun_E on 24 Apr 2006 11:13:08

[Mattj]

I enjoyed yesterday much more than I thought I would.. to this point I have been absaloutely petrified of driving the 7 in the wet, but yesterday was a case of facing up to my fears. I ended up learning so much and gaining a huge amount of confidence in wet driving, my best time was 10 seconds slower than my best in the dry last year which I am happy with.

 

Im very sorry to hear of Mark's incident and wish him the best in getting it fixed, it is a beautiful example of a Caterham!

[Grahame W]

Can I just quickly also add my concern for Mark, I know from experience that whilst one should be grateful that flesh and bone are safe that it does not make the repair bills any easier to stomach.

Like many others I 'enjoyed ' a first yesterday which was visiting the gravel/scenery on both sides of the track in the same incident, not an experience to be repeated too soon I hope.

Roll on Curborough, at least I know which way the road goes there