5/5/08
“Why Does it Always Rain on Raceday?”
Barkston Heath is about 2 hours drive from us, but we had an advantage as my parents were staying at a caravan site half an hour away! On Saturday morning, we packed up all the essentials, 4 spare ‘intermediate’ tyres, Humprey was on the R888s and we were taking Sakura on the full wets. Phil found a nice little toolbox which he fills with all the necessary tools needed to rebuild an MR2 at the side of a track, our box of random stuff including tape and blocks of wood, and of course the jack.
It was a lovely afternoon and once we got to the caravan, Phil decided he just had to tinker some more and decided to re locate the boot and petrol cap releases as he keeps kicking them when he is leaving the car. These releases are located normally just by the edge of the drivers seat by the door. He managed to put them on the back wall behind the seat, so they are still accessible and not in the way. Good show.
All tinkering done, we finally settled down to a fairly early night. It rained throughout the night although not constantly and when we got up on the Sunday morning it was very overcast and dull. There were still a few showers as we drove to the venue but they cleared up quite quickly and didn’t appear to put any serious water on the road.
We arrived at Barkston very early, and managed to get set up, scrutineered and signed on very early. We got some replacements for some stickers which hadn’t stuck very well at the last event – you may remember me writing that we’d had to put these on in the wind and the rain previously! These didn’t take too long to put on at Barkston so we were able to sit in our chairs and look smug whilst other people were dashing about.
Humphrey and support –Sakura
As you can see from the picture we now have race numbers, which are magnetic. We just have to swap the 6’s to 7’s when I go out, hence Sakura is currently looking after my 7’s.
Our friends turned up in their Mk1 MR2 which they had finished painting yesterday, which led to a nice MR2 Mk1 Club entry:
Soon we were ready for the sighting laps, and as before one of us had to take the road car out as all drivers *have* to see a sighting lap. I took Sakura out, and had the advantage of taking Jo, the other MR2 Mk1 driver as a passenger, who has raced at Barkston before so was giving me advice on lines and braking etc on the way round. This really helped!
The track was really different to Waterbeach. It was a lot narrower, probably a car and a half width, and there really was no room for error. Most apexes were marked with a pole, and chicanes were made out of tyres or blocks. It was a twisty circuit with one long straight at the start and a short one nearer the end. This was a circuit that really tested ability and handling more than raw power. This was going to be interesting!
The organisers had listened to our feedback at the end of the last Sprint, and they were much more organised with the runs, and more sympathetic towards car sharers. The first driver was to go out quite early and then swap drivers at the end of the paddock, and the second driver would jump the queue, making it much less of a rush to get two runs in. Phil and I were grateful for this as we had installed the harnesses, and due to us being different heights, we had a lap belt each, ready adjusted to ourselves, which we would clip in, instead of having to keep adjusting the same harness.
As with the first sprint, there was to be two untimed practice runs, and the hopefully 8 times runs. Phil went out for his first practice, with no mishaps to report and then it was my turn. I was much calmer this time but as I went round the track I could feel that I was going too slow and got back to the paddock feeling very dejected. The harnesses had really pinned me to the seat and had caused pain in my shoulder, and I could just tell that I could easily have got more speed. I decided to use the normal seatbelt for a bit to see if it made me feel less in pain and more confident!
By the second practice run, I still felt like I could not get any more speed out of the car. I knew I was braking too much and accelerating too little, but couldn’t see where or how I could brake less or accelerate more. This was very frustrating.
The day went on like this for me, although each run I felt I was getting better. When the times came out at lunchtime though, it actually turned out that I had been getting slower. I could not work out how to get quicker although I was feeling more and more confident.
Phil, on the other hand was flying! The two non MR2s in our class had beaten us at Waterbeach, however the Corolla wasn’t doing anything this time, and Phil was slowly catching the mad Starlet.
The weather throughout the day was showery but warm, and it was a bit of a pot luck as to whether you got a wet track or a dry one. We managed to stay on the R888s all day and Phil only got one really wet run where he couldn’t get grip.
In the afternoon I went out determined to be QUICKER! The weather had put me off a little, but as the track dried further into the afternoon, I managed to start pulling back my times a little. My last time of the day was the quickest, as at Waterbeach, and I think I need to have that mentality of ‘right, this is it’ a little earlier in the day in order to throw the car about and really hoon.
We managed to get 8 runs in the end which was great, although Phil wanted one more as he was still catching the Starlet.
When the results were announced, we were really pleased that Phil had got second place in the class, predictably the Starlet was 1st. The difference in time between 1st and 2nd place was just over a tenth of a second!
Phil came 13th overall out of around 50 of us, beating a lot of the higher classes consisting of GT4’s turbo MR2s, V8 Supras, and V6 MR2s. You wont be surprised to know I came last again, but I still had lots of fun!!
The dynamic duo:
Trophy:
Official photos have been purchased but one of the other photographers had posted some of his pics, including the really fetching one of me:
Phil had mentioned that the clutch had been slipping throughout the day, and on our little convoy back to the caravan, I noticed he wasn’t keeping up with myself and Sakura at all. The clutch had started slipping badly and he was trying to keep the revs down as we had a 2 hour run home the day after. Needless to say we did manage the run home but now we have a new clutch to fit before the next sprint! So much for a relaxing weekend eh?! At least that’s something to write about, and who knows, we might even had beaten that Starlet with a fully functioning clutch!
