First National Auto car Caterham Sport Scholarship

Event 2

Castle Combe Sprint - 10th July 1999

Saturday dawned bright and sunny at the picturesque Wiltshire venue.  The circuit had undergone some changes since the Scholarship last visited there, with the addition of two new complexes, Bobbies and the Esses.

It was lovely to see so much support for everyone - wives, girlfriends,children,grannies, etc etc, no doubt the weather encouraged everybody.   Sun tan cream was in evidence everywhere, but I'm sure there was an awful lot of burnt skin on Sunday.  We were sad not to have the company of two competitors, Arthur Gilmour and Bob Howes.  Poor Arthur is recovering from food poisoning and Bob has a bad knee!!  We look forward to seeing them fully recovered for Curborough.

Colin Brown, our Scrutineer had a fairly busy day, it seems that there were a few timing struts, 6 point harnesses and FIA struts missing!!  Please make sure that you remember everything, you are lucky none of you were fined or penalised this time.  If you had all these things fitted correctly at Harewood it should not have been difficult to ensure that you had them for Combe.  Do ensure that you have enough fuel for Curborough, it is not so readily available at Curborough and Pestalozzi as it is at Combe.

Just a quick thank you to Graeme Smith's girlfriend Karen for helping the Weaver family with the decals.  Alistair, I think you owe your mum and dad a couple of large gin and tonics!!

Ian Bowler was £30 lighter after signing on without his licence, and I know some of you left your licences behind, they will be forwarded to you.  Please try to remember to collect them after an event.

It was certainly a very busy day, there were about 160 cars to get through 2 rounds of practice and two timed runs.  Tony Streeting, the Clerk of the Course did a magnificent job to get you all through before the 6.00 curfew.  A day like that takes an awful lot of organising and a lot of hard work from all the officials, timekeepers and marshals, and I am sure you would al acknowledge that the day was very well run.

Practice runs seemed to go without drama, it looked as though it was going to be a battle between Jason, Alistair an Paul Butcher, with best times for Jason and Colin being 78.42 and 78.43 respectively!!

After practice,our hard working scrutineer was on the war path again.  Colin Hayes' car was found to have illegal jets in the carburettor, this being due to the fact that the car had been on a rolling road the day before.  If you take your car to a garage for anything at all, you must ensure that the mechanics are aware that the car is currently running in a one make championship, and that the specified technical regulations are adhered to.  Luckily for Colin Hayes, the scrutineer allowed him to continue, providing he changed the jets before his timed runs.  This was possible due to the very sporting co-operation from a fellow competitor, David Hyde.   Thank you David.

Another competitor who shall remain nameless (I think he works for Caterham Cars in the sales department, short guy with a nice shiney red car, and by the end of the day, he had a nice shiney red forehead to match) had the wrong cycle wings on his car.  I hope we do not see those at Curborough.

And for the timed afternoon runs, I think most of you managed to improve your runs each time, luckily conditions did not change throughout the day.  Again, it proved to be a battle between the leaders at the end of practice, resulting in a win for Jason, Alistair coming an excellent second, Colin Hayes 3rd, Paul Butcher 4th, and a very delighted Graeme Smith coming 5th.  Colin Hayes seemed to improve his times with the borrowed jets!!!

I was glad to see so many stayed for the prize giving, those of you lucky enough to have won a prize were very lucky, the trophies were certainly very different.   Instead of a glass, silver or pewter trophy, the winners were awarded replica car trophies which were beautifully done.  Well done Bristol Motor Club.

Kim Denning
Series Co-ordinator