This weekend was the sixth round of the Scholarship, a hillclimb at
Wiscombe Park, near Honiton. The Scholarship round was on the Sunday, but
(along with a number of other Scholarship competitors) I had also entered
the Saturday meeting in order to get a little sneaky practice in.

The course is an interesting one. It starts off in open fields, but
finishes in dense woodland. Almost immediately after the start, the first
corner is a tight left hander. There's then a long straight with "Bunny's
Leap" halfway along it. In a more powerful car, Bunny's is a difficult
test, but in a Scholarship car it's easy flat. There's then a right hander
through a gateway (shades of Harewood) and into the trees followed by the
Esses. This is a long series of sweeping bends through the woods leading to
a tight right hand hairpin with a sharp step on the apex. Another long
straight followed by a left hand hairpin almost immediately before the
finishing line.

From the gateway all the way to the finish, the road surface is *terrible*.
Under the trees it never fully dries out (it was still damp at the end of
Sunday after two days sunshine and competition), and covered in moss and
algae. Extremely slippery. The trees are at most a few metres away from the
track and in places right on the edge. A few had a single straw bale
strapped to them, which didn't exactly inspire confidence.

I took Saturday easy, treating it as a learning exercise. My times were OK,
however, lying third out of the Scholarship competitors there. I was pretty
confident I knew where I had to improve in order to find a little more time
(carry more speed through the gateway and be less agressive with the
throttle on the hairpin in order to avoid wheelspin).

Sunday started foggy which meant that the track was extremely slippery for
the first run. I was getting wheelspin changing from second to third (a
first for me!). Everyone's times were slower than yesterday (50s and 51s,
where we were doing 47s and 48s the day before).

By the time second practice came along, the sun was out with a vengeance
and the track was drying (although still nowhere near dry). Everything was
fine until I turned in for the first of the Esses. Suddenly I was
completely blind! The contrast between the bright sunshine lower down the
course and the gloom under the trees, coupled with the occasional shaft of
sunlight meant that I couldn't see a thing :-( I was already committed to
the corner, so I couldn't really slow down much - all I could do was
attempt to remember where the course went and drive accordingly. I *think*
that what happened (it's difficult to tell because I couldn't see where I
was going) was that I held the left hander slightly too close, getting the
tail out to the right. I overcorrected and the tail went too far to the
left for me to correct. By this time, I was starting to be able to see
again and was heading in roughly the right direction, so I stamped on the
brakes and clutch (in a spin, both feet in!) and slithered down the course,
finally going off slowly backwards to the left. Luckily, I managed to find
a bit of the course where the trees were about 4 metres away from the edge
of the track, so didn't hit anything.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, the right hand rear wing was damaged,
allowing me to test the plastic bolts that I'd used to replace the stock
steel ones. They worked perfectly, allowing the wing to come away from the
bodywork without damage (to the bodywork, that is - the wing looks
decidedly the worse for wear).

Luckily no damage other than the wing. A few more bolts and I was back in
action again. Got a nice round of applause from the marshalls on the way
back down the hill as well ;-)

Several other competitors also had an Ohmigodwherethehellsthetrack
experience at the same point, but I was the only one who actually came to
grief AFAIK.

For the first timed run, the sun was still pretty bright. Wary of doing the
same thing again, I slowed right down for the first of the esses, had a
good hard look to make sure that I could see where I was going and then set
off again. Despite that, my time was in the low 48s and good enough for
fourth place.

For the second timed run, the sun was covered by clouds. I could see again!
I had an absolutely fantastic run. Much faster through the gateway, flat
through the esses (white knuckles!), got the power down well at the
hairpin. And then I made my trademark stupid mistake (you were waiting for
this, weren't you). Braking for the final bend, my foot slipped off the
brake and onto the accelerator. There was no way I could make the corner
and luckily there's an escape road for this one (the only corner on the
course which does have an escape!). Blown time and seventh overall :-(

All three of the other drivers in contention for third place overall beat
me, meaning that I'm now sixth in the championship :-(

Oh well, it's all part of the learning experience...