KNOCKHILL 23-24 MAY

 

We were hopeful this time that the weather would be kind enough to put the awning up without any stress. Having gathered up Neil, Carol and Rhys we set off South. It was a beautiful evening with the sun still shining when we arrived. The awning was put up in about an hour, which wasn’t bad for our first attempt. It looked fantastic! So to keep it that way we anchored it securely to Stewart’s van.

 

We gave the sidecar a thorough check over and changed the oil before getting out for practice at 5.40pm. The practice seemed to go well and we rounded off the evening by hosting the Sidecar Club meeting.

 

There’s no scrutineering the night before at Knockhill now so it’s up early to sign on get the sidecar down to the scrutineers’ shed for a check over before breakfast and wait for practice 6, the qualifying session. Kerr had been taking some advice from Michael Keenan the night before on a fast line for the back section from Duffus to Clarke’s. It was time to put it into practice.  Kerr’s driving was excellent a faster pace round the back half of the circuit kept the speed up. We were sorely disappointed to only get 59s as our fastest lap –something was wrong here.

 

We emptied some excess oil from the air box and put the poor performance down to that and the wind on track. We would try again in the race. Meantime there was a ‘Be A Passenger’ session during the lunch break and all the sidecars headed back down to the pit lane to pick up the eager victims. Everyone had an excellent time. Kerr’s final passenger was easily a match for him as he had an artificial arm and leg having lost both clearing land mines. He said afterwards that he could easily be tempted to come out again at East Fortune.

 

First race after lunch was for SACU Scottish Championship. We were alongside Davie Annan and Grant Hunter on the grid and got off to a better start beating them down through Duffus. It didn’t last Davie overtook into the hairpin then started pulling away.  We finished 5^th just getting lapped by Bill Davie at the end. Something wasn’t right. Fastest lap was only 59.5 s even with a faster route round the back.

 

Before the second race we checked the plugs and they were all lean and the fuel pressure was slightly below 3 so we turned it up. We also changed on to the reserve rear slick to get some more rubber down and slackened off the rear spring as far as possible to see if that would help handling.

 

The second race was better from a handling perspective but we still only managed a 59.4s fastest lap. We kept with the pack in the section we were normally slow in but when they hit the straight to the hairpin they all pulled away and again up the start finish straight. Back to the drawing board.

 

We packed up the awning with only one mishap – with Jen having drilled into the troops that the white wires had to come out before winding in the awning roof- this was duly done but without taking off the roof struts that the wires were holding on which promptly fell to the ground saved only by Neil’s head. He has survived to tell the tale thankfully.

 

Next date in the diary is a trip to Signright where Shane will put the graphics on the truck.

 

Qualifying

Position	Number	Name	Best time	Best speed	In Lap
1	1	Bill Davie/Graeme Davie	52.941	87.516	12
2	72	Scott Lawrie/James Connel	53.689	86.297	13
3	22	David Wrinn/Stuart Clark	55.500	83.481	6
4	77	Jim Hamilton/Mike Knox	55.788	83.050	7
5	12	Michael Keenan/Alan MacKinnon	56.798	81.573	2
6	69	David Annan/Grant Hunter	57.708	80.287	6
7	44	Kerr Douglas/Jenny McCallum	59.998	77.223	5
8	24	Hamish Mackay/Michael Mackay	1:04.2	72.093	4

 

Race 6

Position	Number	Name	Diff	Best time	Total Time
1	1	Bill Davie/Graeme Davie		53.403	9:02.482
2	72	Scott Lawrie/James Connel	+3.051	53.506	9:05.533
3	77	Jim Hamilton/Mike Knox	+34.645	56.856	9:37.127
4	69	David Annan/Grant Hunter	+56.603	58.546	9:59.085
5	44	Kerr Douglas/Jenny McCallum	+1 lap	59.559	9:06.447
6	12	Michael Keenan/Alan MacKinnon	+1:26.12	56.800	10:32.572
DNF	24	Hamish Mackay/Michael Mackay		59.339

 

Race 12a

Position	Number	Name	Diff	Best time	Total Time
1	1	Bill Davie/Graeme Davie		53.466	9:02.662
2	72	Scott Lawrie/James Connel	+3.394	53.394	9:06.056
3	77	Jim Hamilton/Mike Knox	+32.239	56.402	9:34.901
4	12	Michael Keenan/Alan MacKinnon	+33.144	56.295	9:35.806
5	69	David Annan/Grant Hunter	+45.287	57.764	9:47.949
6	44	Kerr Douglas/Jenny McCallum	+59.414	59.414	10:01.836