FSRA BRITISH F1 CHAMPIONSHIP
It’s been a long break since last we ventured out in the truck at the end of May. Having been to Highland Motorcycle Dynos to get the engine set up in between we were looking forward to trying it out. The previous weekend we discovered a slight post dyno problem as the cush drives at the rear sprocket are from an LCR they are slightly thicker than they should be and swell out. This had resulted in a little destruction. A quick trip to John at Moray Firth Precision and a brand new sprocket mounting plate was created by Thursday! Thanks John – bacon saved.
We set off sharp on Friday afternoon with Lee, Neil and Carol on board and Rhys picked up on the road at Tomatin. The sidecar end of the paddock was quite full by the time we arrived, thankfully with no T in the Park hold ups. We parked up and started to set up the awning in beautiful sunshine taking a quick break to watch the FSRA British Sidecars last practice.
Signwritten lorry with new awning courtesy of Digby Brown Solicitors
It was quite an exciting session with a spectacular crash from Team Lawson who found the bump at the hairpin and shot off into the infield before turning upside down.
We had to check over the outfit for the morning and put the under tray back on. When we did this we discovered a bent pin and had to scrabble around the paddock at midnight looking for a rivet nut tool. Thanks to Scott and Leon for sorting us out.
This was a two day meeting so no long lie on Saturday morning. Up with the larks and off to sign on and get scrutineered. We had quite a lot of sessions to go out in as we were entered for both the Scottish races and the FSRA round. Saturday morning sessions were warm up for both classes then qualifying for the Scottish and two Scottish races. The British had two qualifying sessions then one race. We decided to pace ourselves a bit and do the warm ups, qualifying and only the Scottish races. We didn’t qualify particularly well and were a bit disappointed with our time feeling like the outfit just wasn’t pulling right and the brakes were not working effectively. Over lunch the brake fluid was changed and this seemed to make a big difference. It was decided that the gearing was also now wrong and didn’t match the performance of the modified fuelling. This would be changed over Saturday night and we just had to decide whether to go for 14/42 or 13/40.
Photo courtesy of Power Images
We qualified 8th in the Scottish and 11th in the British but the times were nowhere near our best so we had a bit of work to do. In the first Scottish race we got a good start and the 10 laps flew in without incident. A bit of a dice with Steve Charlton and Karl MacGrath and Bill Hancock and Stephen Markland made for interesting racing but once clear we kept up the pace convinced they were right on our tail till we crossed the line in 6th place.
The second race didn’t get off to quite as good a start as Kerr forgot to select a gear on the start line! Kenny Andrew kissed the chair with his new RCN as we finally launched into action. It was difficult to catch up and although we tried hard we couldn’t re-capture Bill Hancock and ended up 7th.
As we had decided to give the British race a miss we went to watch it instead the action was awesome and as we caught the highlights at the hairpin we wished we had done it – typical! Phil Bell and Bob Biggs played a last minute move on Andy Peach and Charlie Richardson at the hairpin on the last lap to take the win. Rick Lawrence finished the race with his party piece hand stand on the chair. Jen has no aspirations to copy the trick any time soon!
Saturday night gave us time to change the gearing and we decided to go for 13 teeth on the front sprocket and 40 to the rear. We checked the sidecar over, cleaned it and relaxed looking forward to some more racing the next day. Overnight the wind got up…..no the awning didn’t blow away for those of you familiar with our previous exploits! But we had a sleepless night worrying about it even though we were securely fastened to Roger Lovelock and Rick Lawrence’s truck next door. The wind finally gave way to torrential rain and sleep.
Sunday morning was still dreich and we had the usual, cloud watching, tyre choice problem. We were sitting on slicks before the practice and couldn’t decide by the time warm up 2 came round for Scottish sidecars so we waited for warm up 6 for the British sidecars to see if it would improve any. With about five minutes left to decide we plumped for wets and the boys sprang into action with a Formula one speed wheel swap. Thanks guys it was awesome! We got out only to fnd that the track was much drier than we thought. Never mind it was only 5 minutes and gave us a chance to see what the new gearing was going to be like. What an improvement – roll on racing !
First race was a Scottish one and another good start. Just about everyone was out on wets but again it was too dry we could only hope they would last as a melted rear wet is as slidey as a slick in the rain. Davie Annan had literally just touched down from his holiday in Florida and was ahead of us until his rear let go after Macintyre’s. He was lucky not to roll over and we shot round behind him to finish in 5th place. Next up was the British race we were all set to put the fairing back on after re-fuelling when Kerr noticed the rear bracket had broken again. Although the boys worked quickly to repair it we were not ready in time for the first call and had to sit it out.
The third sidecar race was another Scottish again it was wet and showery before we went out and we all stuck with wets. Another mistake the track was even drier than the first time. Sure enough as the race went on the rear tyre cooked and it was like racing on marbles. Kerr kept the sidecar planted and got a peach of a slide round the hairpin. Davie Annan and Grant Hunter had got away but we were catching them as the race wore on just didn’t have enough laps but we secured another 5th place. Finally we had one more race to do – we had to get out in a British race. We were a bit nervous to say the least.
At lunchtime Stuart Muldoon went out for some final laps in his sidecar to mark his retiral from the sport with a return to the circuit he started on 20 years ago.
Finally dry, warm, sunny and at last time for the new slick! We got another good start and kept with the pack for the first lap or two until their tyres warmed up and they took off! Barry James and Ellie Jordan took a flyer past us at the top of Duffus and managed to pull it off until they broke down at the end of that second lap. We tried to keep some one in sight but soon were flying round in our own space not sure if there was anyone chasing close or not. Then on the second last lap we found Carl Parkinson and Phil Pryde (the Heinz Beans man) off at the bottom and we flew by. We crossed the line in 9th place. This was so much better than we had expected - we weren’t last, we weren’t lapped! We could go home happy.
All in all a great weekend. Thanks to Carol, Lee, Rhys, Neil and Stewart for all their help – couldn’t do it without you guys. Thanks to everyone who came to watch including Jen’s old flatmates from many moons ago who must have thought Jen had lost her marbles in her old age!! Great to see you all, your support is also appreciated.
More pictures to follow from Iain at Power Images who very kindly took a quick photo shoot on Sunday......
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