Yesterday marked another of our first forays onto new tarmac. I've never pedaled Aintree before but YouTube research suggested only one thing, it's fast. It might only be three corners, but bloody hell they are three very fast corners. In its heyday it was a Grand Prix circuit with it being graced with the likes of Clark & Brabham. The tarmac is bumpy and extremely wide, with some surprising hips. Everything that increasing speed highlights and adds to the danger/fun. When we arrived and set off to walk the track in the morning, we couldn't believe the size of it...
Very intimidating place. Even though there's lots of run off, it would be very easy to whistle very far into the distance and into disaster. Cars prepped and ready to rock.
Signing on and taking in some much needed advice from the old school training board.
Walking out of signing on we bumped into a familiar face, Mr Rowe. A veteran in the S2000 in the Sprints and Hill Climb scene, a very talented driver with a numerous of wins, trophies and records. He noticed we were registered in the 1D class and decided to change his entry join us. Originally destined to use his Peugeot, he thought he would have more fun tussling with a few more in his class.
Returning to our cars we get talking to a few more of the competitors, and its apparent that nearly everyone is seasoned drivers here with well equipped cars. One of the MX5's was running with some serious engine work, super glorious sounding cams in the 2.0 Duratec. These things can comfortably run 260BHP with solid cams, and I expected that's exactly what this chap had nestled in the bay. With all the veterans and cars with us, I felt like we were in for a smacking. Oh well, at least its a sunny day... hahaha
After all the briefings and certain amount of caution instilled, we tackled our first practice runs.
What an awesome stretch of road. Its terrifyingly fast around the bends, I had no idea where to effectively turn in, brake or power. Bit of a cluster for the first chuck around the circuit, but set a very reasonable time of 55.82. Into practice 2 I managed to shave another 1.67s off with a 54.15. Things were starting to drop into place however I was still struggling to find the right way to tackle everything comfortably. Before lunch break the first timed runs were called and off we went....
Unfortunately due to about 10 minutes sat waiting on the start line due to an issue on track I forgot to start my camera. Tyres were cold from the burnout due to the wait, but hey ho off we go. Set a very reasonable 53.60, which ended up being my fastest time of the day due to a series of calamities on the remaining tries. Run 2 I ended up with a tail out into the first corner, Run 3 I had a spectacular drift around Beechers and Run 4 I managed to find 5th gear successfully three times in a row instead of 3rd.
Dori Dori....
Despite all the little mistakes the day was amazing fun with some great company. It was great to have Mr.Rowe there to learn from and have a good bench mark of how I should be pedaling in the years to come. With the collected first run I managed to secure 2nd place (53.60s), and Ray managed to take 3rd (54.35s). Mr.Rowe took 1st (53.14s) meaning that it was a 1st, 2nd 3rd S2K finish. Really looking forward to tackling Aintree again. Its a lot of fun for three bends. Big thanks to everyone who came along and made the day special. Cheers chaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment