It was a hot all day and everyone was enjoying the sunshine at Curborough for this double lap sprint. There were seven 500 drivers and the first thing everyone had to do were to pick a 3-driver team and give them a name as there was a team trophy based on a nominal (bogey) time for each class. Jan, Mark and Darrell called their team “The Swingers” due to their cars’ suspension units and Andrew, JB and Tim called their team “What the Fox is Hat”, I guess this name was chosen due to the variety of their cars in their team and in the belief that no one else at the meeting would know what their cars were!

Andrew set the pace in first practice with every one else in hot pursuit. He then knocked another 62 hundredths of a second off in second practice, while JB thought he would go quicker by cutting off the corner and doing a bit of grass cutting in the process. Afterwards a full discussion ensued and whilst JB was telling Darrell about his car and gesturing wildly he burnt his arm on his exhaust pipe and needed the help of St John’s to dress it for him! Darrell was struggling to change gear so spent best part of the lunch break adjusting his gear linkages, which he said later was much better and his times showed this too.

After lunch came the serious stuff, the timed runs. Andrew didn’t improve on his second practice time, but was still in the lead. Jan was 4 mph faster over the finish line than everyone else and Mark burnt a lot of rubber due to breaking late to get round the loop of the double lapper. Tim and Ted had still not resolved their gearbox issues they had at previous meetings, I guess all the gears are there but they just can’t find the one they want at the right time!

Second timed run and Andrew heard strange noises coming from his engine and decided to come in after one lap. Jan was quicker by just over half a second and again was fastest over the finish line with 86mph, but his overall time wasn’t as fast as Andrew’s first run. JB, having got to grips with going round the corners knocked one second off his practice time. Darrell and Mark were disappointed as they were both a little slower than their first timed runs.

The Clerk of the Course read out every team name at the awards presentation, some of them were very funny and he somewhat stumbled over our guys’ team name of “What the Fox is Hat”. But much to “The Swingers” delight they won the team trophy! Everyone agreed that they’d had a good day and thanks to BARC – Midlands Centre for a good event and for all the help they gave to the 500 guys in getting them down to the start line without having to queue up.

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