Article by Steve Cox

It says something about the strength of the Speed Championship when we can run two events on the same day and still muster 25 cars at opposite ends of the country.  This was not by design; one of the organising clubs moved their date just before we finalised the calendar, and it was too late to change.  Nonetheless, the event at Loton Park went swimmingly (as you will have read in Simon Cole / Paul Edwards’ article!) and Debden was much the same.

The early morning in Essex was gorgeous, the sun shone and the skylarks were in good voice as we walked the course – not the best surface to be honest, but it was the shape of the bends and the notorious roundabout we were most interested in.  The first long sweeper goes on forever with an apex so late, you’d do better setting off tomorrow.  At the end of this most deceptive bend is a clockwise roundabout sited so far to the left as to be invisible on the approach.  Too much speed and you demolish the cones, too slowly, and you have no momentum for the slingshot out again.

The second half of the course heads towards the old mine-shaft where Skippy once played as a young Joey, but before that there is the kart track which has some very tight and twisty bits and then out through the chicane and a blast to the finish line.

At the end of practice, Cox and Duggleby were a fag paper apart as usual; David Balderson’s super gold Tasmin 350i coupe was in contention alongside Waspy Bankhurst, and then everybody else within a handicap second of those.  It was already close and it was only 11am! 

The organising club announced that there would be an hour’s lunch break, which was not good news as we spied the clouds blowing towards us from the West (I do believe this was the edge of a huge weather system that took in all of the UK, but especially Shropshire and Essex.  Sure enough, as soon as the marshals started to munch their burgers, down it came – and really heavily.  By the time play resumed at 1:30pm, the track was soaked with large areas of standing water.  There was some consternation that one of the classes was chosen to go and “sweep the track” i.e. go and have a run and try to disperse some of the water.  More controversially, not everyone in that class had the extra go!  Anyway, it didn’t affect us; we just went and drove quite steadily so as to bank a time except Alan Bankhurst who threw it into the weeds whilst “testing the envelope of the conditions”. 

I must give a special mention to James Kay at this point.  James had arrived late, not walked the course and basically was flying by the seat as they say.  His first run was a “wrong route” (unsurprisingly), his second was better but slow – and then he had is first official timed run in the worst conditions this side of Stornaway.  The boy done good in the end, but I digress.

Richard Blacklee was having his own challenges throughout the day things began to disappear mysteriously.  Firstly, his driving gloves vanished, and then his car keys.  Gloves were handed in, but car keys failed to materialise hence the reason for him to usually carry at least another two or three sets.

Alan Bankhurst spent his lunch hour talking to my son in law Ed about how to build a tvr Vixen from a box of completely random spare parts (just like they used to at the factory all those years ago).  Ed has bought most of Alan’s “spare” yellow Vixen as a kit and we may well see it again in 2008.

I can’t say that the rain actually stopped but it eased sufficiently for us to be able to recognise large familiar shapes across the runway – the burger van, the porta loos, and Dave Jenkins and Hugh Davies for example.  Our second runs were at the tail end of all the other cars but even though conditions had improved a great deal, it was still slippery enough to cause the torquey Tivs a few problems.  Timski Scrivens’ ski-boot Cerb was having a squirmy day, the flying Blacklee brothers fought it out as usual, Richard winning this time.  Hugh Davies and Dave Jenkins finished with Dave slightly the quicker but the handicap flipped the positions in Hugh’s favour.  The four litre Chimps of Mike Horn and new boy James Kay finished within 0.2 secs of each other and it is clear already that James will be making a highly competitive return next season.  The top four (Bankhurst, Cox, Duggleby and Balderson) were all within a handicap second but it was David Balderson’s well-deserved 25 points that will be consigned to the history books.  A first victory for Dave showing yet again that the algorithm pulls it all together at the end.  Well done Dave, many more next year I hope.

I suppose I’d better get on with planning next year’s now!

If you would like to join us for the new season, please drop me a note to coxygoesvroom@blueyonder.co.uk  The 2007 entry forms will soon be available.