Article by Dave Sharp

‘Twas a glorious summer’s Sunday morning whence the tvr Car Club Speed Championship descended on the Lotus test track at Hethel, shattering the crystal clear Norfolk calm.  A tvr concerto covering 7 ages of the Blackpool marque was played out before an appreciative Ferrari and Lotus audience.  Spanning 5 decades of Bristol Avenue production, the participants included a trio of Chimaeras and Vixens, a duo of Cerberas and 350’s (Wedge & C), and a single S & M. 

Once eyelids had been prised open after some unsociably early starts, and caffeine infusions inserted, the banter in the paddock began in earnest.  Talk of over ambitious braking points, don’t bother to brake at all points, and only lift if you’re a wuss points were savoured, chewed up and mostly spat into the Norfolk dust.  Sadly those pesky little Vixens and the madman in the T350C took the advice at face value, hardly bothered to brake at all and vanished over the horizon with all the major trophies.

Practice was relatively uneventful apart from a few Ferraris throwing themselves into the gravel traps, and the unfortunate loss of John Cucci’s 3000M which limped over the finish line misfiring like Frank Lampard.  Sadly, that was the end of his day despite the valiant attempts at CPR administered by Dave’ll Fix It Jenkins.

The stage was now set…. Steve Dennis in the mystical Angel of the North Vixen was out in front with the baying hounds in hot pursuit, smelling blood.  Paul Edwards, on his first Hethel visit, in the modern Vixen interpretation, the T350C, was snapping at his heels. Stewart Lobley, who incidentally was in another Vixen, and on his first visit, just couldn’t contain his excitement after each of his runs. He literally burst out of his car after each run, jumped up and down on the spot for a good 30 seconds before spouting something in broad Yorkshire to the effect that he was rather enjoying himself.  Whoever said that Stewart is a boy in a man’s body wasn’t far wrong, but his enthusiasm is a joy to behold. 

After Lunch competition proper began and the job of catching the albino fox really began.  Everyone was on it, and the times were tumbling. Those lower down the order were improving more quickly than the top of the order and the leaderboard was compressing.  Nick Blacklee in his old man’s Chimaera, Dave Balderson in his 350 Fixed Head Coupe, myself in the S and Stewart Lobley in his Vixen, were all coming into contention with the 2 leaders. 

The pressure on Steve Dennis was building relentlessly, Stewart was constantly reminding him of his come from behind 10 pin bowling victory the previous night, and how he was improving by 2 seconds per run.  Determination and confidence were just oozing from the perspiring pores of Paul.  There were 4/10ths of a second in it, and Steve’s back legs were showing signs of a wobble.  The red light flicked to green for the final run and we were off…..

The T350c improved it’s time by 3/10ths of a second, a superb 77.19, that usurped current champion Jes Firth’s Cerbera record of last year, but even this wasn’t good enough to catch that wily old albino fox that is Mr Dennis who improved his time by a further ¾ of a second on handicap.  Much respect Steve.

3rd, 4th and 5th were within 12 hundredths of a second of each other.  Tim Scrivens in his first year of sprinting in his jaw dropping Cerbera improved hand over fist with each run and with his final 2 ½ second improvement on the last run, he was beside himself. 

Hugh Davies is usually good for a quote to round off the day, and he didn’t fail us.  When discussing various alternative pastimes, between runs, Hugh mentioned that he used to go Scuba Diving but gave it up because there was too much getting up early, driving for hundreds of miles, getting into tight suits then only getting 10-20 minutes of diving action.  So he took up sprinting instead; yes , you’ve guessed it, early starts, the tight race-suit, mostly lots of driving to events and around 6 minutes of driving action….

….but what a fabulous 6 minutes eh Hugh?