| Round 20 - Prescott 27th Sept 2009 |
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Prescott is a fabulous venue owned and run by the Bugatti Owners Club who in recent years have sought to maximise opportunities for club members to come along to support their club championships. Again this year, Bugatti invited the TVRCC and offered a dedicated parking area and free "parade" run up the hill at lunchtime. Having watched the club members go up, I wasn't sure whether everyone was truly parading and for those of you who'd like to drive the Prescott hill more quickly, I recommend you join our championship next year and do it properly with numbers on. The event Bugatti had organised was billed as the Autumn Classic and was made up of large entries from speed championships run by Bugatti, Morgan, MG and of course TVRCC. Such was the size of our entry that we had to be cut back to 25 cars in our class, which was a shame. With only three rounds left in the 2009 calendar, all of our leading contenders needed to jettison earlier rounds where their scores were less than optimal. For example, Paul Edwards had a torrid few rounds mid-season because of engine failures, and Geoff Stallard had taken his eye off the ball and let Mike Roe steal a march on him early on. These guys have now all done at least 8 rounds so, because only their 8 best rounds will count, they have an opportunity to add a couple of better scores from the last few events. It's a very interesting time of year; it's not just the scores we care about it's the top few places in the leaderboard and championship honours that are at stake. Since Jes Firth won the championship outright in July, the top two leading contenders in Class B (Paul Edwards and Matt Oakley) have done their very best to secure "Top of the Class" and if you follow this column, you'll know that they regularly finish hundredths/sec apart. Last week's dead heat at Shelsley was absolutely the right result so Prescott promised to be equally exciting. At the top of Class A, Stewart Lobley, Mike Roe and Geoff Stallard have had a great season and all three were at Prescott for the big Vixen showdown. I must say at this point that we did have one absentee in Tina Hawkes who was competing her Chimp at Prescott on the previous day in another championship. Unfortunately she entered "Pardon" a little too quickly and under-steered into the barrier on the exit. Tina was taken by ambulance to the local hospital for a routine check-up but was sent home almost immediately because she was so angry at having crashed her car that she was upsetting patients around her. Good girl! After practice, in Class A Geoff Stallard had left all in his wake – it must be remembered that Geoff is a regular visitor to Prescott and has also run his beautiful Ginetta through the these Cotswold curves many times too. Although Stewart's Vixen had careered through the record books all season, he was going to have his work cut out today. Ian Bannister and Steve Dennis were also looking good in the 3000Ss and the novice Vixens of Nick Hawkes and Neil Hastle made up the rest of the class. At the top of Class B after practice were usual suspects Oakley, Edwards, Everett and Alan Hugh Davies – why am I not surprised? Three Nuts Watson, Martin Cockcroft and Simon Fletcher were a gnats behind these, and the chimps of Hugh Davies and Mike Horn were having their usual knockabout. The first timed runs didn't really produce any great surprises but it is the closeness of the competition that continues to astound me. At the top of Class A, Stallard and Lobley were 0.44 handicap secs apart, and in Class B Edwards and Oakley were separated by 0.13 on algorithm. Simon Fletcher had moved up a couple of places to separate Everett from his Siamese twin Alan Hugh Davies and Cockcroft and Watson continued to duke it out. One other battle I'd almost missed was the roadgoing cars having a superb day. Hugh Davies, Mike Horn, Jeff Allan and Richard Blacklee capture the essence of the championship wonderfully. They have virtually standard roadgoing cars, they know who they are battling against and never let it get in the way of a good day out. Great fun. At the end of the day (as they say in the best footballing circles) Stallard took Class A on handicap but Stewart did finally get his act together sufficiently to record a new class hill record of 51.09. At the top of Class B, Paul Edwards won by 0.02 of a handicap second from Matthew Oakley; Chaos Everett was 3rd and Alan Hugh Davies 4th. Mike Horn won the dust up amongst the roadgoing guys, and Jo Briars picks up a very useful 18 points go back to the top of the ladies leaderboard. It really is the best way to waste your time. Steve Cox |
