June 2001 Hillclimber

June 2001

Editorial

The Usual Stuff

I’m starting to write this on 26 May, five days short of the 31 May deadline for Hillclimber contributions. Peter Isaac rang the other evening to ask about the forthcoming issue and, at present there is only one item in the editorial files.

So, what to do? Well, with Foot & Mouth the early events were cancelled and it’s good news to hear that some are still scheduled to go ahead. It is inevitable that there will be little in the way of reports for this issue, but with few events on, all the more reason to give you something to read. Get the PC warmed up and email everyone for whom I have an e-address asking for items for the Hillclimber. (Thanks to Jo Lumley for sending me more addresses.) The result? A tremendous response. Many thanks everyone, you dun good. There is even an article to hold over until the next issue. Now, that must be a ‘first’.

E-technology

The electronic mail facility has been really useful on a couple of occasions this year. Anyone who would like to be put on the Editor’s e-address book, please email me. This doesn’t mean that we will provide a second class service to those without e-mail access, but it’s useful to know what proportion of the membership are contactable in this way.

Perhaps the committee could give some thought to making regs for event available on the club web site. They could be released on the same date as they are available from the Secretary of the meeting. All the entrant would have to do is to print it off, complete it and post it. We’re some way off from entering events on line, but it could well happen.

Tony

From the Chair

Some news about events – the classic Prescott is on as far as we know and hopefully by the time you read this it should have happened, but there are still concerns as the return road is also a bridleway and we may not be able to use it.

Unfortunately Barbon on 28 July has had to be cancelled due to foot and mouth problems. Also, as an indirect consequence of the crisis we have lost the second Prescott invitation on 23/24 June. The Bugatti Owners’ Club’s first Prescott had to be cancelled, so they need to squeeze in some car classes that are championship rounds into the late June meeting.

We don’t yet know what the position is likely to be as regards to the late season events in the south west – Wiscombe, Fairoak, Manor Farm and so on.

Don’t forget that we have a special test day for newcomers at Curborough on Saturday 28 July, the day before our regular Championship round. The aim of the event is to attract people in to the sport of hill climbing. Although Curborough is not a typical hill climb, it has the advantage of relative safety and easy marshalling. Doug Parnell and Robin Sims are organising this.

I recently inspected Bryn Bach Park and was treated like royalty by the local lads. The first event has already taken place, but don’t forget that there is a second one on 5 August. Please try to attend as it may be that last for a year or so because there are major roadworks planned for 2002. The park road which forms part of the course is to be widened and re-surfaced to act as a long-term temporary highway while the ‘proper’ road is being improved. The immediate consequence is that we may lose this event for a year, but the upshot may be a better course from 2003 onwards when the park road is returned to the local authority.

Peter Isaac

WHERE HAVE ALL THE RIDERS GONE?

Scarborough and Bryn Bach have passed,

The hill climb season's here at last.

But some have not yet entered one

So they'll be missing all the fun.

Gurston 1 has come and gone,

Riders spectating, looked all wrong.

Paul and Jamie scrapping madly

And Wills the senior didn't do badly.

So come on all you erstwhile riders

Forget the beer and various ciders.

Let's be having you on the track

We'll be ever so pleased to see you back.'

Doreen Sims

Curborough Track Day

28 July 2001

Well, not really a track day more like an afternoon in reality (2pm and finish at 5.30pm), but slowly we are getting organised. By the time you read this we will have started promoting the event. Kirsty is using her contacts in the bike press to get some promotion and Tigger is putting the details on the web site: www.nhca.co.uk just in case anyone doesn’t already know it. Ian Southerton will be trawling round some of the bike shops in the Midlands getting some of them to put up posters.

Now it’s your turn to get some of your friends, family or whatever to have a go. The price will be a measly £30 so no excuses there.

There’s little doubt that 2001 will be a difficult year for Hill Climbing largely thanks to Foot & Mouth, but also because the last two years has seen quite a few people move into other types of bike sport, so an event like the track day is an opportunity to introduce some new people to the sport.

The way that the event will run is that people from outside the regular Hill Climb fraternity will be given preferential treatment over regular riders. Any machine/rider of any age (over 16) will be allowed to enter so long as they hold a full bike licence and their bike is in sound condition and reasonably silenced. We hope to get people to book their ride rather than turn up on the day. If we cannot get enough entries then we will make it open to regular NHCA members who want a ride.

Entry forms are available now from me and I hope over the Internet once Tigger has performed his magic. As previously described riders will join the track at the middle of the Finish straight. From a standing start by the timing hut they will do a warm up lap followed by a flying lap which will be timed. The times will be made available for comparison purposes, but as this is not a competitive event no “results” will be published.

The maximum number of machines we are permitted is 35, so there should be plenty of runs for everybody. All we need to do is to fill the places and have a few volunteers on the day to help out with marshalling. If all the offers of assistance I have had come good that should not be too much of a problem especially now that Barbon has fallen victim of F&M.

Regards,

Doug Parnell

Manor Farm - News

I have tonight driven down to Manor Farm (Charmouth) to have a chat to the farmer regarding September's event, and this is definitely on. I can foresee a even bigger problem with straw bales this year, as the Foot and Mouth has affected the very area in East Devon where we source our bales. We used to collect between 80 & 90 for this event, but by being very careful with placement have managed with 70ish for the last two events.

For this course we use six bales for the two electric poles and 4 at the finish for the lights and water trough. Has anyone got any clever ideas for a suitable replacement for the 60 bales needed under the bridge.? We have considered old tyres covered with a Tarpaulin, plastic sacks filled with foam, old mattresses ? Any comments much appreciated, in good time before the event so that we can clear with our Safety Officer.

You can give me a ring on 01460 30724, if no answer leave a message on 01460 30997. This is a real problem so get your thinking caps on. We have used about 10 different farmers over the years but many have either finished farming or gone over to big bales. One spring meeting we had to source from 3 different farms, to get enough. And another time Curly had to bring them from Bridgwater!

Please support this event in September as last year it made a loss. We know the course is not brilliant but it does offer, flushing loos and hot shower's, and is only 10 minutes walk from the beach.

Will Wells

AGM /Dinner Dance 2001

On 20^th January, sixty-one people attended the annual Dinner Dance, the one social event we hold every year, an opportunity to applaud the people who have won awards through hard riding or untiring efforts to help the club put on events throughout the season. The Prince of Wales is a good location with a good ambience which is not over the top as some felt about The Grand Atlantic a few years ago. The food is good and there is a disco afterwards for those who want it, Geoff Sims videos and the bar for those who don’t, and you can stay overnight for a very reasonable price. So unless you decide to drink the bar dry, it needn’t cost much more than a two-day meeting.

Sixty-one might not sound like a bad turnout for a club with approximately one hundred and seventy five members, most of who are competitors. But having organised it for the first time this year, I have on my computer a list of who was there and by my reckoning there were just thirty-three competitors, the remainder being wives girlfriends guests etc. Some who turned up for the evening were not at the AGM where there were approximately sixty people mostly competitors. It’s not unreasonable to assume that overall approximately seventy NHCA members made the trip to the hotel but the majority did not go to the Dinner.

So what do you one hundred and seventy five members want us to do differently to get you to be sociable? Should we change the date back to before Christmas as it used to be? Would you prefer a more basic hotel, a louder disco or no disco at all or some other form of entertainment… my imagination starts to wander here. How about getting that group of cross dressers who appeared in Performance Bikes a while back to do a turn!

Seriously, Ladies and Gentlemen it’s a poor show if you can’t be bothered. It’s your club it is what you put into it. The last twelve months have not been good for a multitude of reasons most of which are tangible and can be addressed, but apathy is a serious problem which can ultimately affect a club to the point where it will impact on the clubs ability to run meetings. The turnout at the Dinner Dance was an unhealthy indicator. Your suggestions on how to make next year’s event better attended will be welcome.

Doug Parnell

From the Honey Jar

Well, since being elected as a committee member, I’ve not been able to do much. As we all know the F&M has curtailed a lot of events, (of which Robin & I have been trying to keep the latest info on the web site) and as of this moment I’ve not actually raced at all this year. Still, as they say “Every cloud has a silver lining” (Yeah, right, in cloud cuckoo land possibly). In this case, Hedgehog and I have been slogging our guts out working on our house. I’ve been told that it will be finished by Christmas. ‘Told’ being the operative word here! So the time and money has come in extremely useful!

Classic Prescott is going to be my first of the year, so the old Tricati has been drug out of it’s hidey hole (The back of a scrap van down the bottom of the field), washed, drained, charged and will hopefully be checked over and serviced. The other two, Hedgehog’s Slapper, and the YZ490 that continues to try to kill me, both had new engines last winter, finished off in a big rush for the start of the season… which didn’t. So they’ve been relegated to the Pontins Holiday Chalet until needed. As usual, most of the preparation work has been on the van, this year took nearly a week to prepare it, and I’m still not sure that it’ll pass it MoT!

The new bike is slowly taking shape, it was going to be a Rocati, it’s now a DuDa (pron: Doo-Daa) as it’s now got a Honda engine in it, an FT500 to be precise (for which I still owe Richard!). Hedgehog located a pair of Astralite wheels, complete with front end, slab yokes and massive alloy swingarm, the origin of which I have no idea as yet. As the DuDa is going to be road legal (if not eligible for the road legal class), a rather natty little nose fairing with headlight was acquired at the Bristol Classic Show (some people got paid for sitting on their bottoms at that show – not mentioning any names Mrs). There’s still a way to go, but the frame’s been altered to suit the engine, and will acquire a log book soon – that is unless Doug has the original one? Doug ?

The web site has been quite busy this year as more people come on line. I have put the membership application forms online, and we’ll think about the regs etc. (I just said think there – nothing else ! J ) I’ll be trying to update the look of the site as well. The technology and software for web site design is progressing exponentially, and I don’t have the time to keep up with it. Hopefully I’ll be putting a couple of flash movies on the site soon - that is if I can get a handle on the software of course.

I see that we had a little piece in MCN (well I didn’t see actually, but I heard from various sources, including several phone calls beginning “Hi, I got your number from MCN…”, so I actually bought a copy. It seems to have generated some interest, which is good. For those of you who were wondering what the hell http:\\www.kirel.fsnet.co.uk was, and why it wasn’t http:\\www.nhca.co.uk – I don’t know either. The kirel address is the actual server the pages sit on, and so works OK, but God knows how they got that address. Well, actually I do know how they probably did, but we can use this as an opportunity to push the track day whilst pushing the correct address too!

Well enough burbling from me. See you all at a hill somewhere!

Tigger

P.S. I know Hedgehog is going to complain vociferously to me about the English grammar in this chunter, but I just wrote it and sent it off to Tony – as you should have all done!

French Hill Climb Adventure of ’97 (previously printed in the Gilera OC magazine)

Most exasperating hill climb experience of the year award for 1997 must go to the event held at Ger in France over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The NHCA had been invited to take part in this meeting as long ago as September ’96, and at first it sounded like a really good opportunity - special rates for the ferry crossing etc. The hassle began when the NHCA checked with the ACU about licences. In 1983 I did the Limonest-Mont Verdun hill climb near Lyons in company with three other British competitors. In those days you could get a one-day international licence at a reasonable cost but now you have to hold an annual European A or B licence according to the type of event. After much confusion it was decided that we must all be issued with new ‘B’ licences and Robin Sims the Secretary of the Meeting for the NHCA had the task of co-ordinating all the entries and licence applications - thanks Robin! The total cost of the entry including the licence looked, even at that stage, like making the seconds/pound on the bike rate pretty high even allowing for the fact that the course is 2.2 kms.

Once it was certain that we were definitely going I booked us a 5-day return crossing from Portsmouth to Cherbourg which compared reasonably with the Magic Holidays Ramsey 5000 package as fortunately Robin’s trailer, which we had elected to take, was just eligible for the 3 metre rate. After a comfortable night crossing in a cabin we were soon on our way down through Normandy when we spotted a small band of other NHCA riders pulled in at a cafe. We joined them for coffee and then tagged on to the end of the convoy. On first arriving at the venue things looked good as we drove down the course to the paddock. The hill was being prepared to a high standard with loads of straw bales being deployed to protect the ‘Armco’ which lined some of the bends. Our first impressions were that it was going to be a very fast course. British hill-climbers are used to fairly basic paddocks and can cope without much in the way of facilities given the usually small entries. When we learned that there would be no drinking water and two fairly crude loos to cater for 130 riders and their ‘equipes’ plus the potential for loud rock music until the early hours we decided to camp elsewhere! First port of call was the home of the organiser Remy who had invited us to camp in a field next to his home, but on enquiring where we could use the loo he told us we could walk into the village. At this point several of us decided that we would rather go to the nearest proper campsite with showers etc.! Our little convoy eventually found a municipal site not too far away and though even that proved a little basic and ‘foreign’ for some of the more sensitive souls amongst us I have stayed on worse sites during my travels in France.

Remy had greeted us with a very pleasant aperitif and then proceeded to inform us that virtually none of our bikes would pass scrutineering! This meeting was to be the final round of the French National Hill Climb Championship and was being run to FIM regulations which required machines to be prepared to the same standards as international road races. This was OK for many of the French competitors as we had already noted the number of vans in the paddock run by participants in world endurance racing. One of our best prospects for prize money spent the whole day drilling and wiring all his brake line unions and a few of us with road bikes were faced with totally removing the lights. Having experienced scrutineering at a French event before I suspected that in common with the usual European approach to rules and regulations these strict requirements would be more honoured in the breach than observance. We considered mounting an en-masse blockade of the hill if necessary on the lines of - ‘if we don’t ride - nobody does’: just the kind of direct action they understand in France! As it turned out my predictions were correct and the paperwork took longer than the machine examination with not one machine being failed after a cursory effort which would not have passed muster at the most grass roots of events this side of the Channel.

Once scrutineering was out of the way we still had plenty of time to walk the hill. This amazed the local riders who took advantage of the public road still being open to buzz up and down the course on a variety of scooters or by the car-full. The impression still was of a very fast course, with much talk of Isle of Man gearing. The road surface looked nice and grippy but it seemed pretty ripply to me, particularly towards the edges on the inside of some bends. The first (un-timed) practice) runs eventually got under way and we were impressed with the start-line system of lights which seemed to get riders off on their way in very quick succession. As I had suspected the Nordie’s poor front damping did not like the bumps and the bike was shaking its head and trying to stand up on nearly every bend. The bumpiness tended to limit the power you could get down and so everyone reported that in fact maximum speed attained was nothing like as high as on the ‘short’ ( 2.2 Km ) Isle of Man hill.

During the first timed practice things started to go wrong. It appeared that even the most minor of incidents resulted in long delays even if there was no injury to the unfortunate rider. The arrangements for recovering machines were non-existent and communication between the officials confused so much time was spent waiting at the start line or after the finish in the baking heat. The day ended particularly badly for one of our number driving his own designed and built three-wheeler car. As a result of an incident just before his first run he did not get a proper attempt at the sharpest corner towards the top of the hill. On his next climb he went into this right-hand hairpin too fast and stuffed the car into the bank thus trashing the front suspension. He was the last machine up the hill and so we all assisted him to recover the car using his own trailer. Another pleasant evening was spent around the barbecues on the campsite without consuming too much red wine in view of an early start the next day.

Sunday morning dawned very misty and on arriving back at the paddock it was clear that the start of racing would have to be delayed due to poor visibility. By the time the final practice could start a lot of time had been lost and then the French road-racers began pressing on too hard and falling off so leading to even more delays. To be fair, there were some very fast riders competing on top class machines and it was the final of the championship with everything to go for. Even our quickest competitors were way off the pace except for a rider from Jersey on a very quick 250. The capacity classes meant that I was in the over 600 class (by all of 4cc!) and therefore on the smallest bike in the class by far with half the engine capacity of several of the leaders and the only single. At least I managed to keep ahead of an 851 Ducati, and I was also quicker than a TL1000 Suzuki in what seemed to be a ‘not serious racers class’. I bet that was a handful on the bumps !

Despite being so behind schedule the traditional French two-hour lunch was enjoyed so that the official timed runs were very late in starting. Once again people started to fall off and then a sidecar crashed at the hairpin and set fire to the straw bales. A few of us were left waiting at the top of the hill for over an hour whilst the local fire brigade were sent for. I have to say that very few fire extinguishers were in evidence.

To cap it all there then came an announcement asking for Dick, our grounded three-wheeler pilot, to unload his car so that his trailer could be used to recover the outfit! Given the effort it had required to load it he understandably declined and the machine was eventually retrieved with the aid of a farm tractor. By the time the over-600s were called for their second timed run it was nearly 5 o’clock. As I joined the queue another incident stopped the proceedings and deciding that I had had enough I returned to the paddock and climbed out of my leathers. About 30 minutes later the meeting was abandoned as the unfortunate rider who had fallen was taken to hospital with a broken leg. The doctor had accompanied him and as the road had to be opened again the meeting was abandoned. So I ended up getting only four runs with a best time of just over 90 seconds and Robin had got the Husky up 5 or 6 seconds quicker at the cost of cracking a couple of welds on the exhaust system as result of the bumps.

All in all not a totally satisfactory event organisationally. The hill was challenging but I still think I prefer Lerghy Frissel. We now hear that it is unlikely to be used again. There was the consolation however of all being presented with a bottle of wine and a locally made vase, so we all took a pot home!

Peter Fisher

Dos & Don’ts of Marshalling

Herman gave me some good tips when I volunteered for this duty many years ago.

Any hill is divided up into blocks. The marshal is responsible for the block from where he is standing to the next marshal position down the hill. All marshals need to stand so that they can see the flag before them (or start) and the flag that follows them (or finish). The most important people are the starter (timekeeper) and the person at the finish as they control the hill. Therefore we put the novice marshals in the middle. They should be told to watch the competitors through their 'block' and until they exit and pass the next flag. They should then keep their eye on that flag until they hear the next machine coming, this is vital especially if more than one machine is on the hill at any one time. If they are looking down the hill they will not know if anyone has gone off higher up the course. This is when the whistle comes in handy.

Will Wells

Letters

Hello Tony,

Here's a little bit for the Hillclimber which may be of use.

Item one -

The Science Museum at RAF Wroughton near Swindon is having an open day on Sunday 24 June. As part of the event the 'VMCC Sprint Section' are running a 1/4 mile twin-lane sprint to which entries are invited. Should any NHCA members feel like giving the sidewalls a rest a bit, day entries will be available (£27.50) as well as day membership to the VMCC (£5). The day membership fee for the VMCC is controlled by the 'VMCC' and not the 'VMCC Sprint Section'. Your ACU licence covers sprints too and the scrutineering is basically the same. Hopefully the only thing you'll need to do is add a racing number for the day. Scrutineering is scheduled to be from 08:00 to 10:00am. Please note that there is no access before 08:00.

The Museum holds many 'large' items belonging to the Science Museum including vehicles, which I'm told makes very interesting viewing.

Diary date: VMCC Sprint Section Double Header of 1/8 straight then separate

twisty at Eelmoor near Aldershot Sunday 19 August.

Item two -

Rockingham Motor Speedway near Corby Northants had its official opening on

Saturday 26 May. Rockingham is the first purpose built race track in the UK since Brooklands, and what's more, it's a banked 'oval' that will be running the American Indy cars later in the year. Within the oval is there's the 'Historic' flat twisty circuit which is used for events like the Coys Historic Festival. Nigel Mansell demo'd an Indy car at an average of over 160 mph on unraced tarmac that is fantastically smooth (I got to do some parade laps and smooth ain't the word!), the corners being banked to maximum 7.9 degrees with minimum banking being 3.1 degrees, then proceeded to entertain by doing huge donuts and burn outs!!

The circuit is an all-seater with massive grandstands allowing viewing of just about all of the 1.5 mile oval. The race featuring the V8 Anglo-American Stock Cars (ASCAR similar to NASCAR) had the cars duelling two abreast lap after lap, somewhat untypical to racing (car racing I mean, we all know about the bikes) in Europe. Channel 5 and Eurosport are, I think going to cover some events during the

year.

Item three -

Fed up with Top Gear not showing enough bikes? Well, according to a BBC Top Gear cameraman who rides a bike, it's all down to the lady who runs the programme being, how shall I say this, not ‘bike friendly’. It seems that many of the team including a female presenter ride bikes, but alas not much coverage. It would seem the best way, according to our biker camera dude, to try and get some two wheel coverage is to drop a letter to the good ol' beeb and voice your opinion. Well it's an idea isn't it ?!!

Best regards,

Tony Madgwick

Dear Hillclimber,

At the age of 51 I felt after giving up sidecar racing 20 odd years ago the urge to compete again. Hillclimbing looks safe and easy I thought, I'll show all those lads on crossers a thing or two, and anyway Keith said it would be fun.(never trust a man who wants to hillclimb a V-Max).

Gurston 26 May, 1st practice. Off I go on my crosser beating Monster, 34 seconds piece of p..s. Safe, easy b------s a very untidy and slow 44 seconds later a slightly frightened and humbled silly bugger arrived at the top of the hill.

It’s funny how things look easy from behind a fence.

Mick Storey

Hi Tony,

Just thought I'd drop you a note to let you know what's going on with me. The Raptor is rebuilt after the big spill. I got most of it sorted before Christmas then had a few parts that took ages to turn up (brake fluid reservoirs). Well, once finished in February I rode it home from the workshop and fell off on a roundabout... could have cried. Two new tyres, cold weather and a salty road were enough to have a two-wheel wash out at 30mph. No matter how I justify it, I still feel a bit of a fool, it was bad enough falling off at the meeting but at least I had inexperience on my side on that occasion.

Anyway, I bit the bullet and purchased some more new parts and again had a long wait. It’s a lesson to learn for me that most new bikes are a bit of a parts bin creation, only the 'styling' bits are actually Cagiva bits, the rest can be found on other bikes. So this time quick as a shot (after two months of waiting) I decided to check out other bikes for the fluid reservoirs (obviously they got damaged when I fell off.... the most difficult parts to get hold of!), and yes the back one is also seen on nearly every Ducati and the front one is on several Triumphs, so three days later I got the parts I needed. There was a time when the dealer would have known this! Finally now the bike is roadworthy, and is again pressed into service as my trusty commuter. Don't seem to have quite the confidence as I had, but its getting better!

At last I have got to the bottom of the clutch problem. The central hub inner has a floating part that unloads the clutch on overrun, from the wear marks on it there was a problem occurring during high loads, this was causing it to snatch when leaving the line. Things are much improved now I have fitted a 'drag racing' clutch mod kit intended for the Hyabusa, the clutch is basically the same.

I'm moving house in early July (hopefully) so things are in a bit of a panic here, boxes and disorganisation, as well as that Amanda is now pregnant, we are expecting our first child in late November.

Doesn't rain till it pours! ... still I'm not a jaffa!, after all these years and no near misses I was starting to wonder.

I need to get my leathers fixed properly and get a new helmet (I guess the bits stuck on mine now contravene the regs.) Other than that I am still very keen, and would like this opportunity to thank everyone for their help and assistance with my spill (and not making me feel too stupid), and generally for everyone’s welcome and encouragement towards us new kids.

Hope to see you all soon. Regards,

Julian Wilson

Bryn Bach Park – 20 May 2001

I still don’t know why I volunteered for this, but never mind!

Bryn Bach was the first hill climb that several others and I have competed in this year. In fact, apart from a Supermoto I did in March (which I won’t go in to as I finished about 60th out of approximately 90!) this is the second time I’ve ridden my bike since September last year!

On walking the hill, there were no new surprises. In fact all the fencing at the end of the fast uphill straight had been removed (luckily for Dave ‘Tubby’ Baker who had a close inspection on his first practice run!). No problem I thought until I saw that a steel gate post had been erected on the inside of the final left hand bend to pen in animals due to the foot and mouth breakout. I hope this is removed for the next round.

Anyway, Bryn Bach turned out dry and sunny so it looked like we would have a good day and racing. Got off to a flying start. (well it started just after 12 o’clock!). Practice was uneventful (apart from Tubby’s off-road excursion) and it was nice to do the timed runs before lunch. Paul Jeffery got first and second places and I managed third. Strangely, all the times were slower than normal by nearly a second. Paul seemed to think the steel post was putting people off, but I think it may be down to lack of time on the bikes. .It will be interesting to see how other people fair throughout the year.

The top ten, sorry twelve!! run off ended again with Paul first, Gerald second and myself third.

Nick Beale did himself proud and won the quad bike class. Good tactics actually because he was the only one in the class!!

After lunch we had two open runs. As I was about to put the bike on the trailer another run was announced… and then another….. So we had four opens in total. In retrospect it was a fun day and that’s what it’s all about.

As a final few notes, it was nice to see Rolty racing again, let’s hope we see him again soon. Also don’t try to race an RD350 and a CR500. They are so totally different that riding one messes up your riding the other! (well, that’s my excuse anyway!)

And finally it was good to see several new faces including Paul Barker on a CBR600 who did a 31.55. Second run-watch out Dave Wills!!

Don’t forget Bryn Bach’s championship round is on the 5 August 2001. Regs are available from Russ Evans.

Ian Southerton

Gurston Down – 26/27 May 2001

A passenger returns!

I got Tony’s e-mail begging for pieces for The Hillclimber so I thought I'd jot down a few things about Gurston.

Last summer I heard rumours that Terry Alderslade was looking for a passenger as he had decided to compete in the most exciting class - trikes! This set my brain ticking and I thought it might be fun to start racing again after a six-year break. Terry had a couple of other interested parties including Hedgehog, so back in February we all met up at Westonzoyland for a short trial run. We all had a quick go, decided that we would be game and would split the meetings up between us. I said I would do Gurston and before I knew it was May and I was at Gurston.

1st practice and Terry said he would be testing the braking down the hill as he had had a few problems at Scarborough which he hoped he had sorted out (so did I!). Coming up to the line the course looked quite short and I wasn't worried. The lights changed and off we went. All I could think was - Oh my god, stop I want to get off! That down hill stretch seemed to go on for ever and I was absolutely terrified. We got round Karousel and hit Deer's leap, pulled a wheelie and I landed on Terry's back, managed to scrabble back and get out for Ashes, back in and on to the finish. We managed a stunning (not) time of 41.75 seconds! - it felt a lot faster! I thought what have I let myself in for, do I really want to do this, I must be mad. The trike was very twitchy but luckily Bill Chaplin was about to tell Terry how to adjust the trail.

2nd practice - Terry said he wouldn't be braking down the hill and I thought I don't want to do this! But there we were on the line and off we went. It was great, brilliant and I knew I was going to enjoy it. I have a theory that Terry scared me so much on the first run anything after that would seem like a piece of cake!

By 3rd practice we got down to a time of 39.94 seconds, the record is 33.81 seconds so a long way to go but at least we were improving. Terry had adjusted the trail again and was happier with it and had also let some air out the tyres on Bill’s advice. I found my seating position very different to Curly’s old trike (the green one - that's how long ago it was). My feet are much higher up and I found I was pivoting round the hand grip hence landing twice on Terry's back at Deer's leap. I had a chat with Livvy and Sandra and got some much-needed advice about passengering on an airplane wing (that's what it feels like!).

Sunday - we hoped to knock a second a run off our time to get down to 36 seconds but things never go to plan and we only managed 37.81 seconds by the end of the day, but it’s a good starting point for the next Gurston. On the final run Terry told me to hang on as he was going to warm the tyres up on the start line. Fine I thought, first time great - no problem, second time Terry dumps the clutch and up comes the front wheel, back down it goes and up go I, pivoting over that hand grip again and smacking Terry's helmet with mine before landing back in my seat – very embarrassing. Obviously everyone thought it very funny (well, it was) and when we came back down the hill all the start line marshals were 'pulling wheelies' - how long before we live that down!

So what was everyone else doing - well I'm afraid I don't know I was too interested in what we were doing! Jamie Mitchell dropped it at Karousel (so he should be writing a report too) but he was okay. Grant and Pam were very pleased with their times in the Buckland, dropping over a second on their previous times at Gurston. I have spoken to Sandra Wills and the winning times were:

250cc – Mark Short 37.55; 350cc – Robin Sims 35.25; 500cc – Paul Jeffery 33.32; 750cc – Dave Wills 34.69, 1300cc – Doug Parnell 35.73; 2-wheel drive – Terry Alderslade & Kim Ursell 37.81; 1-wheel drive – Harry & Carol Foster 40.96.

Kim

Odds & Ends

Mike Shorter emailed to point out that there was a piece about a prospective classic Supermoto series in Old Bike Mart (page 10 of the June issue). He thinks that many of the bikes we ride would probably be suitable.

Also, it was nice to see a mention for hillclimbing in Motor Cycle News. Let’s see if this generates some interest from newcomers.

Andrew Bennett’s new acquisition both got a mention in Old Bike Mart in a report on the Thundersprint at Southport in May. The device is a Norton fame fitted with an early 1950s 1100cc V twin JAP engine, normally to be found in the rear-engined Cooper hillclimb cars. Are we likely to see this beast on the hills, Andrew? Having written this Jamie Mitchell’s report of Gurston (which arrived too late for inclusion and will be held over to next Hillclimber) notes that Andrew had the big JAP in action. Well done.