Above ‘Clarise’ cornering hard
Blyton Track Day
Although the date clashed with both Shelsley Walsh & Cadwell weekends we still had eleven cars booked in, all with driver & co-driver. As well as Lincolnshire there was very good support from Yorkshire members. Nic Turley gave me the idea for this track day and Richard Usher the now manager of the track (previously the owner but he recently sold the track to Ginetta) put forward the date and was incredibly supportive and accommodating. Guess what, amongst his cars he has an Austin Seven which completed the Sevens to the Sea run this April. I have arranged various club events over the years but this is the first one where the feedback both on the day and afterwards was so incredibly positive. Every single entrant said “put me down for next year”. Rest assured we shall be repeating this event in 2018 and will do our utmost to ensure the weekday we choose does not clash with any other event.
Amongst the cars entered we had one single-seater and three two-seater racers, one Swallow sports, one Gordon England Cup, an A7 special, a 1924 Chummy, my Austin Ten and the Lincs, Club car. The format of the day was a comprehensive safety briefing then 3 laps behind Richard’s car in order to familiarise us with the track layout. Then the three Austin “racers” went out on the track first completing (but not competing) between four to six laps of the track. Then the rest of the cars entered the track with each doing a maximum of five laps. Ginetta had two of their seven litre race cars there for testing and we then watched them completing test laps and fine tuning. I offered to exchange some of my Whitworth spanners for their laptops but had no takers. Actually these young mechanics and technicians were highly interested in the workings of our little Austins. When Ginetta came off the track our cars repeated the above but with the second drivers taking a turn at the wheel. It was then time for a lunch break in the cafeteria. Over lunchtime a Jaguar racing team had turned up to do ten laps of the track in a fine tuning exercise for Silverstone at the weekend, so it was great to watch them too. The remainder of the afternoon was taken up in doing as many laps of the track as you wanted. Sue Turley had a go at driving the Swallow as did David Marsh. Ernie Beckett had kindly trailered the Club car and in the afternoon both David Page and Tony Saward did some laps in it. Amongst the members who came to spectate it was great to see John Harvey, Stuart Kent, Dave Pawley & Richard and William Ingleton supporting the event.
We all had a truly memorable day.
PWA7C Lincolnshire Group 