Ranson Times - Prescott September

Stock photo: Prescott - Martin Groves [May 2006]

Even reflecting from the heady distance of a whole week this was still an enjoyable meeting, not least because the car went back in the trailer not having contacted the scenery in any abnormal way, although I think I did run over a significant twig in the return road.

The forecast wasn't great, and it was right. Saturday was rain clearing later, Sunday was sunny intervals. Prescott, track of slippery doom, in the wet? What were we thinking?

I was on my own for Saturday morning, Martin being engaged in retrieving his motorhome from Cornwall. This was a novel experience, it's a long time since I've scrounged helpers from the motley collection of passers by. Richard Dunn stepped up for the first run and record breaker Ash Mason for the second, both times Craig who usually helps Dave Mills was there too. Many thanks.

Practice was a bit quiet, at least in the unlimited single seaters, I think there were a few spills elsewhere in the field. I trundled up and was surprised not to be slowest, I then trundled up a bit faster and was still mid-top 12. The track was surprisingly good, the front went where it was steered, the grip was progressive. Most unusual. Given the absence of my co-driver I took some guilty pleasure in running in my proper place, making chief rival Chris Merrick run before. This wasn't really effective in any real way since he seemed to be running just a bit faster. But it made a change.

Martin turned up towards the end of second practice, jumped straight in and sand-bagged a bit in the drying conditions, partly explained by the gear lever falling off in his hand. Roll on Sunday.

It rained hard overnight but the morning was sunny. What was the track like? Clearly it was mostly dry but what about the run from Pardon to the exit of the Esses? Soon to be historic record breaker Ash Mason put in a very respectable 48.86 in his very road-going Westfield, so it obviously wasn't disastrous. But as the meeting progressed there was a whole sequence of incidents in the danger zone. The run wasn't a practice run, it was a qualifying run. It was important (at least within the context of a speed event, maybe not relevant to world peace...) to go fast enough to qualify. A couple of up to 1600cc drivers were quizzed. Sean Gould was sent off to inspect the dodgy area of track and reported back by crackly mobile phone. We need some more professional communications. This was getting serious.

My carefully thought out strategy was to have a bit of a push as far as Pardon and then apply slight caution. It worked quite well, the first 39s run of the meeting. Scott followed me up with a low 38 that took the shine off somewhat, but it was a competitive qualifying time with a reasonable gap behind and a small gap in front.

Off the line towards Orchard is a scrabble at Prescott, the track isn't straight, it's a fiddle of gear shifting and playing with the throttle, and it's not far to the Bridge. The bulk of the speed gain is in third gear when you can actually get on the gas. I've found that taking fourth gear after the Bridge distracts me from slowing down too much, and the higher gear means that lifting off doesn't help much either. This is a way of getting good numbers in the speed trap. And getting the car round Orchard at a reasonable pace. The rest of the run flows from that.

Mike Dean laid down a mark by being fastest qualifier, Scott was second, Martin third. I ran first in the runoff followed by Roger. I screwed it up. The fourth fastest midway split but a final position of ninth, equal to my worst score of the year. The time was close to a personal best but it was still disappointing not to have converted that split.

Scott put in a fantastic run to win, we were so impressed we almost missed Deano doing a personal best but ending up third, chipping away at Simon Durling by another point. Martin ended up second, which comfortably sealed the outright championship. The pressure was off the top 3, this part of the top 10 was now settled.

My second qualifying run had a split almost 2 tenths slower than the first runoff, but ended up 4 tenths faster. If only... It was also comfortably a personal best, which was nice. Scott had his tail up to qualify fastest. The championship may have been lost but adding to his win count was still right at the top of the agenda.

In the event Scott was in a class of his own running within a sniff of the record. I was very happy to dip into the 37s, piped by Mike Dean and Roger Moran and ending up fourth. Martin was clearly having a bit of a go but it went wrong at Pardon followed by some expensive crunching of gears to leave him sixth. Arch rival Chris Merrick ended up fifth, his total for the weekend was 10 points, I managed 9, but Chris was discarding 1, so we were championship neutral. Mike Dean scored 6 points more than Simon Durling setting up a good battle for the final rounds at Doune.

Elsewhere it was nice to see Ash Mason taking another record in his roadgoing Westfield, the 1100-1600cc racing cars were very close at the front until Phil Cooke borrowed Dave Kimberley's front tyres and went more than a second faster in the second runoff.

It's customary at Prescott for the fastest driver to do a 'lap of honour' at the end of the day. In this case they sent Scott up for BTD and Martin for clinching the championship, which was a nice way to end the meeting, but it would have been more exciting if they'd had a go at each other into Ettores...

Paul

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