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Ranson Times - 8th June 2006
 Longest
running motorsport event in the world, Shelsley Walsh carries a lot of baggage.
Driving in along the Teme valley it occurred to me that the three cars in convoy
and the phone lines running alongside the road were the anachronisms, nothing
else could be placed in time.
Fortunately the MAC still run a 'practice at will' type of batching arrangement
on the Saturday. So by not running until the afternoon there was plenty of time
to stamp on the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia and prepare to light the
blue touchpaper of the unholy hand grenade. Or even a Nicholson McLaren Engines
Cosworth XB.
Shelsley is a superficially easy track. Start, left a bit, left a bit, left a
bit more, right quite a lot, finish. But that omits the bump and bear right
before Kennel, the right flip before Crossing, the gradient changes and most
significant, The Kink, which is troublesome in at least three dimensions. And
Kennel and Crossing are basically blind with no possibility of running wide a
bit, or taking an aggressive apex. You can see through the kink but every other
caveat still applies.
It's a challenge in any vehicle, I remember from my first visits in an
essentially road going Caterham arriving at the top with very wobbly knees. I'm
mostly over that now, but the top paddock, watching the end of the batch come up
the hill, especially in practice when the order is random, the sun is shining
and the apple juice is flowing, remains one of the best places to be in
hillclimbing. And one of the great attractions of the sport is that it is
accessible to anybody with the motivation and at least a banger with an MOT. The
view is nice too.
Anyway, back to the recent past. I think Scott Moran was the first serious
contender to take a run. 25.40 seemed reasonably fast, but reports were that
he'd had a minor moment after Crossing and Mike Dean who went up subsequently
had spun in the Esses. Willem was still in development and wasn't recording
times that were informative although to make up for it each run was eventful.
During the lunch break I walked up to Crossing. The track was filthy as far as
the exit of Kennel with red muck on the surface, and merely dirty the rest of
the way with engrained muck. This did not bode well. Perhaps it would have been
better to have not looked. Anyway soon enough it was time to have a go. I
cruised up without approaching full throttle until after Crossing, the result
was a 26.18, which was respectable. Martin tried a bit harder although I'm sure
it was still a cruise, a low 25 was the outcome. We skipped a batch and then ran
again, it was nearing a reasonable hour for a beer and somehow that seemed to be
turning into a priority. I pressed the pedal a bit harder and recorded 25.5,
Martin repeated his low 25. It appeared that the laid back approach was working.
Our competitors taking third runs generally failed to capitalise, a pint of beer
was very pleasant, I got home in time to put the children to bed.
There's no Sunday practice at Shelsley. Straight into qualifying and I made a
mistake, triggering the ignition interruptor without making a gear shift. The
resulting engine fluff was disconcerting, and I lost track of which gear I was
in as I entered the Esses. While a run may only last 25 or so seconds quite a
lot has to be done in that time, the scenery goes past pretty quickly, the light
changes several times. When it all goes according to plan the time seems to pass
quite slowly but when something goes wrong it all starts to happen very quickly.
I was pleased to salvage a qualification.
Elsewhere in the qualification runs Sue Young smashed her Ladies Record, Sandra
Tomlin, who really wants that record back, went under Sue's previous record and
qualified for the runoff. Sue wasn't registered or I think it would have been a
unique, or at least very rare, event and at one of the more overtly macho
tracks. Fabulous stuff from both of them. Deryk Young recorded his first 24
second run, at that time still a talismanic number and noteworthy achievement.
It gives Sue a target anyway...
Being the slow half of a double drive partnership I always have to run first or
second, wherever I've nominally qualified. So it matters less to qualify well.
Since Martin got to the top in his usual style my mistake actually didn't cost
anything, I was running second after Karl Davison and followed by Roger Moran.
In the event all the gears happened in the right order and I recorded a short
24.8, a PB for competition but I've been up faster... The first 7 were under
24.9, so it was quite intense. Martin won, Scott second, Deano third, Deryk with
another PB in fourth and then myself, Simon Durling and Rob Turnbull all in the
same tenth. I think this was a PB for Simon, and given he's missing a
substantial amount of power relative to us 3.5 boys it would have been a
noteable achievement, except that by that time everybody seemed to have been in
the 24s. I think to get noticed you have to be below, say, 24.60...
 After
lunch, which seemed to mostly comprise a rain shower and the unpleasant smell of
burning bike tyre (Avon compounds do smoke up more pleasingly, I wonder what
they put in them? BF Goodrich sandals and Hanoi Gold...) it all had to be done
again.
This time round Rob Turnbull wrote himself out with starter trouble, Deryk
decided to spend a moment with the lovely orange tinted crowd at the Esses and
Willem opted out of breaking the record to 64 feet, or even getting to 64 feet.
Qualification was rather more open than usual at Shelsley. The runoff itself was
as intense as ever. I was very pleased with a 24.57, which survived as fastest
until Scott ran. Sometimes going more or less first can be fun. But Scott put me
firmly in my place by becoming the third person ever to run under 24 seconds.
Outstanding, excellent, blimey. Brilliant. I just wanted to shake his hand.
Martin was now under serious pressure. Nothing he hadn't done before, it's easy
to say yet hard to do. Off he went and returned a time 0.16s faster, not quite a
record, but sufficient. The mark of a champion, but it couldn't take the shine
off Scott's time.
Record performances from Roy Standley and Hamish Lindsay, qualifying shots from
Matt Harrison and Phil Cooke, great recovery from Basil Pitt to qualify and
score in the second runoff having discovered how tough GR55 front wings are in
first qualifying. The line of marshals applauding at the Esses during the return
was very much appreciated.
Anyway onto Loton really soon now. If the fast guys drop the ball I'm definitely
going to win! See you there.
Pastures of plenty.
Paul
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