Willem Toet Hill climb news Jersey and Guernsey double header (Thursday and Saturday) July 14th & 16th 2005

Summary
What a pair of events we've had.  After all the fun my Edwards Hospitality www.edwards-hospitality.co.uk supported car and I slip from second on my own to equal second in the championship.  A first practice accident in Jersey, with a sticky throttle, rendered that event pointless and required some swift intervention to ensure that the parts we needed to repair the car were delivered in time for the boys to get them fitted before Saturday.   Huge thanks due to Bill, Colin, Steve B and Steve C and to Mike Dean as well as to Mick and Pilbeam racing designs.   At Guernsey with everything repaired I then promptly spun on the first corner - this time entirely driver error - happily without damage.   With help and support from the boys we managed to recover some pride and points with a mid field qualification followed by a 4th in the first runoff and a 4th qualifying place followed by a 3rd in the second runoff.   For me importantly that recovered a share of 2nd place which I lost after the lack of points scoring in the first event.   I love the driving and really missed that at Jersey but I feel so lucky in life that I'm healthy and that I can play with such incredible toys with a group of such lovely helpful people - the hillclimb fraternity - and the staggering effort put in by volunteers like Colin and the Steves, and Mike Dean who's trying to catch me in the championship but bends over backwards to put me in a good position to make that task more difficult.  Not only that but Bill is looking after a car that's not even his.  What a crew!

Results available on www.top12runoff.co.uk, for pictures and access to DVD's of video footage see www.2t4t.co.uk.

Next event is a Wiscombe park on the 31^st of July - just for those of you who are down in the Southwest....... 

http://www.woolbridge.co.uk/  

http://www.patjennings.com/wiscombe.html

Jersey
The Channel Islands are always a bit of a holiday/adventure and I arrived with high hopes for this island in particular.  I had done well last year and we had made some changes to the car which I was confident would improve it so I was looking forward to giving the "locals" a run for their money (Mike Dean lives on the Islands and Martin Groves has strong family links there).  We had arrived on the ferry on Wednesday evening (Steve B, Steve C and Colin) and thanks to some intervention by Paul Edwards had the luxury of staying in the hotel located directly by the start of the hillclimb.  Utterly fantastic!  Martin Elsmore, having flown in, was staying there as well so we were able to meet up for a bit of a chat.  Hotel guests were requested to remove their cars from the area that would become our pits and the normal morning Jersey scramble started early to get race cars and equipment in place before the roads were closed for the event itself.  Steve B eventually got sick of waiting for a car, parked in "our spot" to be moved and went to the hotel to ask if they could contact the guest only to be given the keys to move it himself.   He parked it in the sea - well he was tempted but he'd never do that really, he's too nice....    Grip level always starts staggeringly low due to the slick surface, fine sand and possibly sea water being carried up the road as it is the road to a slipway.

Typically it is the first corner that catches out newcomers as the grip level on race tyres seems worse than greasy wet grip levels yet the road looks for all the world to be in perfect condition.  Unusually the "dual drivers" run second so I had the honour, to Martin Elsmore's great relief, of being the first to run at this hill.  Having safely negotiated the first corner, I turned for the second which is a little faster but the engine was pushing me on (only 4 or 5% of throttle) and by the time I had reacted to the problem and thrown the clutch I was carrying too much speed and understeered into a retaining wall which resulted in severe damage to the front wing and to the front left suspension.  We were not carrying enough spares to repair the damage on the day so, despite looking hard at ways to get the car going and at alternatives, that, for this meeting, was that.

To most people the grip level felt slightly lower than normal but, by the end, it was probably quite good as a number of class records were set.  Martin Groves was in fine form as usual winning both rounds with Simon Durling and Scott Moran taking the 2^nd places from Mike Dean in both cases who was saving his car for the Guernsey event where he felt he had a better chance.  Other strong placings included my team-mate Rob Turnbull, Chris Merrick and Roger Moran who scored 9 points to take over 2^nd place in the championship with a 6 point margin (Mike Dean was getting closer too).    The hill record wasn't broken and still stands to Andy Priaulx from over 10 years ago!

During the course of the day, Colin and the Steves made a comprehensive required parts list and after many phone calls Bill Chaplin stepped up to the plate and volunteered to collect the necessary parts and get on a plane to bring them to us.  Meanwhile we put the car and ourselves on to the ferry for Guernsey.

Guernsey - repair and preparation
We parked our trailer at Mike Dean's garage which is located in one of Guernsey's narrow one-way "roads".  If it was just us that would have been a luxury for poor Mike but no, there were at least 4 other trailers to be parked.  Somehow this was managed.  We then went on to Mike Dean's house via what looked like the last source of a meal that late at night which was a Chinese takeaway devoured by about a dozen of us with the aid of extra plates collected from Martin Groves' family home on the way to Deano's.  With every room of Mike's house already occupied we, along with Richard and Georgia Dunn, had space on Mike's lawn for our tents and access to the house's facilities.

Steve B and I arrived late at the airport to collect Bill which wasn't too impressive but he did arrive early, honest!    We started on the car in the morning and worked through until about 8pm by the time everything was finished and the perfectionists among us we totally satisfied that the job was done and done correctly.   The Steves went to help with track cleanup for a few hours while Colin and I stayed with the car.   There had been a significant diesel leakage virtually all the way along the course - a truck with a leaking tank or some such thing.   With lots of man power it was cleaned up well.   The planned big night out didn't happen as the place we went to was packed and running out of time so we had to settle for fish and chips - not what I'd planned as a thank you to the boys!   Then we had to get up early on Saturday morning........

Guernsey - the event
As at Jersey I was to go before Martin Elsmore.   I set off knowing grip was poor but wanting to get close to the limit from the start partly to be certain that we'd got the car back to perfect again.   A combination of too much speed too early and the wrong line and I had a little spin.   Happily didn't hit anything.   This got me quite concerned about my driving but the boys sent me off with a flee in my ear to look at the locals driving the hill to see if there was anything I could learn.    Not very surprisingly there were a few things that I picked up looking at what other people were doing.   Martin then had his, now VERY gentle, run up the hill.

My second practice was very cautious and if it had been a timed run, I would not have qualified.   The first timed run qualified me 6^th and was about half a second slower than my personal best from the year before.   With the best rubber fitted for the runoff I managed a personal best time and 4^th.    Back on older rubber I worked on my racing line and qualified 4^th with a time that was a bit slower but having learned something more about where to place the car.   The final runoff run was a bit too scrappy but I was pushing quite hard and despite a few over exuberant slides I managed to come in 3^rd and quite close in time to Mike Dean who came 2^nd.

Martin Elsmore did a great job after all of my problems and managed a time that was quicker than a fair number of the regular competitors which we were all very impressed with.   Difficult thing to do when the main pressure is on keeping the car in one piece.

After the problems of Jersey and the spin in first practice this was overall, a good recovery especially as I recovered enough points to take back a share of second place.    Mike Dean is getting closer though and we have a real battle over second place coming.

I have to re-iterate my thanks to the boys for all their help.    We had hoped for a bit of a break between the two meetings but events overtook that wish and the boys responded fantastically.   I suspect I owe them quite a few beers!!!!   Thanks you guys, you were fantastic.

Post Event

Don't know how the boys felt but I was shattered.   Not quite enough sleep and a fair bit of physical and emotional work meant that there wasn't much fuel left in my personal energy banks.   We were last to pack up and then had to go back to Mike Dean's to pack up the tents before catching the late ferry back to England.   A couple of hours after landing (which was already post midnight) I crawled into my sleeping bag at Bill's, using the accommodation of the truck.   After swapping things around in the morning I drove home in time for lunch but fell asleep afterwards - still trying to catch up on rest.   This report was all that I managed to do in the evening.

I still can't believe how good the lads were!

Results follow including the championship table.

All the best, 

Willem

 Round 19 - Jersey

 1          Martin   Groves

2          Simon   Durling

3          Mike     Dean

3          Rob      Turnbull

5          Chris     Merrick

6          Scott    Moran

7          Roger    Moran

8          Paul      Haimes

9          Tom      New

10         Paul      Ranson

 Round 20 - Jersey

1         Martin   Groves

2          Scott    Moran

3          Mike     Dean

4          Chris     Merrick

5          Simon   Durling

6          Roger    Moran

7          Paul      Haimes

8          Karl      Davison

9          Paul      Ranson

10         Will       Mason

Round 21 - Guernsey

1          Martin   Groves

2          Mike     Dean

3          Scott    Moran

4          Willem  Toet

5          Roger    Moran

6          Simon   Durling

7          Trevor    Willis

8          Paul      Haimes

9          Chris     Merrick

10         Tim       Mason

 Round 22 - Guernsey

1          Martin   Groves

2          Mike     Dean

3          Willem  Toet

4          Simon   Durling

5          Scott    Moran

6          Paul      Haimes

7          Trevor    Willis

8          Roger    Moran

9          Jason    King

10         Tom      New

Present Championship position (not official - this is my quick calculation)

1          Martin   Groves              219

2          Roger    Moran               129

2          Willem  Toet                  129

4          Mike     Dean                 121

5          Simon   Durling              103

6          Scott    Moran               88

7          Paul      Ranson             80

8          Rob      Turnbull 67

9          Chris     Merrick             59

10         Paul      Haimes             51

11         Trevor    Willis                46

12         Karl      Davison 43

13         Adam    Fleetwood         15

14         Will       Mason              14

14         Deryk    Young               14

16         Graeme Wight jnr.          13

17         Tom      New                    7

18         Basil     Pitt                     6

19         Phil       Cooke                 3

19         Tim       Mason                3

Willem Toet 
Senior Aerodynamicist 
B·A·R Honda
www.BARHondaF1.com

Willem's words, pictures added by Richard afterwards. These may not reflect the views of Willem Toet, but I like the one where he is carrying the wing - Richard

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