Larry Jeram-Croft reports it was a great weekend on Saturday and Sunday 28th / 29th August 2021. All went well except for Bentley Orchard driving Len Old's lovely TR4, deciding to 'kiss' the Armco at Ashes. 

We then had great fun in an 'engineering committee of experts' advising Len on why the car was now pulling to the left. In the end, sheer initiative on Bentley's part in borrowing a bit of guttering from a neighbouring barn allowed us to at least see which way all the wheels were pointing.

Len doesn't suffer fools gladly and his smart revenge for the leg pulling was maximum points on both Saturday and Sunday.

TR fettling of the highest order.  And it worked, with Len breaking 40 seconds in the afternoon run on Sunday.

Points wise, Len in Class 3A took the honours on both days with runs of 40.17 (Saturday) and 39.44 (Sunday) scoring a max of 10.05 championship points on both days.  

Steve Small, Class 3C, was fastest of all during the weekend with an average speed of 70.1mph but that only gained him 5th place on Saturday and just 9.61 championship points.  Rod Warner, Class 3B, was fastest on the Sunday averaging 65.8mph and collecting 4th place and 9.4 championship points.  He managed this by going through Hollow and not braking at all. Brave man.  Rod says: "I didn’t brake at all for the Hollow kink was just a lift and entered a bit faster than had planned but it stuck and gave me confidence to pile more power through the corner .. but was very edgy.  My rear end mods do make the rear feel more planted, so gives me a bit more confidence.  Adding a Rover SD1 watts link to the TR7 non parallel upper link suspension shouldn’t really work – but seems to.

Rod Warner now takes a look at the timing data that Gurston Down collects. 

Look at the map ...

... the timing record ...

... and Larry's video for the reference points

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Now whilst Rod posted the best overall time for the TR's on the Sunday you can see that it was for just the first segment that Rod pulled out enough of a time buffer to lead.

Nick Smith made the best start with 2.43 secs for the first 64 feet.  If you manage that in jus t two seconds you are pulling 1G.  

Jim Giddings was fastest through the drop to hollow trap at 88 mph

Rod had the best Hollow and segment 1 with 17.84 / 21.23secs

Len Olds the best Karousel to Ashes with 10.80 secs

Jim had the quickest Burkes climb and finishing speed of 9.79 s / 92 mph.

If you were able to combine the best of each section, you would have had a time of 38.43 seconds.  With Len, Larry, Nick Smith, Rod and Jim all below 41 seconds, that's pretty impressive and perhaps within reach for some.  But then that's the Hillclimb challenge, to be spot on for each and every section.