Weston Airfield, Sunday 25 July 2010

Our event in February showed that the improved running system could handle a larger entry, so for our second AutoSolo of the year we increased the maximum to 45. It attracted a full entry, with two reserves. We had one withdrawal, which came too late for either of the reserves but was taken up on Saturday evening by Tom Bricknell. After he finished work at midnight, he just needed to change his diff and find some non-list 1B tyres to put on the car. He even found time for an hour and half's sleep before embarking on the journey from Cornwall to the event!

Tom probably had the early morning sun in his eyes as he headed up the A30, but this had given way to grey skies when we arrived to set-up the course at Weston's WWII airfield, and the evidence of overnight rain on the ground left us wondering if we had been wise to believe the weather forecasts. However, the clouds soon parted, the sun came out and we had a completely dry day through to the end of the event. It was even hot during the morning, though the breeze later brought the return of thin cloud which had people reaching for their jackets.

Following a competitor's suggestion at the last event, we reversed the additional loop in the helicopter section for the last course of the day, and this seemed to earn widespread approval. The last minute withdrawal of one of our timekeepers meant that the rest of the team were kept on their toes during the day, but we were able to maintain running efficiency - all 45 competitors had three runs on all three courses, yet it was all over before 5pm.

We've become used to seeing a close battle between our own Dave Greenslade (Mitsubishi Lancer) and Oxford MCs Kevin Belcher (Subaru Impreza). FTD honours went to Kevin, this time by a fairly substantial margin on total time of nearly 10 seconds, and left Dave to collect the 1st in Class 3 award. Third overall, and 1st in Class 2 was the quiet, unassuming, smooth and fast, Ben Griffin (Peugeot 106 Rallye), one of our younger members, still going from strength to strength, and earning a lot of respect in the process. The closest class battle was in Class 1, where the first three were separated by a mere 2.7 secs; top honours going to BTRDA member James Nicholls (Vauxhall Nova) by 0.6 secs. First in Class 4 was Mark Gray (Lotus Elise), followed by Mark Ison and Nick Pollitt, producing an identical total time in their respective Elises. As a result of a wrong-test on Nick's first run on Course B, the tie-break resolved the 2nd in Class award in favour of Mark Ison.

Congratulations to all; we hope to be able to make the presentations at our next AutoSolo, the location and timing of which is a little uncertain at the moment. We will publish our 2011 calendar online when it's settled, so keep checking back here for details towards the end of the year.

Click to download the confirmed results .

Thank you for supporting the event. We hope that you had an enjoyable day, and that we'll see you again soon.

Paul Parker, Clerk of the Course
Allen Harris, Event Secretary

You can see the pictures taken by Ben Allen here

If you would like the uncompressed original of any that take your fancy, please send an email request to tim@timothyallen.com

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