Sprint – RAF Colerne – 30 Aug 2010 - Keith Attwood

Words by Keith Attwood

Published: 03/01/2012

Full results: http://www.bristolmc.org.uk/2010_Results/TwoClub_2010_Results.pdf

Once again it was back to Colerne on a Bank Holiday Monday for a sprint. This would be my second time here this year and third in total. I would like to think I’d be able to draw on my previous experience and continue my upward trend here. This time I had my ‘support vehicle’ in attendance in the form of a very bored girlfriend and my Golf filled up with spare wheels, other tools and stuff. But as it turned out it was a glorious summer’s day and I’d only need the 888s on. So with the weather actually playing ball today it would be all down to me.

I also managed to finally track down to proper branding for my car to show who I was representing and so I went overboard with it. Well I think it looks good!

So down to the practise runs. These went pretty well, with the first one being a little on the slow side, but the second only 0.5 of a second off my best time at the last sprint. Now I had my eye in it was time to go quicker. Or maybe not. During my second practise I stupidly shifted from 5th to 3rd while under braking, but fractionally too early. I thought I might have buzzed the engine, but after checking the in car video afterwards I was lucky and was just under the rev limit. Lesson well and truly learned as I was worried I had caused damage.

This worry didn’t go away though as the car was refusing to idle and was running exceptionally rich. I enlisted some better mechanical minds to come and have a look. They diagnosed it as a sensor problem of some sort. So we started wiggling, removing and refitting everything electrical we could see. Low and behold we found something amiss. The air intake sensor (circled in yellow) was loose and pretty much detached from the intake pipe. A quick bodge with electrical tape, pending a proper repair when back home, sorted it. All that was needed was a quick clean of the plugs and I was ready for the first timed runs.

Video: http://www.vimeo.com/14702661

My first timed fun was great, but there was room for improvement. I hit the rev limiter again, also I wasn’t taking the second corner and chicane as well I would have liked. I need to keep for foot all in for this and I tended to just back off slightly, I was a little ragged through the tight chicane before the final corner and I still can’t seem to get the final long corner correct. Still with a time of 80.82 set I had beaten my previous best on this course by over a second, however I was lying in 3rd this time not 2nd like before. My closest rival from last time had move into the high 79’s and I would have to do something special to overturn this.

My second timed run went brilliantly; I nailed the apex on the first corner and was flat through the second corner and chicane. Hitting 140mph on the main straight I knew I had carried more speed into this section than I had done previously. The next right after the main straight was ok, not perfect but then disaster….red flags! The previous competitor had got the final corner monumentally wrong and had managed to wipe out the timing gear in the processes. I would have to return to the start line and try again.

So back to the start line after a 30 minute delay whilst the timing was fixed. I was confident, I knew what I had to achieve and I believed I was on course for it in my aborted run. Off I went. The first corner was not as good as I missed the apex, but I kept my foot in during the second and the chicane and in so carried around the same speed as before. Determined to set a good time I want to hold as much speed through the next right hander as possible, but I missed my braking point and in so couldn’t turn in. I made the corner but had lost a lot of speed. I corrected my line, but I’d resigned myself that no matter how could the later part of the run would be I would not be able to make the time up. Surprisingly….. I was right. I was slower, but by only 0.3 seconds, which was exceptionally irritating as it highlighted that I was having a good lap apart from that tiny, but ultimately costly, blip.

None of the competitors behind me improved enough to relegate me out of 3rd and so that is where I finished.