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Great racing at Castle Combe yesterday,thanks to Simon Congdon for a free ticket.
Anyone know what happened to the Silverback,looked to be struggling early on,tore up the track in the middle part of the race and then slowed again before ending up on the grass on the way up to Quarry.

Can't wait for next year,wish i had the time and money to join in.
Steve

If I may interpret the wise words of Guru Binnnington:

Very pleased with myself to have such a good practice time, I was in the sixth row of the grid with Mighty Dave and Stackpoole behind me (there's a first!). I must have been too relaxed, and got a very bad start that let them and Simon Congdon in front. Having got wound up in the first lap I caught them just in time for Simon to make a lunging pass move on Dave and to spin as they went into Quarry. Thinking I'll have some of that, I took advantage and went past them as they sorted themselves out.

In quantum physics, a particle is said to achieve movement from A to B by following every possible pathway, and in practice I think I had achieved that through Quarry, including some lines that involved crossed hands and a lot of sideways, so I thought I had it licked. So it proved because then I managed several laps in which I surprised myself with the speed with which I left Quarry and arrived at the Esses afterwards. This meant that I caught my next quarry(!), Stackers, as he exited Bobbie's chicane hafway further along the course. It could be that his car saw me coming and threw in the towel, or else he was unlucky, but a spin on the exit, followed by the loss of his right rear wheel sent him first right , then left across the track, backwards and right in front of me.

Those of you with a long memory will recall that I did exactly that last year, right in front of Stacky as he exited Camp corner. Then, heroicly, he avoided me and we both progressed unharmed, except for the laundry bill for his trousers. This time, I could not return the favour, and we collided, right rear to right rear. One hell of a bang; I had seen his wheel come off and fully expected mine to join it, but even on the grass I was still rolling along, all four wheels on my wagon. Sorry, Martin! But the show must go on and I was off again.

Once I got going, I looked behind to see Dave and Simon getting closer. The incident had let them catch up, and I had lost momentum. As I went across the line again there were two more laps and I acheived another good pass through Quarry, but they were better. By the time we had got around again to Camp, they were on my tail (See pic - for which thanks to Nick Jones). Go for it here, brake late, turn late and use all the road, I thought, then one more lap, I can hold them off at Quarry and make it over the line.

In fact, I gave a repeat performance of my "Pirouette of Death" routine, all along the start/finish straight. A real tank-slapper, in near terminal oversteer, I corrected, went across to the pit wall, scattering spectators (except for Nigel, who apparently looked Death in the Face and laughed) and then to the right towards the infield. Determined not to lose place, or face, I made the mistake of keeping my foot down to avoid a stall. Probably not a good idea. And when I eventually achieved a straight line again, several yards south of the black stuff and two hundred yards past the line, the violent spin had stalled the engine anyway. Steam was coming out from under the bonnet, and it wouldn't restart. I don't think I did actually spin - just changed direction violently several times, so Mr.Binnington's diagnosis of dizzy petrol is undoubtedly correct, although it could just be a very hot engine.

So, b*gg*r, I didn't even finish. Dave drove like a champion, which he is. He even commented after my practise spin at Quarry (one of the 'sum-over-paths' explorations) that he saw it coming and backed off to let me have it all by myself. Such self control! Simon drove a blinder, cutting his best practise lap time by nearly three seconds in the race! We must watch this man - he's too good already!

Thanks to everyone for a good race and a good season!
See many of you at the Birkett and everyone, I hope, next year.

Best wishes
John

John,
Sorry to hear that they DNF'd you.
I've seen the damage to Martin's Spit - he was last seen taking an FBH to it to try and bash it out (without much sucess) In the conversation about how the damage happened, your name was mentioned, but you were exhonorated as the root cause - you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I didn't hear about was how much damage the Slverback took in this little coming together.
Kevin.

from the pit wall as told by oily oiks

John's practice, some good laps but two sideways horticultural excusions out of sight of the congregation, the story only told by the stopwatch with two practice laps slower than the rest; new diff resulting in a twitchier rear end than previous experiences

Race: John halfways up the grid, lost some places on the start as those around him had qualified slower than their real race pace, an early retirement of a spinning spitfire with a broken halfshaft 1/10th collected the silverbackracer, only 9/10ths avoided by Nohj - slighly more dented right rear wing. After a couple of laps our heroic driver was immersed in an evenly matched joust with a blue GT6 and a quick spitfire. Over the course of four or five laps the six-saloon was just faster and built a narrow lead, twitching around the superfast bumpy corners just before and just after the pit straight where "les Triumphistes" were spectating (masquerading as pit crews) from the pit wall.

Then the GT6 and the spitfire started to close, John in one final superhuman effort took said corner before the pit straight faster than previously, the twitchyness exceeded the sbr stability and grip quotients and John fishtailed down both sides of the pit staright scattering turves, sods and Triumph supporters with equal aplomb (except NiG Gibbins, who steadfastly remained at his post, declaring that having seen John perform at the self-same spot in previous years by backing at high speed across the circuit knew that John knew what he was up to and wouldn't come near the pit wall [in actual fact Nig had injured his hamstrings playing silly games at work and was no more capable of running for his life than I am able to be barred from the catwalk for having a bodymass index of less than 17]. Then John Woolfe crossed the finish line, took the spotted flag and it was all over, the sbr was unable to restart, as although undamaged the petrol was all dizzy in the petrol tank and wouldn't go down the pipes to keep the engine running.

as I write this I do not know whether John was awarded a finish or a dnf one lap short of race distance.

with five minutes to allow the petrol to stop spinning the the sbr was able to be restarted with just a bit more bodywork to be mended

You may remember that the Castle Combe method is to have the winners' cars stop on the grid, the winning drivers to climb into the back of the course car and be driven around for a lap in the boot? Well, just about every triumph driver stopped on the grid (whose spun car hadn't refused to restart) and climbed into the boot of the course car, which meant that the Triumphistes poured over the pit wall to blag a drive of someone else's race car around a race circuit. I hopped into Mik Davies shopper and got a free tour of castle combe waving at the crowd - like I WAS Something... only for a moment!

Then had an entertaining drive back up to the sunny black country with Ian in his 2litre fiat twin cam spitfire through the cotswolds and the vale of evesham. You haven't told me that the supersix throws fireballs out of the exhaust on the overrunn! Coooooooool! Pyrotechnics!!!

all in all agooddayout

Yower mayet Spitfire Ace Binman

Well done to Jon Wolfe on the double, 1999 TSSC Champion and now 2006 TR Champion.

The only driver to win both championships.... !

Yep, well done to John and Dave and Andy's ominous speed..... thanks everyone for a great year, see you all the Birkett!

PS anyone get any pics of my spin? want that one for the scrap book..... cant believe I span at that speed at quarry and didn't meet with the tyre wall...! Great track, now one of my favourites!

Congratulations to Jon Wolfe and all the drivers after a fab-o race at Castle Coombe.
I was stood at the exit from the corner and the 'Silverback' missed the stricken Spitfire, by the merest whisker. I have been kicking myself I didn't ask the bloke who reeled off some excellent shots on his digital SLR, to email me some copies, as the sequence was great(departing offside rear wheel bouncing out of shot....) It was like the red arrows doing a 'bomb burst' as cars were careering around the poor Spit: meanwhile the departing wheel continued its merry way unhindered, across the infield. There goes anther half-shaft.
A great day out and I was lucky to be at the right corner.
Lovely to chat to the drivers who all so eagerly gave of their time and were very polite when they were very busy getting the cars ready. I shall definately be back next year.
Regards
Bruce.

congratulations to jon and dave on your well ernt championship wins nice to see a v8 win the tr championship but even better a gt and a geordie takes tssc honours.looking forward to seeing everyone at the birket regards mark and all at jigsaw

Congrats to Dave and Jon! Don't forget to order your "Mighty Dave Thompson" Cap, Thong and BBQ apron combination, while stocks last:

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product.aspx...

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product.aspx...

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product.aspx...

All,
Hoping for some more pics of the race, I went looking on the Castle Combe website, and found paydirt.
A splendid one of Jon Wolfe, doing it for Great Britain: http://www.racecar.net/castlecombeforum/topic.asp?...
And via that site, some more of the Sb and me, looking rather intrepid, I think! http://stevekilvington.fotopic.net/p34200008.html
Why there aren't more, I don't know. This page shows, not one, not two, not three.... but EIGHT snappers lurking at Camp Corner http://www.racecar.net/castlecombeforum/topic.asp?... (Near bottom of page)

Even more at: http://www.ireay.co.uk/MotorSport/2006/0916/TR_TSS...

Enjoy!
JOhn

All,
Continuing my search for CC pics (I've got a day off and it's raining) I found this page:
http://www.mgcc.co.uk/Pages/Motorsport/Marshalling...

Note that the title includes the thirteenth and seventh letters of the alphabet - what do they use to illustrate their page on marshalling?
Step forward, Dave Styles and his Spitfire!

John
PS I think a caption is called for!

Section : Castle Combe

Silverback?

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