PAST EVENTS PAGE 91
CASTLE COMBE TRACKDAYS - 2003
On 26th April we had the first of three action days at
Castle Combe race track. The club had a good turn out with around 10 MK1's showing up, though
due to lack of space some ended up parking elsewhere.
CASTLE COMBE SATURDAY 26th APRIL 2003
This was the first of
several track days at this great racing circuit that we shall be attending as a
club event this year. Richard and I normally travel down to Bath on a Friday
evening followed by a few jars and a meal, staying the night in a friends flat
and somehow making an early morning start to be at the circuit at about 8 am.
Unfortunately Richard couldn’t make it and the flat owner was away so I
decided to join Lauren and Mark at around 5.15 am at the Leicester Forest East
Service Station. We then travelled in convoy and met one of Lauren and Marks
IMOC members in a MK2 somewhere near the outskirts of Oxford. The journey was
relatively straightforward and we arrived on site and erected the club Gazebo
and Banner. There were six MK1’s and the weather certainly in the morning was
reasonably ok. One snag with our free track passes was that they had to be used
by 11am and there is now a compulsory briefing that every driver must attend and
is subsequently issued with a yellow wrist band. So it wasn’t long after we
arrived to set out for the briefing and then join the queue for the track. One
change I had not seen before was that there were two lines for queuing – 1
line for inexperienced track day drivers and the second for more experienced
drivers. My Karmeleon supercharger performed quite well but I found that the
bottom of the body just in front of the rear tyres just caught the ground when I
snaked through the two chicanes and went slightly up the ‘curbs’ at each
apex. It was still most enjoyable and the five laps seem to go in a flash.
Most of the other members
went on the track and after lunch several of us went to watch at various vantage
points to see how other drivers coped with the now damp conditions. It did rain
but not very heavy and not for very long.
The owner of the glass fibre
moulding company also turned up with her Lilac Karmeleon and that was now the 5th kit that had been made.
At about 5pm I packed up and
said goodbyes and proceeded to travel West on the M4 until I hit an enormous
downpour. This revised my route home and I shortly left the motorway and had a
longer but more pleasant trip through the towns and villages along the A46.
The day had the usual wide range of cars, everything from pumped up Nova's
to Elise's. As the day is a Car and car Conversion day many of the cars have
been heavily modified and you really don't know what is under that bonnet.
There was a Mitsibushi Evo 7 going around with, from what I've been told
700bhp and a Triumph Dolomite with 450bhp, the huge nitro tank where the
rear seats should be gives the game away!!
This was pretty much the first meeting of the summer and it was good
to see some people that I have'nt seen for some time.
I took my supercharger out on the track for the first time this year, I really had forgotten how fast it was!!
There are another 2 action days at Combe later this year. The next one is
14th June, followed by the Classic and Sportscar action day on 30th August.
For these days any member that wants a free entry passes, send me a letter with
a stamped addressed envelope and I will post it to you once I have them from Combe. As usual the track passes
will be handed out on first come first serve basis at Combe first thing on the morning of the event.
My address is; Andrew O'Brien, 16 Rhuddlan Court, Hendredenny, Caerphilly, CF83 2UQ
see you there.