So, just had my first sprint at Llandow. Absolutely loved it!

 

It was horrible weather in the morning, but that worked out quite well for me as I only had 1A tyres (normal road tyres), everyone else had both 1A's for wet & 1B's (specialist semi-slick tyres) for dry. Also, some of the road-going class cars were a little more modified than I expected...full cages, trick brakes, race seats, harnesses etc were on most of them as it was also a round of the Welsh Speed Championships, so there were some fairly serious boys there!

 

After the practice runs I was looking ok at 7th out of 12, which I was quite happy with considering the conditions and level of competition. Due to quick work by the marshals, probably because the conditions were so bad and they wanted to go home ASAP, we got a timed run in before lunch, which I did in 101secs taking me up to 5th – I was very happy with this, especially as a ‘banker’ time, so I could push a little harder for my second timed run.

The second timed run, after lunch was different though. It was still wet but there were no big puddles, and most of the quick guys switched back to their AO48's/R888's...the result was that nearly all of them improved by between 3-5 seconds. The class best was set at 95.43secs. I improved too, knocking another second off, down to 100.44secs but it wasn't enough to stop me slipping to 8th out of 12 – I think the quickest of the list 1A runners, but not sure as this isn’t given as an official result. Had the weather stayed awful I think I may have stayed 5th or 6th, since I had a fair margin down to 7th after the first run.

 

Still quite happy with the result considering it was my first event and that I'd never even seen the circuit before, when all the other guys were regulars there. I improved each time, and I think there was probably another second or so to come had we got a 3rd run, which wouldn't have made a lot of difference to my placing, but the marshals understandably had had enough after the 2nd run.

 

Times (place after session in brackets):
P1: 110.35sec (8th)
P2: 102.05sec (7th)
T1: 101.14sec (5th)
T2: 100.44sec (8th)

 

Now the thing to do is source a second set of wheels with 888's or AO48's to try and level the difference a bit, which means I'll have to think of some new excuses! I won’t be able to afford that any time soon though, probably not until next season, in the mean time I think I’m going to re-set the suspension geometry before the next event at Castle Combe, perhaps run a little more negative camber on the front to dial out the understeer. I think Combe will be quite well suited to the VX, as it has some good high-speed corners, which is very much the vx’s forte. 

 

Hopefully I will have some pictures soon.

This weekend will be my first sprint event. Basically a time trial, in this case nearly 2 laps of the Llandow circuit outside Cardiff.

 

The VX will be in class A3, which is for road-legal cars of capacity between 1800cc and 2600cc. From the entry list it seems that the 1700turbo Ford Pumas are the cars to beat..they always seem to be competetive when they run. However, the weathers looking bad, which is good for me, as I'm running list 1a tyres, which are far less sticky than the 1b's other guys will be running, but will be better in the wet.

 

To be honest I'll be really happy if I'm not last, regardless of weather and everything else. I don't just expect to jump into competetive motorsport and win! Although it would be nice...

 

Pictures etc to follow after the day.