The Barttech Engineering Trophy
Well, the night comp has been.... and what a good event it was too!With a course mostly designed by Mark Caisley (with Alan Agnew, Davie Stewart & Davie Bartlett throwing in their ideas, and me just ensuring that we kept to the rules), we had five miles of interesting (and different) fun.
In practice, the course laid out was 4.85 miles (as driven once the pegs were in the ground) - giving a 30mph average time of 9 minutes & 36 seconds, and a target time of 30 minutes. Given I had a Doctor, Rescue Unit & Recovery Unit on site, I was able to not panic if people put in times down to 5 minutes 49 seconds.... which is always good to know, and a bogie time nobody was going to break :)
The format for the day was different to our normal schedule: this time we had three sessions, with the competitors putting in five laps in the afternoon, five laps at night, and five laps again on Sunday.... for a total of almost 70 miles!
From the outset, Davie Bartlett showed why he's last years SCCC champion, putting in five consistent lap times, from 9:54 on his first lap to his fastest of 9:21 (basically, an average speed of 32mph)
Hot on his heels, and looking to recover the trophy he won in 2008, Mark Caisley was less than a minute behind him after the afternoon session.
The following pack, all sitting in the 11-minute-lap area, were all the V8's, with the diesels of Ross & Abe Hamilton and newcomer Robert Scott coming in around the 12-minute lap times.
One issue that a significant number of competitors suffered from was overheating... Higel Hails, Mark Caisley, Stu Howe, Ben Gill, Jonathan Barker, Billy Philips, and all three from team Bartlette having big problems.
During the early evening, the heavens opened, and a good inch or two of rain descended upon us. The night stages saw a reduced field
Andi Harrison retreated to replace a diff; Brian Hilditch & Chris Cruikshanks decided discretion was the better part of valour, and racing in those conditions was too risky for them; and Mark Caisley retired, concerned about his engine blowing steam.
Davie Bartlett's charge came to an abrupt end on lap 9, when he broke a rocker-shaft.
When we reconvened for the sunday runs, we were back to an almost full field: only Davie Bartlett & Mark Caisley were not back with us.
Robert Scott ran into problems, with three blown dampers from lap 9, he needed to work fast to get to the start-line in time.
Sunday saw two other retireals: Ross & Abe Hamilton broke their fuel pump and Chris Cruikshanks blew his drive-train.
Billy Phillips managed to finish, however the final lap tore his rear axle from its mounts, and the car came in with a definite sag.... and a spring dangling in mid air!
The man, however, with the worst luck was Chris Sainter: he knocked the end off his oil-filter on lap one (and couldn't get parts until supper-time); knocked his timing out; and then lost his lights. In all, he only managed four laps.... but had an absolute ball!
Congratulations go to Ben Gill, who managed to beat Stu Howe to the win by less that 10 minutes. Full results are on the scottishcompsafari web site.
