SMRC 13th April

[Blair]

What a day!

Mini's provided great entertainment! Alan Keith was up to his usual tricks but the action throughout the field was mega. The reptitive squealing of the Mini's tyres, and the rocking on their suspension as they leapt through Glenvargill is one to be treasured. Unfortunately Klos (spelling??) was the first victim and hit the tyres on the start finish straight. I had just turned my back and then it happened! That will be one expensive repair job I tell you...


Quite liked how the Radical had a 30 second penalty but yet flew through the field to a good result. The other cars were as always, awesome, I think the only battle we got was between the Morrison MG ZR and one of the Caterhams.

XR2's - apparently one of the fastest XR2 races ever and I reckon they were right! Great to see a battle at the front between Forrest and Allan - what was the gap - 1/600th of a second at the line? WOW! Sadly Nick got punted off at McIntyres on the 2nd lap I think from starting in 4th. Marshals managed to push the car out at the end - and I was thinking they could've surely done that in the race, although on second thoughts it was maybe too dangerous to.

Was it me or was Knockhill packed today? I think the Mini's are a good thing for the SMRC. I arrived before midday today and there were 2 rows of cars parked all the way down to Duffus with no spaces. That's not normally the way it is! Also noticed the circuit had turned into a creche too lol, lots of children about - obviously parents taking advantage of the under 12's free scheme - I think this is new for the season. Noticed that the 27th meeting is £10 for a car full of people to get in - there will be tons of people about then!

[jaffa6]

Hey everybody,
New kid on the block here (well it's a few years since anyone called me a kid though...lol ).
Have to agree with TL, the crowd was definitely biggar than the usual SMRC meeting crowd. Great to see so many people on the 'Hill.
Great racing throughout the day too although we had to leave during the second Mini race as my mate is working tonight. Shame about Nick being punted off so early though.
But all in all a great day out, could've done without the usual Knockhill "Breeze" though...lol.

Jaffa6

[Blair]

Didn't help that it was too dry though and was more like the Middle East than Fife.

OMG did I say it was too dry??!! Ha I've just jinxed the rest of the year....

Welcome to the forum btw Jaffa - hope to see you around this year sometime.

[NeilS]

Mmmmm? Didn't have the best of days Great day yesterday at testing and enjoyed qualifying today, no qualifying was brilliant fun ; Then it all fell apart in the race :- Couldnt get any traction off the start then couldnt find 3rd gear and it just went on from there, problems selecting gears all the time then on lap 8? missed a gear completely and over revved big style. Just back in from garage and found 4 very bent exhuast valves along with cracked valve guides, so its off to the engineers tomorrow see if they can replace valve guides. Bit off a b***er since I only put new valves in last week but hey at least I didnt just smash up my shiny new mini (always look on the bright side) Finding out where I'm loosing time and getting happier with handling of car so next either next time out or next after that (if its dry) hope to get into 66s. Overall on balance a cool weekends racing, and yes there did seem to be alot of spectators there to watch the mini's. But it was a bit like watchin' racing on the tele with the sound turned down, could they not make the engines a bit noisier! P.s. just for those who dont know I'm number 67 in the XR2 silver/blueish colour (yeuch, new colour for next year)

[davefiddes]

You're right. What a lot of folk there were. It was really quite busy down at the hairpin at times.

It was absolutely great to see the large grids in Legends (!!!), XRs and the Minis though it was a bit of a shame there weren't quite enough XRs to have a qualification race

I don't know about you guys but I thought that the Legends races were utterly fantastic. There's a heck of a lot of real talent in there these days as well as numbers and it definitely makes for good racing. My poor ears are still hurting from one of the black cars (I forget its number) whose silencer started to fall off...heck those things are loud...not as bad as a Panoz but great for ing what's left of my hearing

It was a great day out but I'm left with a couple of questions:

The Mini Challenge: What's that all about then? I knew they were a bit slower but they were so slow and unspectacular I was left wondering what was the point? The racing was OK and there were lots of cars but it did seem to go a bit One Make Series after a while (in the way XRs, 2CVs, and Legends never have). I guess we'll see how things progress during the season.

Off track transport: Interesting to note the quality of the off track vehicles. Half a dozen Porkers including a new GT3, a very new looking Noble M12, several Skylines and the usual collection of top of the range Scoobys and Evos. With the only really fast motors on track being John Muir Starlet and Olly Ross' Radical I can't help but wish that these folk would spend their cash on some reasonable
sports/single seater and a boring Volvo, Mondeo or Vectra for the road. There have always been some flash motors around for as long as I've been following Scottish motorsport but never has the ratio of cool track/off-track cars been so poor.

Commiserations Nick. The new paint job looked great for the few tours I saw. Hope the rest of the season goes better.

Anyways. I'm off to put some anti-chip paint on the bottom of my beast and move things forward a bit so I can at least try to do my bit to improve the ratio of cylinders/car, cubic capacity/car and bhp/ton...even if it bankrupts me!

[Blair]

davefiddes said:

Off track transport: Interesting to note the quality of the off track vehicles. Half a dozen Porkers including a new GT3, a very new looking Noble M12, several Skylines and the usual collection of top of the range Scoobys and Evos. With the only really fast motors on track being John Muir Starlet and Olly Ross' Radical I can't help but wish that these folk would spend their cash on some reasonable
sports/single seater and a boring Volvo, Mondeo or Vectra for the road. There have always been some flash motors around for as long as I've been following Scottish motorsport but never has the ratio of cool track/off-track cars been so poor.

Too right! What some people spend on "I.C.E." could afford a whole season in the XR2's...

But then hey, that's what they like doing and I suppose they could say why spend a few grand racing when I can have a lovely multi-DVD player with a 7" TFT screen in my car for when I'm at McDonalds..

[jaffa6]

Thanx for the welcome TL, yeah, the dust was a bit of problem too...lol...I went for a p*** in the "toilet" at Clarks and almost got lost in a sandstorm, as half a dozen Legends ran across the grass..lol.
There was a rather large number of flash cars floating around wasn't there??? My mate was in heaven as he is a big Porsche fan, and we saw more than a couple of them around the place.
Hopefully today bodes well for the rest of the season.
Look forward to more of the same.

Jaffa6

BTW, can anyone tell me.....that wee orange square window sticker I got with the season tickets....is that supposed to be the car pass ?......

[Catriona]

Great to see so many comments already - great day's racing, and very nice to not see any rain, though I have to agree with Jaffa about the wind... bloody freezing is the only word to describe that! Though for all that, I feel slightly sunburnt

A lot of people out there to watch today - good to see so many people out there watching the club racing, although the number of children around who clearly had no interest in the racing was a bit irritating... I don't really like kids at the best of times, and when they're running around making a lot of noise and not taking any notice of what's going on on track, they get on my nerves

Brain's half-dead just now (having just woken up from a short sleep after being too tired to stay awake when I got in!), so I can't remember everything that happened today, but I think just about all the racing was pretty good... Legends were as great as usual, although a few familiar names were missing (no McMurdos? ), and there were some very unfamiliar-looking cars out there with totally new paintschemes. Way too many drivers called Clarke/Clark, btw - two was confusing last year, but four is just ridiculous

Great to see Gary leading the final for a lap or two, btw - made sure to get a photo of that, which'll hopefully work out ok Saw Lance was well up throughout the weekend, as well - good going there

The XR2s surprised me by being actually not all that interesting by their normal standards... or maybe that was because most the people we were supporting didn't finish? Fantastic to see Nick qualifying 4th, but very disappointing to hear on the radio that he'd gone off on lap 2 Saw Neil pull off late into the race, which didn't surprise us after I'd spotted him slowing across the finish line on the previous lap - if you were having trouble finding gears through the whole race, you were doing pretty well, though, as you certainly didn't look particularly slow before it all went wrong

Noticed Derek vanished early on as well... what happened there? Or does the fact that there seemed to be quite a crowd looking under the bonnet after the race give a clue? For John, Norm and Ian, all seemed to get fairly solid finishes, though John in particular seemed a bit lonely on the track - think Norm was the only one who had much of a battle with anyone (can't remember who was in that green car!) Nice to see a new winner for the first time in goodness knows how long - Forrest certainly left it to the last minute, passing on the start/finish straight on the final lap, but it's the leader when the flag comes out that counts, after all

For the rest of the racing, the Caterhams seemed much the same as last year, only with a lot of changes to the names... shame there seemed to be even less of them than usual this time Saloons and Sportscars were also same again, really, with a few new cars, but the frontrunners being the usual suspects - always fascinating to see if Olly Ross can make his way up through the field from that penalty to win, but I can't help feeling Muir and Adam should start from the back of the grid as well, even if not with the 30 second penalty

Formula Ford looked pretty good, with far larger grid sizes than normal - no surprises in the top three drivers, although I was surprised to see Alan Kirkaldy being somewhat off the pace, by his standards... credit to Julian Taylor for being well on the pace all weekend, and it was a well-deserved win for him in the second race

The Mini's were certainly interesting... yet to be fully convinced, but they were a lot better than I'd expected, with a lot of side by side action, especially down the field. Amazing to see Alan Keith not only get overtaken, but to actually not win a race for once! Not sure how many more times that'll happen, but makes a very nice change For anyone who didn't watch those things at the chicane, btw, I fully recommend it - they were bouncing all over the place as they landed! Oh yeah, one downside of them being in road-spec is the absolutely horrible noise their tyres were making all the time... my poor ears!

Great day's racing overall, anyway - can't wait for next time out

Oh yeah - very nice to see the large numbers of XR2s carrying ScottishClubRacing.co.uk stickers - thanks for that, everyone!

[Dave]

That was a great days racing!

Legends - great as usual!

Mini's - Ok!

Scottish Saloons - Was great to watch John push to stop the Radical catching him!

XR2's - The front battle was great! Shame about Nick, he had a good start but pushed off at duffus, then second lap I think he made a great clean overtaking manouver past Dave C I think through Duffus but Dave C decided to wipe him out at McIntyres! (You'll need to tell him it isnt a two lap race next time Nick!)

FF - Yawn! Good to watch through duffus/mcintyres/chincane!

Caterhams - Didnt stay around for them!

Good weekend in all with Crail on Saturday.

Dave.

[Mike Hogg]

Fantastic to be back again - reminds me why I hate winter so much!! That was a great day out with tons to see and talk about.

The weather was great considering what it could easily have been like - if the sun comes out at all that's a bonus at K'hill and it was out a fe times today despite the... ummm, "cool" breeze!

Nice racing - Sandy Forrest took the win in the XR2s by 6 hundredths as I recall, which was a shame on Andy Allan cos the race was his for most of the laps. Tragedy for Nick being punted off like that but we spoke to him just after he drove back into the paddock and he wasn't slamming doors and so on so I think he took it quite well Real shame as the way things panned out he could have easily had third... don't get too disheartened Nick - on that quali performance and race pace you're in with a good chance of a possible win this year - definitely some top 3s... we'll be hearing you being interviewed on Radio Knockhill after the race in no time! Rest of the race was a little dull really - hopefully that was just a case of the cobwebs being blown away!

The minis were a pleasant surprise... kind of. The first race wasn't too bad but the second was a bit of a procession. I got the feeling that a lot of the drivers were being deliberately conservative - nothing worse than losing 20k in the first round... not that that'll be of any comfort to Klos - that car was a bit of a wreck. I'll give them a chance before passing further judgement There were a lot of people with "Mini Cooper Series" track passes wandering around and I have to wonder how many of them were actually interested in the races. Most seemed to hang around the Cooper hospitality tent (hospitality tent at an SMRC event? It's just plain wrong!!) wearing expensive sunglasses and so on... It brought more people in though (too many kids for my liking) and as has been said here already, that was the biggest club crowd for a while.

The FFords were actually pretty good... at the front at least. Well done to Julian Taylor for a good couple of races. Alan Kirkaldy looked a little off form but that could just be the new car. The Caterhams were pretty boring up until the last couple of laps when the Ecurie Ecosse boys decided to make a race of it, but you wonder how hard they were really pushing. Very disappointing grid size really as there were only really 3 competitive entries.

Legends were as good as ever - noticed a lot of the cars had onboard cameras so hopefully we'll get to see the footage. Some truly hideous colourschemes out there though!! The usual 3 wides through the hairpin etc but it's no more than we expect these days. Lance had a storming day - the most competitive I've seen him in a long time and it was good to see Gary get his moment of glory at the front.

Saloons and Sportscars was it's usual mix and match - shame Olly Ross couldn't go for the win... one day he'll do it! Liked the Westfield with the full bodykit and the V8 engine - mad things like that make the S&S interesting. Watching an old mini lead a VW Corrado was a surreal sight as well

Good to see everyone again too - lots of banter going around (Mr Thronton looks a little more slimline this year as well!) Thanks to all those with the SCR decals - you rock! ;D

[Blair]

Hmm I never noticed the decals on the XR2's maybe I never saw them from the right angles? Whereabouts were they on the cars - the back?

[Mike Hogg]

Mostly on the rear window arches, apart from the Moon River cars which had them on the rear windscreens. They probably aren't too visable on track so try having a look at the cars of John Findlay, Derek McD, Neil Scott, Ian Mackie and Norm Dalgleish (not on Nick's car - think his is a bit cluttered with big-money sponsors at the moment to put ours on! ;D) in the paddock... nice to see we're getting some publicity

[Blair]

Maybe they were all kicking up dust too much for me to see anything...


Have you thought of making up flyers and sticking them under windscreen wipers on cars parked, or sticking some on the large metal posts, particularly at Duffus - seems to be a popular corner.

[Mike Hogg]

The Duffus idea is an interesting one...

As for the idea of of putting flyers on cars - I'd feel far too much like a spam merchant doing that - besides if the owners were anything like me they would just curse the fact someone had put paper on their car and just throw it away without looking at it!

[NS-R]

Hi all - thanx for the nice comments.

Yes, it all went a bit wrong for me yesterday. Got a good qualification with a 65.10 which put me 4th on the grid. Usual crap start but only lost one place. Going into the hairpin for the first time, I made sure I got on the inside of Dave Colville and was side by side all the way into Duffus and I just went for it and got a good pass on him.

Then he was a bit behind me going into McInyres - I saw him making a lunge but he was behind so I took a slightly wider line and bang - into the rear side of my car - I caught the initial slide but his car then went up on two wheels and hammered into the front side of my car which speared me off into the gravel.

At least the gravel worked and I stopped before the tyres. The marshalls did have a go at pushing me out but it was really buried. It's not a good idea to continue anyway once you have an engine full of gravel.

Game over - Nil Points.

Point of note, the marshalls did a supurb job and it took about 7 of them and a lot of wheelspin to eventually get the car back out of the gravel.

At least there's no serious damage although as some of you may have noticed, I made a swift exit from the circuit in not too happy a mood...