Highlands - Round 6 - 13th July

Most of the drivers at Barnton carried on north to Highland for the second part of the now infamous Scottish Tour. Sadly Norman and Katy Fawcett could not be persuaded to make the trip this year.  However the 21 who did were joined by a further 7 Highland drivers (including two girls, “the cheeky monkeys”).

This gave 28 drivers and with only four super production entries gave 24 falcon runners easily dividing into 3 heats of 8 on the 8 lane tack. The lowest heat group of the 1/32 racing included a number of new young faces in their first BSL and one not so new in the shape of Graeme Stevenson making his first BSL appearance this year. Graeme set the benchmark for this group with a 32.20, a new production record for the track. The middle heat group contained the youngest Highland member and one of the oldest, Murray and Roddy! Ross Grogan set about pushing the lap record on further with a 32.4 which was to remain best time of the day. In the top group no fewer than 5 drivers broke 30 laps with Keith Charles top on 31.50 (nice one Keith!). Super production for a while did not look like it would be as quick as the falcon cars but eventually Steve Sargeant. David and Ian Fisher (all the way from London!) broke 30 laps with Ian top on 31.20.

Finals

The C Final was junior novices and all Highland except for John Gooding. This produced for me (well it would with a Dad’s and authors licence…RW) the drive of the day. Murray Wallace drove an excellent race with his only off as a result of another driver. He finished a resounding 6 laps clear of the battle for second place between Lindsey Munro and John Gooding. His Dad’s heart rate was well raised for the last couple of laps! In the B final there were four drivers all near or on the lead lap. Andy Brown Searle, Neil Grogan, Andrew Hogg and Ernest Danyi with Neil coming out on top a worthy winner with 51 laps. The A final was won at a canter by Graeme on 55 laps. Trailing in his wake were three drivers, Keith, Alan Lucas and Charlie Gooding all finishing on 50.75!! and Richard less than ½ a lap behind after 5 minutes. The super production final was very closely contested between Ian Fisher and Steve Sargeant. At one point Steve closed right up on Ian and looked as if he would go past to take the win but then had a couple of unfortunate offs in quick succession and Ian took the win by half a lap.

Super Production

Team Race

The team race was contested by 14 teams in 2 groups of 7. After the first runs Morecambe Security (Martin and Ernest) had laid down their marker with 80 laps in 7 minutes. The best of the rest Laurel and Hardy (Andy and Graeme), Tango Rats (Andrew and Steve Smith) and GSR Design (Neil and Ross) were in the mid 70’s. It transpired quickly that consistency especially in the gutter lanes was what was going to win the day and possibly historical knowledge helped too as Laurel and Hardy kept banging in consistent 75+ runs. After the 8 runs only Morecambe Security and Laurel and Hardy got past the 600 mark with Laurel and Hardy just coming out on top by 2 laps on 616.  The battles for third and fourth, and sixth and seventh were settled by .15 and .20 laps respectively after 56 minutes of racing. SDS took fourth from GSR Design while A9 Run took sixth from Tango Rats (sorry lads!). SCD Roadhogs were fifth in the middle of all this. It was a great credit to see a number of young new and not so young new teams having a go and doing well in first appearances. Both Still thinking (Norman and Roy) and Misfits (Murray Wallace and John Munro) both got the better of the more experienced Dads Taxi (Stephen and Mathew Siddall).

The finish was slightly delayed at 6pm but due to the excellent fare served up at lunchtime by Norman and Rod assisted by Ryan and Lewis. A lot of credit has to go to Norman and Andrew for their the work in setting up the meeting. Also thanks to David Sargent and Ernest for their help in the team race and Martin for scrutineering.

Finally, thanks to all for turning up and making it a very enjoyable days racing!