I spent my first weekend at Fintray speed hillclimb last weekend. Thanks to Phil Rowlands who lent me his trailer, my wife and kids were able to come too and we had a great family weekend away. The kids really enjoyed the open space at Fintray and the venue is excellent for families with lots of good spectating, good facilities and most importantly, an ice cream van! Fortunately, the weather was fantastic all weekend.
The entry in class A8 was really excellent - the best of the year so far in fact. Five of us on Saturday and a whopping eight of us on Sunday. Never having been to Fintray, nor even seen a video before, I had no expectations of fast times. That, and the fact that I was up against some seriously well developed machinery, made coming last a distinct possibility.
Anyway, after a late start on Saturday, I got into the swing and managed to get my times down to 35.17secs - very, very far from the class winning 33.09 of Mike Stout in his 6-week old Lotus 2-11. I was closer to Martin Smith in the VX220 Turbo but he was having misfire problems. Anyway, I set my sights on a sub-35 second time for Sunday. That would be almost respectable!
On Sunday, I focussed on trying to brake less for the first corner (called Ruin). This is a very tricky corner as the entry is blind and looks much tighter than it really is. It then has a double apex and I reckon that a lot of time can be lost if you get this wrong.
Throughout the day I managed to chip away at my times getting down to 34.66 secs. Again, this was well down the pecking order but I did manage to beat Graham Sinclair in his 150bhp S1 Elise and Andrew Kinmond in his Zetec engined TVR Vixen. All in all, I was happy.
A quick word about Ian Duncan in the RX-7. He's been competing in the same car at Fintray since 1993 and had a storming weekend - smashing his previous personal best and managing second place on Sunday with a 32.44sec - only one tenth slower than the 2-11 !
The analysis of the 64ft and split times shows I was getting good starts (down to 2.37sec - better than the 2-11 !) but by the first split, I was a second down. So, I need to work on that first corner!
John Stewart took some great photos (more at flatoutphotography.com)
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