Kames Sprint 20 May

Kames Sprint, originally uploaded by Paterson Photo.

Great shot of the Flaming Saxo at Kames on Sunday, taken by young photographer Scott Paterson. He's captured a real sense of speed and movement in this. See more on his flickr page.

The event itself was great fun - the weather was as good as you could get with fair skies and a decent temperature.   I was up against some serious competition from the north of England in the form of James Kerr in his Peugeot 205 and Dave West in his Peugeot 106.   James recently broke the class record at Harewood and was on fire on his first visit to Kames with a 95 sec run.

I was happy with my time and reassured that there is a lot more to come.  On my last run, I managed a 99.79 and that was with the car jumping out of third on the entry to paddock bend which cost me a good second or so.  If I can string a decent run together, I know I'll get a 97 sec.

 In the end, I managed to grab a third in class and set a personal best time (in the Saxo) of 99.61 sec.

I was plagued with oil leak problems all day though.  The rocker covers are still not sealed and the sump return pipe kept popping out.  A chat with Dave in the Pug 106 revealed he had taken numerous attempts to seal his rocker covers so its obviously a common failing.

There was some great banter with some of the Wigton Motor Club guys who had come up for the day including Ronnie MacGregor in his banana S2000, Dave Wiggins in his loverly Pub 205 Rallye and it was great to see Dave Exton back out in yet another MR-2.  That particular car did spend a lot of time overheating but I'm sure Dave will get it sorted out in time for Barbon.

Next event is an AutoSOLO at Penrith on Sunday.  Should be a laugh.

Getting ready for Kames

The other night I decided I'd better try and fix the rocker cover oil leak in preparation for Kames this coming Sunday. I took my time stripping off all the old gasket material and cleaned the mating faces thoroughly with degreaser before putting a bead of Loctite black silicone on. When I did the second cover, the tube burst and made a hell of a mess - good job I was wearing gloves! I haven't tested it yet (I am so lazy) but it can't be any worse than it was. I still have to fix the water leak from the bodged hose but that's no more than a minor irritation to be honest. The Saxo hasn't even been off the trailer since the last outing in April so it will be interesting to see how I get on. I really should get my finger out. The event itself is a bit of an extra for me. I decided to focus on the Brockbanks Cross Border Speed Championship run by Wigton Motor Club this year. Sunday's event is not part of that but there a few guys from the Wigton club coming up so it seemed like a good idea to get some practice. Upcoming events after Sunday are an AutoSOLO at Penrith on 27 May, Teesside Sprint on 4 June and Barbon Hillclimb on 16 June. I might also sneak in a trip to Forrestburn on the following weekend.....

Next events - Kames and Teesside

I've sent off my entries for my next two events - Kames on the 20th May and Teesside Autodrome, Middlesburgh on the 4 June. In between, I might be doing a wee AutoSolo down at Penrith just to get some seat time with the Saxo. I got my times for the April event at Kames and as I thought, I was pretty slow until the last run when I did a (just) sub-100 sec run. Looking back, there were quite a few mistakes on that run so I think a low 98 sec run is perfectly feasible for me and with a bit more time in the car, I should be able to get into the 97s and maybe 96s. On paper, the car is as fast as the VX220 was and I managed 96 sec runs with that. On the car front, I haven't even taken the Saxo off the trailer as I've been focussed on getting my old Volvo barge through its MOT. That took a bit more effort than I had hoped but it's now done so I can get on to thinking about fixing the oil and water leaks on the Saxo.