Report on 55CC Autocross, 27th July  –  by The Maestro

I always watch weather forecasts carefully for several days before an autocross. This time it was a bit mixed, with likely sunshine and showers. The night before the trip it was looking a little bit more optimistic, with the eastern half of Scotland showing more of the former than the rest of the country. And so it turned out. It was a glorious day at Dalcrue, just outside Perth.

This has proved to be a reasonable venue even on a poor day. This time it was just terrific. We all had a great day’s sport and entertainment, with the usual friendly atmosphere. The only problem was, as always in dry conditions, the high amount of stour, that seemed to get blown towards the paddock area, where most of us were watching the cars on the track. Because of this problem the organisers had decided to let us run singly (half a lap apart), so as not to have anybody running right inside a cloud, but I still had to put up with my own stour coming in through the non-existent back windows. (I did keep the front glass in for some comfort, and to keep the seat dry between events.) But there are people with no glass at all, and it must be worse for them being right behind another car, hence the staggered starts.

Since the last event I have done a small mod. I took the original tank out and fitted a one-gallon one in the engine bay. This reduces the overall weight, but more importantly it reduces the weight over the non-driving wheels. Another benefit was the banning of another problem, namely water in the fuel. In a half-open car water collects in low parts of the floor. The easiest solution is to punch drain-holes in it. But this had created another problem, because in the process I had inadvertently punctured the top of the tank, so it had more water in it than petrol, and it also allowed some petrol to spill into the car while driving hard. So taking the tank out cured all these problems. And the weight of a half-full tank is considerable. Some people might say I should think about reducing weight round my midriff too. That might be going a bit too far. It is about fun, after all. But I could do with slimming a bit, maybe.

There was a slightly more healthy entry this time, 21 I believe. Not brilliant, but still a bit better than the last two events. A wide variety of cars, including John Wight, from Coldstream, with an XR4x4 that only seemed to have RWD. The car seemed to suffer lots of problems, but he still managed to win the specials class and get second o’a. It must have been son Colin that was driving when it suffered fuel pump failure, a broken wheel, and other assorted terminal faults. I think it had to get towed off at least twice.

I had my Rover 214, by the way. Peter Humphrey and Neil Morrison had my old 1.6 Montego again, which Peter used to good effect two events ago. This time the 214 had the better of him, so either the tank job has been worthwhile or my driving has improved. You may draw your own conclusions on this one. I was definitely going faster than ever before, but then so was everybody else. On the third run I was conscious of braking as I was coming into the two hairpins, and I’ve never done this before. It is an indication of how fast I must have been going on the two straightest bits. At one point I managed a glance at the tacho, and it was around 6, which equates to about 55 in second, maybe a touch more. The track is 700 metres long, with the two hairpins and several other bends of different angles, also a big dip just after, or before the bottom hairpin, depending on the direction being used.

The next mod will be to lower the back, as it’s sitting very high now. This may reduce its tail-happy nature a bit. Not too much, I hope, because I rather like its ability to oversteer on demand, even with power on. But it could be more of a handful in wet conditions so some quelling of the tendency may be useful.

FTD was a Special based on a Range-Rover. It looked a bit like a Cowdenbeath Superstock (I think that’s what they call them, but I haven’t been there for about 30 years so what do I know?). The 3.9 V8 certainly sounded the part, and as you would expect the thing just took off.

Alan Comrie just pipped me into third place in a CRX, by 0.4 sec. And that car’s owner, Ewan Alcorn, was the same margin behind me. He has scored an FTD in the past with the same car, so I was pleased to beat him. Alan usually has a RWD Kadett. I have mentioned him before, although not by name. It does take a while to discover everybody’s names. If this ends up in 55’s newsletter please forgive this slow-in-the-uptake brain of mine. Entry lists would help people to get to know each other (hint, hint!), but then late entries make this difficult. There are still loads of people that I know by face, but not by name.

There were more Fiestas than usual, and a few Novas, 205s and other assorted FWD hatches, mainly. Almost all of them were not specialised autocrossers, but just cheap bangers like mine. Some people use ex-rally cars, some use rescued scrappers (like mine), a few are even persuaded to use current rally cars, coming “down” for a day. This time there was a Nova in this category. A few people just use whatever is available at the time, and this usually means a quick strip-out a few days before the event. And these guys are still competitive in such bangers. This is an indication of how easy, and easy-going, this branch of the sport is.

I used to be daunted by the safety requirements, until I really looked at it in detail and discovered you don’t need to spend all that much. I wish I had found autocross 30 years ago. As it is, I have had a few years of fun, and I hope there will be a few left in me yet.

55 are hoping to find a cheaper venue for next year, and may reduce the number of events, because they are losing money by running these. They cannot afford to keep doing this, so I would urge anybody that may be swithering about trying autocross to contact me for a little bit of arm-twisting and advice. I think I have told you my numbers before, but just to make sure, they are 01368 850 367 (h) and 862604 (w). [derekmclean@callnetuk.com]  I hope to hear an almighty response!

Updated 28 July 2003
Webmaster - Jim Paterson