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Castle Combe Classic & Sportscar Action Day 2005 By
Mike Bressington Bored, bored, bored, bored………bored!. The weather outlook looked good for the weekend, too good to waste the day on the usual shopping trip, gardening project or yet another trip to IKEA with the missus. 'I know', I thought, the Castle Combe Classic & Sportscar Action Day should be around about now, let's have a look see on the interweb. Sure enough it starts at 9am on Saturday the 11th June - that's tomorrow! Better get organising. After a number of phone calls and some feverish typing onto the Wedge forum it was agreed that we meet up along the M4, 'hoon' through the Brynglas tunnels with the roofs off, carry onto Magor services for a fuel stop and then blast over to Combe to watch the action. Hopefully we can also hook up with some other TVR's whilst we are at the event. Jeff Morgan (red 400SE), Wyn (mica blue 350i), Steve Davis (white 400SE) and Dickymint (red 420 SEAC) were all up for it as well as my mate Claus who would accompany us on the blast up to Combe for the day in his silver Porsche 968 convertible. Unfortunately Simon with his blue 350i could not make it this time.
We all met up as planned
bang on time and after an absolutely ear drum splitting rip through the
Brynglas tunnels we all rumbled into Magor for a good natter, tyre kicking
session and re-fuel. It was heart warming to look around the petrol station
to be greeted with the sight of all the different Wedges - and all in
such good condition as well. The petrol attendant could have easily locked
up early for the night with all the profit she made in that sitting! After leaving Magor our convoy took the slightly more picturesque scenic route into Combe, this time along some great twisty A roads. Once through the gates we burbled and rumbled our way around the paddock area to see if we could find any other TVR's to tag onto. We were kindly waved straight onto the TVRCC Wiltshire stand to join the T350T, Chimps, Griff's and S's already on the stand. To compliment the usual newer TVR machinery we also found a very nice condition red 350i and a gold 280i at the stand, that made a total of seven Wedges at the event - not a bad turn out at all.
After some more tyre
kicking and nattering with the folks from Wiltshire (and some old TVR
friends) it was time for a wander around. The great thing about these
type of events is that nearly every marque of car turns up. All shapes
and flavours of Ferrari's, Lotus, Morgan, Cobra, Caterhams, Porsches,
Marcos's etc were all present (in some numbers) along with the usual track
prepped 'Jap, Ford and Peugeot fodder. There were some pristine examples of some classic cars onsite, especially in the American muscle car department; an immaculate Corvette and blue Cobra Daytona really caught the eye.
After wandering into the track administration / registration block to access the likelyhood of actually having a blat around the track, my hopes were soon dashed upon reading the fact that the track noise regulations were extremely tight. There would be no way that the 450SE would pass - it sets off car alarms at 40 paces as it is. I did notice however
that there were several pace car led parade laps to be held during the
day with a suggested speed limit of 60mph. As I had one of my boys (Greg)
with me who had not had the opportunity to go around Combe, I booked up
for the 12.15 session. We lined up the car next to the track scruitineering
bay and joined the long queue behind the track pace car. The young driver of the car in front, (a Nissan Skyline GT something or other) casually strolled over to us and suggested that 'we hang back a little and then see exactly what TVRs are made of' - this sounded like a bit of a challenge to me and after a quick discussion with my boy Greg as to the merits of the Skyline's performance (albeit in Grand Turismo 4) he gave me the nod to accept the lad's challenge and muttered in my ear that 'they were rubbish' - [ note to self: Don't listen to tactical advice from a 12 year old in future, especially before accepting challenges that could potentially make you look silly! ]. With a confident, cocky attitude I accepted the lads challenge......
After a quick check of the car we were ushered out onto the track, briskly following the pace car up the starting straight. After one reasonably slow lap of the circuit the cars started to spread themselves out and speed up quite a bit. I noticed that the lad in the Skyline started to let the rest of the cars pull away from him. All of a sudden his tyres lit up and he let rip! I followed suite determined not to let this upstart get away. I was all over him like a rash until we hit the corners! My 15-year-old original springs; shocks, brakes and bushes were no match for the Skyline's 'Japanese carbon fibre, computer assisted, space-age Buck Rogers go around corners faster technology'. No matter how hard I hounded him I could not keep up with him through the roundy bits. The straights on the other hand were another matter ;-)
One incident occurred further up the pack on the third lap as a leading car's engine exploded! Thick smoke engulfed the track, the Skyline and myself managed to drive straight through it without further incident. The unlucky chap who's car had expired unfortunately would have to be driven home with the AA as his cars engine was a complete write off.
After the fourth lap the pace car directed everybody off into the pit lane and back into the paddock. I really enjoyed the hoon around the track albeit at a slower pace but it leaves you with respect for the drivers who blast around the track at mach 10. One corner in particular I was starting to run out of road at 40mph! I have seen Tuscan drivers take the particular corner at 170 on three wheels - utmost respect goes to these guys.
Greg really enjoyed
the blast around the 1.85 mile circuit as well; the only trouble is once
you get off you want to do it again. Incidentally I bumped into the boy
with the Skyline again afterwards and he congratulated me on keeping up
with him!, the funny thing is though he turned out to be quite a TVR enthusiast
and then went on to mention that he had been after a Wedge for quite some
time and did I know anyplace that he could get any further information?……..
Later we joined the other members of our 'Welsh lot' for a mass walk around the paddock area. A few Wedge owners decided on having a rolling road session at one of the stands. The cars are securely(ish) strapped down and hooked up to a computer to ascertain the various power graphs. Interestingly though the same car tested at different times on the A and B rolling roads (there were two) threw up quite alarmingly different results! As one owner joked after asking his views on the vastly different power graphs 'I can give one to any prospective purchaser of the car, and the lower one to the insurance company!'. I must say that at
one point I was grimacing as the strapped down Wedge screamed its way
up to the limiter. If I were to have mine done I think that I would wait
until I came across a more 'sophisticated' setup. In my opinion I would
have thought a 12-inch 'B&Q type' cooling fan would provide insufficient
cooling for the car to get an accurate result from the start. Ambient
air temperature, controlled engine temperature, accurate revs per minute
etc all play a major part in obtaining reliable consistent results - all
of which seemed to be a little ad-hoc on this setup. Still they all seemed
to be having lots of fun.
After watching the
cars blast around the track for a further hour or two it was time for
the off. We said our goodbyes and rumbled and burbled our way out of town.
We again took the 'scenic route' home and after a final blast through
the Brynglas tunnels (which on this occasion did not go without incident!)
we headed off onto our various differing routes home; sunburnt and skint. To download the low res (2.4mb) WMV video of the day click HERE. To download the higher
res (7mb) WMV video of the day click HERE. My boy and I had a brilliant time and look forward to our next outing. Mike Bressington |
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