Just to Say Sorry. DMC Members Lap Up The Dukeries Track Day. Beano Is A Success. Month: March 2012

Transcription

1 Month: March 2012 Just to Say Sorry Firstly an apology for the lack of newsletter so far in A union strike and equipment failure has led to a prolonged period without a newsletter. All of Jan, Feb and March s Newsletter items. Normal service should be resumed from April. DMC Members Lap Up The Dukeries Track Day A 32 car entry of new and existing members turned up on the cold January morning for a day s entertainment. The Blyton Park track was set up to be both fast and demanding for all crews, with tight chicanes and fast straights. After the safety briefing, there was a slow lap to show the stage, even at this early stage two crews had bonnet problems. After the track opened several crews at problems (including losing compression and breaking gear box mounts), but after repairs they were back out enjoying the day. Unfortunately another accident at Pete Butler corner lead to an early lunch. Luckily the car was just a little bit bent (but out in the afternoon) and Paul was ok, if not a little bit stiff the next morning. After this incident the organisers decided that we should have an early lunch and turn the stage around for the afternoon. In the afternoon the stage was much better and many of the cars took to the stage to give marshals, friends, family and sponsors for a ride. As well as regular competitors, a few members also blew the cobwebs off after not competiting for over 12 months and new competitors too. A big Well Done to John Stevens and his troop of organisers for putting on a good days motorsport, and hopefully the successful track day will run in Photographs - Rob Spence Beano Is A Success The 2011 Beano was an amazing success. The small function room at the Mansfield Rugby Club was packed out with members and their families. Along with the friendly banter, raffle and awards giving, Dave Welch managed to win the Heads and Tails game. Thank you to everyone for turning up, the committee and members who set the night up and also the Sue and Bridie Hall for putting on the buffet for our members. A thank you also has to go out to Steve Gascoigne and Kelly Stevens for setting up a very successful picture quiz.

2 The Road Is Bright With The Moonbeam Rally Entries are now open for the Moonbeam Rally on the 10/11th March run by Telford Auto Club. This is the first round of the 2012 AWMMC Road Rally Championship. A copy of the event regulations and an entry form are available on the Telford website It is also worth mentioning at this time that the AWMMC has new Road Rally Championship Secretaries for 2012 after the previous incumbent Bob Ward, after many years of excellent work, has decided to hang up his pen, although he is still promising to come out as a competitor. The two names you can now contact for the Championship are: Gareth Thomas and Simon Naughton and they can be contacted on Tel roadrally.awmmc@gmail.com. Not Competiting? Then We Need You To Marshal Major marshalling help we will need is for the Flying Fortress Stages on Sunday 19th March. If you would like to marshal on any of these events or would like any more information please contact our chief marshal Steve Gascoigne on steve.gascoigne@hotmail.co.uk Steve is also after people who would like to help marshal at the Alan Healy Memorial Rally at Cadwell, Lincolnshire on Sunday 8th April. Anyone wishing to help should contact Steve. Dukeries Motor Club Championship A new year brings a new club championship, and this year many changes have been implemented including changes to the under 25s award, compeiting rounds and other small regulation changes. NOTE: To score points in DMC championship, if you register for any regional championship you must register as Dukeries Motor Club. A copy of this years regulations have been included in the with this newsletter. Chocks Away For The Flying Fortress The Flying Fortress stages at Grafton Underwood is all set to fly on March the 18th. Entries for the event have been over subscribed with reserve entries now being taken. Many club members have entered the event which is a round of the EMAMC and NEMAMC championships and also the DMC championship. Entries include: DMC Champion 2011 Andrew Mcarthur in his Subaru Impreza, Rob Lowe in his trusty Metro 6R4, Peter Beer in his Mk2 Escort and Rainworth Skoda owner and Dukeries Rally sponsor Jon Atherton and Simon Beckett in their cloud making Fabia VRS. We are after people to help set up on March 17th, aswell as marshals on the actual day. Please check the website and get in contact if you think you can help. Also check the website the weekend before the event for the seeded entry list. A REMINDER THAT THE EVENT IS NON SPECTATOR. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE ACTION YOU NEED TO MARSHAL. ALSO ONLY 1 SERVICE VEHICLE IS PERMITTED IN THE SERVICE AREA PER COMPETING CAR.

3 Competitors head Eastwood for rallying at Mallory Park The first round of the DMC champion took place on Sunday 5th February, with a snowy/icy track greeting the competitors who braved the weather. The rally was won by Rob Lowe and Sid Buckley in their Metro 6R4. 4 Dukeries members had entered to compete on the event. Gary Wayne and Shane Barnes in their Subaru Impreza managed to battle to 8th Overall and 4th In Class. Dave Welch and Stuart Proctor had several offs and could not use the power of their Talbot Sunbeam to its full potential. The pair survived to finish 24th Overall and 4th In Class. Keep an eye out for Dave s next car appearing on the stages sometime this year. David Tinns and Bridie Hall retired the Ford Escort Mk2 after the first stage, complaining of a lack of grip. The very sideways Paul Hall and Chris Dewsnap and the very powerful Ford Escort Mk3 RWD finished the day 6th In Class and 18th Overall. Dave Wood and Matt Wood had planned to enter in their Alpha Concrete Vauxhall Corsa, but with the rebuild not complete they had to borrow fellow Dukeries member Dave Baines s Vauxhall Astra. Unfortunately issues when preparing the car meant that the pair didn t start the day, but did make the journey to marshal. Liam Butler and Peter Butler did even get their Vauxhall Nova. Personal reasons forced their entry to be withdrawn before the event. A big thank you to all the DMC members who either marshalled or took part in the event. Also thank you to John Hickling and everyone who organised the event. DMC Website The Dukeries Motor Club is in the process of getting a new/exciting and upto date website. Watch that space! Easter Fundraising banger car Event This is an from the organiser of the title above: Hello. I am organising and taking part in a fundraising "banger" car run over the Easter weekend this year and wondering if any of your members might be interested in taking part. The event will start from the RAF Museum at Cosford near Telford on Good Friday morning. The plan is to take in the 3 highest points by public road in England, Scotland and Wales. We will be fundraising for the Royal Air Forces Association Wings Appeal. The association provides welfare support and other assistance such as respite care homes mainly to former RAF servicemen and women who have found themselves in difficulty or due to ill health and old age etc. The event is open to anyone in any sort of vehicle, of reasonably low value (up to 400 approx would be ideal but happy to be a bit flexible). They can be decorated in any way imaginable and should carry some form of advertising for the RAF Association. It is possible that I will be able to provide the official logo stickers from the association. There will be a prize for the "best dressed" banger! Needless to say all vehicles must be road legal with tax, insurance and MOT etc. Each vehicle should have at least 2 people who can drive. All crews will be responsible for their own fuel, accommodation and food costs on the trip. The overnight accommodation will either be campsites (using our own tents) or Travelodge / Premierinn etc. A rough guide to the costs involved would be: Overnight campsites approx 16 per pitch per night. If we use Travelodge or Premierinn etc the rooms are from 30 upwards. That said I will be looking for the best price available for everyone taking part. People can try to get sponsored for some or all of the costs if perhaps a company is willing to provide some funding in return for the company name being displayed on the car. Participants can also ask for donations from friends or family etc. The banger car can be used to fundraise with, subject to permission from land owners etc. Here is a rough itinerary of the trip: Thursday 5th April Cars from the South West area will travel up to Cosford near Wolverhampton, arriving mid evening (accommodation to be confirmed). People coming from other areas are very welcome to arrive on Thursday evening if they wish. If there are enough people we could have a pre event "meet and greet" in a local pub etc.

4 Friday 6th April (Good Friday). Cars and crews will meet up at the RAF Museum at Cosford around 8.30am. A bit of pre run admin etc and we will depart around 9.30am. First stop will be the highest point in Wales at Bwlch Y Groes in Snowdonia before heading to Wrexham to carry out some fundraising for a few hours. We will then get on our way again and head up to Carlisle for an overnight stop (camp site or Travelodge etc, to be confirmed). We should arrive there early to mid evening. Saturday 7th April. We depart Carlisle for a fundraising stop in the Glasgow area. Then heading up to the Cairnwell Pass (Glenshee area) for Scotlands highest road. We will then track south and overnight stop in Edinburgh (accommodation to be confirmed). Sunday 8th April. Leave Edinburgh around 9am and head down to Morpeth in Northumbria. Fundraising for a couple of hours with a possible lunch stop at the Morpeth RAFA club. We then head to Englands highest road at Killhope Cross (A689 Cornriggs area). That will be the official end of the run and people can then start to head home or elsewhere of course! I am happy for you to forward this e mail and my phone numbers onto anyone else you think may have an interest in taking part. Having done a run last year to Barcelona fundraising for Help for Heroes, I can tell you we had a fantastic time. 24 cars and around 70 people enjoyed some excellent driving and a great social scene too! Hopefully we can do something similar on this run! Hope to hear back from you soon. Best regards Steve Colhoun Cars of the DMC Emlyn Evans has kindly sent some information over about the Seat Leon touring car he is luckly enough to work on: Something a bit different from the usual stage cars. SEAT Leon S2000/NGTC Touring Car OK, so it isn t mine and I haven t driven it (yet!!), but it has been a significant part of my Motorsport life for the last 3 years, so hopefully it counts. For those of you that don t know I work as a Race Engineer (and Team Manager) for BTCC & WTCC Touring Car Team, Special Tuning Racing, and have worked their lead driver Tom Boardman as engineer and driver coach for the last 11 years should see us return to the World Championship as the official SEAT Customer Team. Best Result with the car 2009 World Touring Car Championship Independents win at Brands Hatch, podiums in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and Macau 2010 BTCC Independents Win 2011 BTCC Overall win at Knockhill plus other podiums Brief History of the car/competing in the car Car was originally built by SEAT Sport in Spain to S2000 Diesel regulations for SEAT UK and was driven by Darren Turner. We purchased the car in early 2009 and converted it to run the TFSi petrol engine, 2 litre Normally aspirated limited to 8500rpm running around 270 bhp. We teamed up with SunRED Engineering in Spain who were running the experienced Tom Coronel to win the Independent Teams Championship in the World Touring Car Championship. In 2010 we campaigned the car in the in the same specification in the BTCC. Also entered the UK round of the WTCC. We also built and developed a second car to use the newly announced NGTC BTCC engine (2 litre Turbo), which was raced at a couple of meetings near the end of the year. Based on the learning from 2010 we had a SEAT engine developed to the new NGTC regulations, running two cars in the BTCC, and taking an overall win.

5 Best moment in the car I suppose I should ask Tom really, I don t think his answer would be much different though the WTCC win at Brands & BTCC win at Knockhill. I think Tom also rather enjoyed the cars performance (and his commitment) through Manderin Bend in Macau; certainly multiple World Champion And Priaulx was impressed as he couldn t keep up!! Worst moment in the car A couple from Oulton Park, one in 2010 when a steering arm broke when in a comfortable 2nd place, and then in 2011 when we gambled on tyre choice on a drying track with both cars, the two drivers swapping fastest laps, 5s faster than everyone else, cutting through the pack heading for a team 1-2 when Tom got taken out by an out of control Vectra. Despite the heavy damage, which had broken the roll cage, we had the car back out for the next race 2 hours later, picking up a 6th place from the back of the grid in Race 3. A bit more detail on the car Front wheel drive, running a 6 speed Hewland Sequential Gearbox type Adjustable LSD (we even changed it on the Grid in Japan in a thunderstorm!!) SUSPENSION Front axle McPherson Rear axle Multi link Anti roll bars Adjustable front and rear 4 way adjustable Sachs Dampers MEASUREMENTS AND WEIGHTRAKES Front calliper 4 pistons Front disc 332mm x 32mm Rear calliper 2 piston Rear disc 280mm x 10 mm WHEELS AND TIRES Runs on 17inch rims, consuming around 25-30,000 of tyres a year!!! Heading for Victory and a Team 1 2 in the WTCC at Brands in 2009 The S2000 engine installation after we converted the car from its original Diesel installation

6 The 2010 installation of the NGTC Turbo engine the 2011 version was a lot neater!! More WTCC action, this time in Germany. Cars Of The Dukeries Motor Club Hopefully to be revived in 2012 is the Cars of the DMC. Each month we are hoping to put a member s car on these pages. How? Might you ask? Simple send a spec of your car and a few photographs. It s that simple. Attach that along with these easy three questions: Best Result with the car Brief History of the car/competing in the car Best moment in the car Worst moment in the car It doesn t have to be a stage rally car! It could be your road car, weekend car, road rally car, anything with wheels. Simply send all this to liambutler_uk@yahoo.co.uk Awards Dinner Several members of the DMC attended the EMAMC dinner at the Hostess just outside of Mansfield. A big well done to everyone who won an award. The next dinner is on Sat 3rd March and is at the Bentley hotel in Lincoln. Hopefully the DMC can do as well at this dinner and have as big a support.

7 Help The Air Ambulance Please find below an invitation from Sarah Jones of Wolverhampton and South Staffs CC that we support an online epetition relating to an appeal to the Government to have the VAT on Air Ambulance Fuel Payments returned to them, as already happens to the Lifeboat Service. The Air Ambulance has proved to be a vital service to motorsport over the years and we at the AWMMC are happy to support this cause. We would be grateful if you would consider circulating this around your own club members. Kind regards Steve Steve Gregg Vice Chairman AWMMC I don t know if anyone ever takes any notice of these petitions, but lets try and help them a bit. It takes just a minute of your time and we never know whether we will be the next person to use this service. I am not usually in favour of mass forwarding s to groups but I think that this is important enough to ask you all to consider sending it to your closest contacts Regards Sarah