Autosport Show

Knowing it's always the same every year and has been steadily getting less interesting i wasn't going to go to the Autosport Show this year but with Mark's car on a stand we got free tickets so it would have been rude not to go! As expected it was the same old stuff again this year and felt much quieter on both the exhibitor and the visitors side.

Marks car looked great though and so did the other grassers on display. It was a great opportunity to show off the 2 new cars (Marks and Phil Coopers) built by Rade Race Developments. Ian and Colin of Rade are from a rally background and both still heavily involved in this scene but have turned their hands to a spot of grassin over the last couple of seasons and fancied a go at building some cars. Ian has his own class 9 which he raced last season and then Mark and Phil have the first 'customer' cars. We'll see what this year brings in terms of their performence and the outcome of Rade.

The grassers were again invited to perform in the Live Action Arena at the show and this year was the turn of the class 7's. Another great demonstration from our sport alongside the F1 & F2 stock cars, hotrods and many others. I can't help feeling though that the specials last year were just a little but more exciting than the 7's. I personally felt there wasn't enough chopping and changing of positions and close racing as seen in the other sports and as seen by the specials last year. Still, a good performance and definitely shows off our sport well.

Christmas & New Year

We went to Tenerife in December, our first real holiday of the year and a desperately needed one! The weather was a little cloudy but we fulfilled our main aim of just chilling out, relaxing and doing nothing! On our return we had our 20 week baby scan (that's what the thing on the left is!) which was all quite exciting, it's actually starting to look like a baby now! All is well with me and baby and there's definitely a good strong racing driver in there, probably a class 7 driver based on its strength!

Christmas was quiet with family visits on Christmas day but then no real agenda either side of that. We went up to Scotland for a couple of days, spent time catching up with family and friends, and just chilled out really. We took a trip over to Runcorn to visit the Almonds and deliver Christmas pressies to Shelby and Erina and had a nice meal out at the pub with them.

Dad has been working hard on the new bus, the back is pretty much complete, the inside is boarded out (ceiling and floor) and he's beginning to set out the interior layout. It's just that extremely cold weather that's putting him off going out there all day every day!

Remainder of 2008

Well it's been ages since i last blogged, partly because i've been busy, partly because i'm lazy, and partly because i've been getting myself pregnant! The pregnancy was all planned of course, to fit in with the racing season, and we have a baby due on 7th May 2009. Ok, so the planning went slightly awry and the baby will arrive just into the start of the season but so what, my priorities are all different now!

What else have i been getting up to then since the Ladies Nationals. Well the debate of re-scheduling the last BAS round ended in the decision NOT to re-schedule but i went along to spectate at the re-scheduled St Neots Open anyway. Obviously i couldn't race due to pregnancy but also we sent our engine off for post-season checks by BAS offficials so i had no car to race anyway. All came back clear with the checks so Mark and I are officially winners of class 5 BAS 2008! Not forgetting both winners of class 5 Nationals 2008 - what a successfull year for us and our car! (pic of my BAS and Nationals trophies left).

There were a couple of club events held at York over September & October but unfortunately i had to give these a miss due to morning-sickness!
Early November took me and Mark over to Runcorn, Lancashire, for a couple of days at Lisa & Lee Almonds to celebrate the girls birthdays and catch up with the rest of the Almonds and Coopers.

Later in November brought the BAS dinner which was pretty much same as usual except alcohol-free for me! It was great to get our trophies and celebrate everyones achievements, catch up with people, and just have a laugh away from the track.

December brought a bit of a manic time for my bro, and others involved helping and building him a brand new class 8 within a few short weeks. It has all been a bit last-minute for Mark to step in to display his car on the NASA stand at the Autosport show at Birmingham NEC in January. With his car barely started at the beginning of December it has been all hands on deck to finally get it finished today with just 1 week to spare. Just a few final stickers to be added by my capable husband and then it will be off down to Birmingham. Look out for it on the NASA stand, it will look awesome with it's stunning vinyl wrap courtesy of Dogtooth Moto Art http://www.dogtooth.co.uk/

BAS Round 5 Debate!!

Well BAS Round 5 due to take place this weekend at St Neots has been cancelled due to the weather conditions but who knew the cancellation could spark off such a heated debate!! The whole debate stems around the proposal to reschedule the round for a fortnights time.

Reasons to reschedule the event for a later date:

• Those class titles that are undecided will have a chance to be decided on the track

Reasons not to reschedule the event for a later date:

• People have commited to the series based on the dates set before they entered and will have made other commitments around these dates such as work and holidays. Some people will not be able to attend the final round as a result of a date change therefore they do not get to fairly complete their BAS challenge. It's not their fault the date changed!
• Other clubs have meetings scheduled to avoid the BAS and these might now clash with the revised date thus putting clubs and their members in an awkward position. Do they support their club and the club points scheme or abandon their club for the BAS?
• BAS rules state that if a meeting is cancelled the results are taken over the best 3 of 4 rounds. It does not state the cancelled meeting will be rescheduled!
• What president does it set for the future? How many rounds next year can be rescheduled when the time comes because the weather has been poor? What is the point in setting the dates if this can be done!

I think my opinion is clear to see from the above!! Some will win and some will lose from not having a last round but at least everyone is in the same boat. If you lose because you haven't collected enough points at other rounds then that's your own fault/bad luck really, harsh i know!! If you lose because you can't make the rescheduled date due to other commitments then that is certainly not your fault and it's unfair! And if you can't make the last round then all the money and time spent on the last 4 rounds was a waste!

From what i gather today, NASA and BAS are both in favour of rescheduling the event and so now it's up to St Neots to make the decision. How wrong is that!! Surely NASA should have the best interests of all clubs in mind (particularly those running on the rescheduled weekend) and BAS should have the best interests of it's members in mind, therefore St Neots have no decision to make as it should have been made by BAS and NASA.

In reality, the only ones to really lose out from this are St Neots. They have invested time and money to put on the event and it's not their fault it has had to be cancelled. But surely the better way for St neots to recoup some of their costs is to reschedule their East Anglia Open meeting as planned on 27/28 September and encourage people to support this. There is just no need for it to be a BAS round though. As Helen Richards has pointed out on the forum perhaps it needs to be looked at as the needs of the many (clubs and members) agains the needs of the few (St Neots). Well said Helen!

Ladies Nationals 2008

What a weekend!!!! You are reading a post written by the Double National champion!! Believe it or not, considering the last post, i won the Nationals in my car AND my brothers 8. I'm over the moon and still smiling almost a week later!

I think the Nationals is about the only meeting i experience full on nerves and boy did I have them last Saturday morning. Following my crash at the Fastest Man i was already in 2 minds about whether racing the 8 was the right thing but too late to back out now. I just needed to get that first heat in both cars under my belt and then i would feel much better. Well the first heat couldn't have gone any better, the track was great and the cars were superb, nothing faltered and I won quite comfortably in the 5 and very comfortably in the 8. Now i could settle!

Heat 2 brought another win in the 5 but a dodgy start in the 8 due to a very dug up start line meant i could only manage a 4th. To be fair though, the first 4 of us, Sandra, Sue, Clair and Me, were all bunched up and as fast as eachother. I new i didn't need to do anything stupid though and was happy to sit on the back of the other 3 and just bring the car home in 1 piece. Even in fourth the confidence i felt in the car was amazing, i knew i could race it 100% as if it was my own. The comfort and set up was spot on.

2 more wins in heat 3 took me into the final as joint top qualifier with Sandra in 5 and 2nd qualifier in the 8 with Clair Horner just in front of me by about 8 points.

Sat on the start line of the final in the 5 i felt so much pressure. I feel like people expect me to win because i ususally do but in all honesty it's probably me that most expects myself to win! At first i was glad to avoid Sandra during my heats in the 5 but come the final i realised i had no idea where i stood against her and really i would have felt more confident having had at least a heat against her. Well there was nothing that could be done now so all i could do was give it my all, drive to win the race and hope it was enough. I got a cracking start and was into the bend first and just threw myself in with the confidence i knew i had to have. Looking at photos now i see i was only slightly ahead of Sandra into the bend and so there would have been no room for hesitation, i needed that confident fast entry into the first bend to get my lead and pull away. I stayed about quarter of a lap infront of sandra for most of the race i think and took a good win.

It was strange sat on the line in the 8 for the final. I wasn't sure whether i felt pressure to win or not. On one hand i was 'just having a go' in the 8 because i could, no-one would expect me to win and so i was pleased to make the final, anything else would just be a bonus. On the other hand, i'd won 2 heats, i was 2nd qualifier, and i wanted to win!! I sat there knowing i could get the good starts and the only downfall i might have against Clair was the confidence into the first bend. That's what let me down last week at fastest man, i could get into the bend first but not commit like she could and thats where i lost out. This week was a little different though, i had the confidence in the car and the track and so i sat on that line just bullying myself to commit into that first corner.
Another amazing start saw me first into the first corner and boy did i commit. It felt amazing, i threw it in and came out a few car lengths in front already. What a world of difference that half a lap had made! I never looked back from that moment, just kept up my speed and confidence through to the end. I won class 8!!!

It felt great to win in 5, but as mentioned before the pressure is on me to win that anyway. It was a totally different feeling in the 8. The moment i crossed that line i just cried, and all the way back to the pits i cried, and sat in the car and cried! Yeah ok i'm meant to be a tough racer and racing is in my blood, but even i can be overcome with emotion at such an achievement as this! And what's kind of ironic is that my mum won the nationals in 5 and 8 in 1994, so it definitely is in the family!

Fastest Man on Grass 2008

I think we may have given racing a miss this weekend if it wasn't for me needing a practice in Mark's 8 before the Ladies Nationals. There just seems to have been so many weekends in a row packed with racing and travelling far and wide!

It was nice to have Saturday to do a few jobs at home, make my way down to Lincoln in my own time and then chill-out when i got there. Nigels bar (see pics) was a welcome addition to the event and i have to admit to spending a bit of time in there on Saturday afternoon!

This weekend I was racing the 5 to test the set-up for the Ladies Nationals and also having my first go in Mark's 8 for years! In fact, 2 years ago the nationals it was his old 8 that i raced so this would be the first time i this particular car. I needed to get plenty of practice! With my seat in the 8 there was no way Mark could get in the car so my partner in the car for the weekend was Phil Cooper, and what a good partner he was!

Sunday started off good with a nice win in both cars, i felt much more confident with the 8 straight away. Over the weekend things stayed pretty much the same in the 5 with another heat win, final win and winner of Fastest Saloon on Grass, beating the 7 of Charlotte Pugh. Things got worse in the 8 with a Black Flag for a hige wheelie (see pic), a 5th or something in final, 3rd in Fastest Special on Grass and a big crash in the Fastest Lady on Grass!! I braked hard to avoid someone and spun (my own fault) then got collected by a 7. It hurt!!!

2 very bent wishbones, broken shocker and stearing arm, lots of bruises and aches, and a very demotivated me took a slow and sombre drive home on Monday night. I was ready for giving up, in the 8 at least, and seriously questioning whether to race it at the Nationals. Was it just going to interfier with my confidence in the 5?

An Irish Adventure

We set off for the English port of Holyhead on Wednesday morning with the sun shining all the way. Our ferry sailed on schedule at 3pm and the crossing was relitively smooth and fast, docking in Don Louaghaire (just south of Dublin Docks) at 5pm. The sun was still with us in Dublin but we went through a few showers on the journey up North to Belfast.

The track at Maghberry had clearly suffered from lots of rain over the last few days and weeks so we were relieved to have all the old airfield concrete to park up on. This was probably a life saver for this weekend! Fortunately, with just 260 drivers, the concrete hard ground was enough to accomodate everyone with very few chosing to venture onto the grassy areas.

Thursday and Friday were both decent days. Rick and I went out on our bikes on both days and did a few miles around the country roads. There were lots of hills though and i have to admit that i ended up pushing my bike up them a couple of times! Meanwhile the Down Autograss track crew worked hard on the track all day on Friday and created a great looking race circuit.

On Friday night the rain came and boy did it come! In fact it didn't stop until late on Saturday night. On Saturday morning we were all relieved to here the start time had been postponed until 10am, and after the rain didn't stop we were even more relieved to hear of a further delay until 12pm. At 12, with the rain still beating down, all the drivers took a vote to cancel Saturdays racing and start the meeting on Sunday at 8am no matter what.

For the rest of the afternoon the world of autograss hit the local pub and i don't think the pub knew what had hit it! Needless to say there were some sorry states by early evening and a wise move made by most to come back to the field at around 8pm for the beer shed disco.

A promt 8am start on Sunday saw the first heats over by 11am, the second heats over by 2pm and the third heats by about 4.30. Time may have been tight for those catching the 9pm ferry but I think it was a wise deicision by the BAS committee to give everyone a 3rd heat and we did indeed still have time to run the finals. The track turned out incredibly well considering Saturdays rain, the slope of it allowing the water to run off albeit creating a very muddy pits!

We made the decision to set off to Dublin on Sunday night even though our ferry wasn't utill 11.30am Monday. With all the local weather warnings and stories of roads closed and ferries cancelled, we just couldn't risk leaving it too late. So we parked up just North of Dublin for the night and set off again at 8am for the ferry. We set sail a little late at 11.50am and took slightly longer to arrive back in Holyhead but with the company of Shuke and the Price clan we couldn't complain about a boring journey.

So it was a long, expensive weekend, for weather that we could have got back in England but it was an experience, and an adventure that was well worth it. Even with only 260 drivers no-one ever expected us to complete 3 heats and finals plus champ of champs in just 1 day after all the rain on Saturday, but Down Autograss and all of the other clubs helpers pulled it off and did grassin proud.