Barbon Manor Hillclimb 9th May 2009

[kernow]

The Westmorland Motor Club will hold a National “A” Speed Hillclimb at Barbon Manor Estate on Saturday 9th May 2009.

If anyone fancies a day in the Lakes let me know and I will send you the details etc.

[speedsport]

And there'll be a strong LMC presence at the event too!

[moke]

So how did it go Caterman.................a good day clerking I hope with no incidents.

[caterman]

So how did it go? Something of a baptism of fire really, the morning went rather well and we managed to get through practice without incident and despite starting about half an hour late we still stopped for lunch about half an hour early. After that it went down hill...rapidly. The first batch after lunch went up the hill and came back OK then half way through the second batch one of the single seater's clipped a bank and broke the rear suspension and during the resulting delay in recovering the car the rain that had been forecast finally arrived...with a vengeance. Boy did it rain, the track then very quickly became undriveable and dangerous. I had no option but to suspend the meeting for half an hour while the worst of the weather passed, at this point it was a very real possibility that we would have to abandon the meeting. After half an hour the rain had almost stopped and after reassessing the track and with conditions improving by the minute we were back underway at 3:30pm but the delay (about 90 mins all told) meant that we lost a complete set of runs so instead of 2 timed runs and 2 top 12 run offs we only managed one of each. So at least the championship could award some points. The prevailing opinion was that we had made the right decisions.

There was definitely a feeling of having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and the irony of it all was that the prize presentation was conducted in shirt sleeves while basking in the early evening sunshine.....