Boyndie Sprint / Hill Climb - August 16th / 17th
As many of you will know, club member John Pace actively competes in sprint & hill climb events throughout the year in his MGB GT. A plan for club members to spectate at the Boyndie event back in June was thwarted when the event was cancelled, but the August event went ahead so a Club trip to support him was organised.
A round of the Guyson Scottish Sprint, Hillclimb and Speed Championships. the event was based at the at Grampian Kart Club, Boyndie by Banff and utilised the full circuit layout, which is a tarmacadam surface, 825m long and consist of 1.8 laps.
Running on both Saturday and Sunday, most members decided to attend on the Saturday and so we met at the recently opened The Drive at Haddo for a breakfast roll and a coffee. The Drive at Haddo is fabulous venue which is increasingly gaining in popularity and as a club we were eligible for the motor club deal of a breakfast roll and a coffee for £5! This will doubtless become our 'go to' venue for future road runs. https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Drive-at-Haddo/61576776333615/
Suitably fed and watered, 8 cars set off on the run to Boyndie. Rather than use main roads, Alistair Thomson led us on across country route to the venue and on arrival, we parked in a roped off area specifically for us that John had kindly arranged with the organisers. Just as we arrived, one of the competitors suffered a blown turbo on the circuit and managed to deposit a large amount of oil on the track and so there was a lengthy delay whilst this was cleared up. There was then a subsequent driver's briefing and a track walk for the drivers to note where the oil had been dumped.
Each of the club members had a picnic with them so we all sat in our exclusive compound in the bright sunshine for lunch, after which there were a number of competitive runs for us to watch.
John was unfortunately suffering from a fuel leak on the Saturday which he thought he had fixed, but he takes up the story - "The issue I had with the fuel leak which I thought I had remedied didn't quite work and after an early run on the Sunday, a scrutineer happened to be at my paddock space when I opened the bonnet; he was not overly impressed but left the decision to keep running with me but the inference was clear. As I had almost taken out the finish timing beam on that run and had to back off a bit, I had one more go and improved my time but retired for the later runs."
At the time of writing, the results have not been posted but soon after lunch on the Saturday John was lying 2nd or 3rd in class, but presumably as he had to withdraw on the Sunday he slipped down the leader board?
All in all a fantastic day out and it was a shame that the event clashed with a couple of other local events as well as being during school holidays when many members were on holiday, Nonetheless, all who attended really enjoyed it so doubtless we will return next year!
I think I probably took too many pictures - I'm glad we don't have to pay for the processing and printing these days!! To save you scrolling through all the pictures, here are a couple of collages I put together!
