I only hold the HSA Class record for the figure of 8!
I had no idea!
Event 32 at Curborough on 13/10/2018
The HSA's first venture on to Curborough's figure-8 course as an organising club proved a great success. After early rain for practice had given way to fine weather for the competition runs, no less than five HSA class records were reset. At the start of a successful weekend for the OMS Hornet-Suzuki driver, David Tatham took a clear FTD on 52.35s from 1100cc racing classmate Richard Arrowsmith's Force-Suzuki PC. Third overall was Alan Mugglestone, on his first outing of the year in the Raw Fulcrum and demonstrating the effectiveness of his new Pirelli slicks to win a well supported Modified Specialist Production class from Adam Phelps' Megabusa by threequarters of a second, with Phelps on HSA record pace with a 56.43.
The first driver to post a new entry in the HSA record books was Rob Thomson. Fresh from his outright victory in the 2018 Welsh Sprint and Hillclimb Championship, in which he was runner-up last year, the Renault Clio 172 Cup driver won the opening class of the day' for Standard Roadgoing cars, taking just a single 70.90s run. Despite having to settle for second place behind Nick Lear, Mazda MX5 driver Ken Morris carved over half a second off his own record for Class 2.1, leaving it at 70.30s. Although the non-registered Stuart Hill won the combined Roadgoing Specialist class in his Westfield, HSA Championship class leader Lee Gavins was also a record-breaker on 68.45s in his Tiger R6.
With his son Alex away contesting the FIA Hillclimb Masters in Italy, the non-registered Richard Summers had stayed at home to contest the HSA Curborough sprint weekend in his elderly Formula Ford Van Diemen and took the win, but two drivers ran inside the HSA record in a hard fought division. Despite being three seconds adrift of the winner, Curborough newcomer Charlie Reilly snatched fifth overall with a 65.76, a hundredth of a second clear of former record-holder Russell Haynes' Zeus.
Simon Bainbridge established a new HSA Sports Libre record not in his SBR Chrono V8, but in his Audi S3. Although not competing the following day, this would be enough to edge out Fyrth Crosse on the Championship table and end the season in third place overall. With the top two Championship placings already confirmed, both drivers came from the U2 classic car class and duly finished in the appropriate order, Geoff Stallard out in his newly fuel injected TVR Vixen-Ford for a change and taking a four tenths win from Andrew Webber's fearsome Rover V8 powered Lotus Europa 47D/62.
A full report and pictures will appear in Speedscene 201.
