North Weald Handling Day - Oct 5th

[Weathers]

What a great day. Very different from a soggy last year. Although the fog on the way in was tricky.

Had a good chat with lots of nice chaps.

Thanks Mark for organising.

Few pics from the day. Not the best but I’m not a photo chap.

[greenwoo]

HA HA - Yeah i know its npot a Spit.....hell, i've had the real frigging thing flying over the house for the past year....let's put my comment down to....knowing there was a plane at the entrance and taking a stab at it being the most famous...

anyhooo.
what a hoot, and what weather!
Sun was shinning for the first 1/2 mile on the hill, then the temp dropped by about 5 degrees and it was foggy and yuky til close to Harlow. Full English courtesy of Tesco where my little troupe met Kenton and Matt and then it was off to the circuit for the normal briefing.

Mark the main instructor decided to impart more pearls of wisdom than normal - probably helping him to break up his day! Turning into the high speed bend at 70+ holding the wheel with 1 finger was something that i'd never have thought possible....pity i didnt have a pass seat in the car as would have liked to get more direct coaching as a few others did.

Always love these type of events....chance to meet a few new faces, and banter with all.....AND hoon around like a teenager on speed in a Corsa in Sainsburys car park on a friday night.
Have to say that i was and am grateful to the guys at Snodhurst for helping me get a new diff fitted and sort a little repair to a diff mount that would have prevented me taking the Tiger.
Their work held good, but the day was not without incident ( on my part)....1st was a little matter of zero brakes, and i mean - zero. I was just about to go and do teh fast bend - which of course doesnt need any braking, but dabbed the brake to hold myself in line ready to go....only to find the pedal soft and to the floor. Serious warning here...for those with floor mounted bias bars. The bar had shed a split pin that holds the bar in position ...pushing the pedal basically just pushed the whole bar and therefore had zero effect on engaging the pushrods to tehe cylinders. Bloody glad that it happened there - and before doing a run there or god forbid on the road!
check your split pins!!
2nd little issue - wasn't surprised to find in the afternoon that the battery wasnt charging - a wire had frayed and come off the alternator....Mark the instructor provided some tools and a crimp and I fixed it - yes me, all bt myself with no chainsaw or grinder.....wow.
3rd......FFS....if anyone was listening to the travel report on the radio at about 4.30 you may have heard that a vehicle had broken down on the Queen Liz bridge.....yeah, that was me. Car started spluttering, and lost power on the upslope....
luckily i'd fixed the non functioning indicators 5 mins before (relay doesnt like going over too many bumps)....anyway, managed to get into the inside lane and came to a stop with Kenton behind me....got going again for about 100 yards and then it spluttered and died. Kenton kindly provided some fuel as the gauge was on zero ( although was 99.999% sure that it had a ton of petrol in the tank and that it was the gauge at fault)....it fired and ran but not happily and i pryaed to every god that i could think of to let it get me to the crest so that i could freewheel...which it eventually did.....feck, it even fired up when i got to the bottom and ran 'ok'....risked using the M/Way to get to the Swanley junc and got it home....
Not sure what the problem is....best guess for an idiot like me is that its one of the fuel pumps, or crud blocking the tank/outlet - didnt dare look for the fault as the best case scenario would have been akin to Basil beating his Austin 1100.

Sue asked about my day and commiserated with all the dramas - but you know what, aside from the m25 one, the rest didnt diminish the day in any way shape or form. Had a cracking time and actually albeit it was dry, got more out of the car than ever before.

Ah prizes....as mentioned by Rich...well he did indeed take the award for the loudest car, but ironically that car started more easily than any of the others!
James - slow and steady wins the race - whoever told you that is a namby pamby liberal twot
40mph does not make a 'high speed bend'....but in seriousness, what a great place for a teen to take control of a car in a safe environment ( the only thing that wasnt safe was the grass which he ventured onto), and hey, if you arent spinning you arent trying I'd blame your Dad, tell him to check the geo!
Lizzie - did bloody brilliantly.....great skills and clearly improved through the day....
I had a private battle with Chris the Car in his Elise and thought that i'd nailed the fastest on the high speed bend - only to find that the other Chris(weathers) had sneaked in with similar speeds....AND he then went on to defy the stop watch on the sprint course; My guess, either that stop watch is fooked, or that crisp twenty that i saw him palm the timekeeper may have been worthwhile.....
I'm thinking of cleaning the car before the next one - maybe that helped the westie cut through the air....and find a half a second.

Again, to all, thanks for your company....to those that have never been, you should. Especially in a small/private group like we had....
Top top day....

[Matth93]

Here’s a couple of small video clips
https://youtu.be/BTAq-3wTZLc
https://youtu.be/Zwx6JPF2zG8

[greenwoo]

hang on, you picked up a hitch hiker and then didn't talk to her.....poor skills Matt

[Fury1630]

Thanks Mark from Callum & me. Yes he is my son - I have the paperwork to prove it, he gets his hair from his maternal Grandfather & his accent from being bought up in Scotland by his mother, my first wife. He's only held a licence for two months & only driven a 1.6 Peugeot Diesel, so I was expecting to have to goad him into going faster - until he set of for the first fast bend & I'm looking at the corner cone racing towards me thinking "we're not getting round this one" - and we didn't

On the way back he offered to fill the tank by way of a thankyou, so we went past his house & put in £30 of Tescos finest unleaded, then got stuck in tailbacks from a crash - TWO HOURS to travel a mile

It wasn't all bad news though, as we were so late back, my daughter-in-law cooked burgers & curly chips

Great day out, thanks all

[locost220]

I also won something else, two spanner’s and a screwdriver, well I say won, more a case of refound my own tools as they reappeared from a three year hibination from under the passengers seat, thrown out with all the G Forces exercerted

[Nash]

Sounds like a good time was had by all.

[Matth93]

hang on, you picked up a hitch hiker and then didn't talk to her.....poor skills Matt

I did but the camera doesn’t appear to have caught it maybe cos I had my helmet on muffled it a bit. I did think about pushing myself faster and going for a big spin but changed my mind

[Kegco]

Sounds like you all had a great day, some more then others. Gutted I missed it

[ChrisL]

Glad you had a dry one, looks like a lot of fun was had. Shame I couldn’t make it.