I’m late this month …… good job I’m a bloke saying that!!! But then I do have a valid excuse which Dawnie has already mentioned in her monthly email to us regular contributors. North Weald has kept me busy for the last couple of weeks and falling around the same time as copy deadline has resulted in one thing getting done, not t’other. Still, the results went out yesterday so I’m now relatively free again. Thought I’d better slip in the relatively bit just in case someone reading this wants something!
As I’ve already mentioned North Weald, I’ll stick to it for now. Not the most supported event that we’ve put on in recent years with a final entry of 65 competitors, we usually have around 90 for the first of our two events at this venue. In fact, with just a week to go before the 26th, I had received only 57 entries. So a hastily cobbled flier was emailed up to Neville and Tina Moon who were looking after the Hethel meeting and a topic put on our websites’ discussion forum by Ian Crocker brought in a few more entries and brought a certain amount of relief to me. It does go to prove that people do actually look at our website and react to it accordingly. So thanks Nev, Tina and Ian. On the day, we arrived in the hire van to be welcomed by surprise surprise, rain. I contemplated last Octobers’ event and was a bit brassed off. However, it was really nothing like that meeting and we actually had a reasonable amount of dry bits in between the wet bits. The ever present wind helped disperse the water when the rain did ease although from observation, it was clearly still extremely slippery on the approach to the banjo. That part gets a soaking not only from what falls out of the sky, but also when the rain is heavy enough, the drains on the main runway overflow and it’s thought that a mix of aviation fuel and oil that has been washed down them, rises back up and helps create the very slippy conditions. Despite everyone’s’ antics down there, no-one actually did any damage, except to the grass and top soil beneath it for several inches. I wonder how much the airfield will charge us for ground repairs? The smaller entry did mean that we had ample time and gave every competitor three timed runs which went down well and will hopefully result in them coming back to our event again in October. On the financial side, initial calculations, bearing in mind I don’t yet know all of the costs, show that we are almost exactly at break even. That should help keep the Treasurer happy!!
Our first Thursday evening grass autotest took place on May 16th and by the time you see this, the second and possibly third event will have happened. To recap, the dates are two weeks apart, Thursday evenings at Farningham. Clive Cooke is i/c and can be reached on 01732 353814. That first event was well attended with some new faces from Bexley LCC there as well as our own regulars. The grass was green, stating the bloody obvious there, but there was a definite difference in conditions between the tests. The top field I found quite slippery, the two further down the slope drier, drainage probably. Tests 5 and 6 quite simply suited Minis, very tightly spaced cones in a straight line. Big Jim turned up when it was all over in his Volvo estate having just driven down from Leeds, and I thought ….. ‘ no chance of getting that through those cones’. All in all, a successful first in a line of six, don’t miss out on the future ones, they are damn good fun, even if you do read damning comments and view lewd pictures on the discussion forum. Those that know will know what I mean, if you know what I mean, someone help me, I don’t know what I mean!! All I’ll say Ian, is that if I had a body like that with a mind like mine, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this right now :-)))) Blimey, have I just admitted to looking at the ‘Fast Talk’ discussion forum?
I’ve only just read through last months ACORN (WHAT?????? - ED) and recalled that I was supposed to be doing the Funky Elephant with Chin …… the mind boggles, but fell ill shortly before. It’s amazing the excuses you can dig up when you’re desperate, only joking, it was genuine. A second visit to the Doctor secured some antibiotics which did the trick and Chin then said, ‘fancy doing the Swan?’ …… ermmm ‘OK’. A week or so before, Chin decided that too much had to be done to the car with not enough time to do it in and so withdrew the entry. I should have pretended I was gutted, but also had loads to do so it wasn’t a problem. You see, I have now finally, at long last, moved into my own place. So having said that, I’ll sit back and await the presents through the post from you all, I feel I might be sitting here some time!!
Let’s see more of you at the Autotest field, North Weald sprinters might actually benefit from a slowish drive on green green grass!

Mark Dawson