Why is it that people can’t seem to spell Impreza correctly??? Double z or even worse, double s …… come on guys, don’t rely on your spellchecker to know the proper sequence of letters, mine actually suggests Impresser, that’s a new one!! Is that OK Andy E, I know it’s a personal gripe of yours!
Last month saw our last two National B events for this year take place. On the 10th we had the second of two North Weald sprints and after a slightly nervy few weeks when we thought that there would only be 50 or so competitors, on the day we had 69 starters. That’s still way down on previous years and some way short of the maximum number of starters which is 100. It’s not just North Weald that suffers from smaller entries these days, Hethel which was oversubscribed at one point had plenty of entries left this year as well. There are probably too many events but, understandably, no club wants to deliberately run less events and that includes us. The trick is to find a venue that everybody wants to do and clearly North Weald ain’t it! The good thing with North Weald is that it’s cheap to hire which keeps the entry fee down to probably the lowest around. As for that elusive new South East venue, we’re still looking. The sprint itself went off very well with Chris Scudder clerking his first event. Those that were there won’t be forgetting the weather in a hurry and I’m pleased to say that for once it wasn’t because of the rain, rather the record high temperatures that were recorded on that Sunday. Car thermometers were showing 40ºC and I have to say that I’m glad that I was there as Secretary and had the opportunity to shelter in the caravan during the day. Competitors were given a total of 5 runs and we were still done by 4pm which meant missing a lot of the usual M11/M25 traffic.
On the 31st, the Spotted Dick and Custard Stages took place at Longcross and once again it turned out to be a very successful event with the regular organising team of Colin Billings, Chin, Iain Gibson and Chris Scudder. There are more than those four but this isn’t an Oscar speech! 71 starters contested 8 stages with the last stage starting a mere 3 minutes behind schedule, not bad that. Overall winners were Gary and Phillipa Le Coadou in their Celica GT4. They were followed 7 seconds behind by Jeremy Straker and Neil Harrison in a rapid Cox GTM Coupe, not a lot of elbow room in the thing! First Sevenoaks crew were Nigel Mummery and Shane Bowen who finished 28th overall in a very oily Escort Cosworth! Other Sevenoaks’ drivers were Chris Wise who came in 42nd overall in his 205 and Laurie ‘mad Capri driver’ Boyle who finished 45th. Apparently the Capri upon arriving back home was let off the trailer when it promptly rolled off down the hill into a dry stone wall. Jonathan Wildash finished 48th overall in another Pug 205. I think it’s safe to say that everyone enjoyed themselves and the weather again turned out good for us. A big thanks to the few that turned up on the Saturday to set the stages up and an even bigger thanks to Chris Scudder and Sam Collins who were at Longcross on the Friday filling buckets with gravel. More disappointing but seemingly no change from the norm was the lack of Sevenoaks members marshalling on the Sunday. Especially noticeable by their absence were numerous Marketing Machine contenders. There were a handful there and thank you to those but where were the rest of you? Fortunately a large number of people turned up unannounced on the day which didn’t make the Chief Marshal’s job easy, but at least he was able to cover every post comfortably.
As mentioned last month and now that the Autumn is upon us, the Scatter rally and 12car season has arrived. First off is Croydon’s scatter on September 26th starting from Whyteleafe football club, map ref 187/339579 at 8pm but arrive earlier. Contact John Lloyd on 01883 652822. If you remember from my last Compost, this 2003/04 scatter series is to be a series of 7 events run by three clubs in an attempt to get larger numbers of competitors out on each event. The second event in the series is ours and Sam Collins will be in charge for this event. It will start from the Botley Hill Farmhouse, 187/395555. Maidstone will then be running the third event, details of that will appear in next month’s ACORN. The 12car series kicks off on October 10th with a Croydon event starting from the regular venue of Pete Johnson’s Westerham Garage. Peter Turner is your contact for this event on 01883 623465. Boro 18 will then be running the November 14th 12car. I don’t know the start venue for this event yet but contact Roger McKenzie for details if they don’t appear in the next mag, 01732 884312. Also don’t forget Croydon’s PCT on October 5th at Leeds, contact John Lloyd for an entry and further details.
For those that thought that the autotests were finished for this year and that includes myself, think again. Farnborough DMC are running a loose surface slalom in the Camberley area on October 19th. A slalom theoretically means that the tests are all done in forward gears and loose surface is gravel rather than grass. There will be a club team award with the lowest aggregate time of three single club members winning the award. It would be nice if Sevenoaks could walk away with that one so if you’re interested then contact me in the first instance. That way I can see if we’ll have enough people for a team. I won’t be around on that weekend myself so I won’t be one of the team. Alternatively and for the precise location of the event contact Richard Field of Farnborough Motor Club on 0118 987 3066.

Mark Dawson