The last hurrah....for 2022, that is.
Well, all good things have to come to an end and so it is with the 2022 season. It's been a year of mixed emotions, from missing events due to engine work not finished as hoped, niggling ecu problems, borrowed cars (thanks Adrian and Jonathan!) and occasionally indifferent weather. However, I had set new PBs at Wiscombe, Castle and Werrington, so it was all down to the final event at Tregrehan, near St Austell, to see if I could make it a perfect sweep.
The course is short – the shortest down west and, at just 600yds, possibly the shortest in the UK. It still demands concentration, however, and is deceptively 'technical'. What look like easy sweeping bends when on foot seem to go on forever behind the wheel, while the final hairpin across the finish line catches many people out as they find themselves picking a fight with the straw bales. But there is a positive: it's 15 minutes drive from home!
The weather forecast hadn't been great but while the day dawned grey and damp the clouds soon cleared to make way for blue skies and sunshine, with a brisk breeze helping to dry the course. Well, most of it - the first 150 yards is under the cover of trees and never really dried out. The first practice run felt like we were trying to launch the cars on ice. As my rev counter still refuses to function (I'd swapped the original for a new Racetech tacho, but the ecu clearly has a fault) and the shift light suddenly decided to stop working(!) every gear change was done by ear and seat of the pants. DTA have agreed to replace the ecu, so fingers crossed those problems will go away.
Not a very tidy installation, but its was a bit last minute...
First practice run was very tentative, but still a second and a half quicker than my first run there back in June. By the third run, I'd set a new PB two-tenths under my previous best. At this point I realised a most bizarre thing had happened. A fellow competitor driving an MX-5 recorded an identical to mine in the first timed runs (25.36) and then in the second timed run the same thing happened again (24.30)! We were separated by two other cars, so it wasn't like the timing team had forgotten to reset the clocks (twice) and was just one of those strange coincidences that happens every now and then.
https://youtu.be/duvAQC-rSQA
Incidentally, this video was recorded on my old Hero 3 GoPro – the quality isn't great but my Hero 7 Black kept dropping the Bluetooth link to my phone, so I abandoned it for the day...
The third run was a 24.31, so slower by 1/100th, but due to the relatively small field, it looked like we would get four – maybe even five – timed runs. Determined to improve, I managed to get things pretty well right and recored a time of 23.42, an improvement of almost 9/10ths of a second! I was ecstatic – even Rod Eyles, who's been hillclimbing for ever (he first ran at Tregrehan back in 1968) commented that it 'was a very good time'. Just a shame I forgot to switch on the GoPro for that run! Doh!
The final run of the day was slightly down (24.06) as, by this time, the track temperatures were falling – but it was still my second quickest run at Tregrehan. Aside from the rev counter malfunction, the car ran perfectly, but I can't help feeling that I need to stiffen it a little. Stiffer anti-roll bars would help but then more stress will be applied to the 914's somewhat flexible 'shell. I've tried to avoid going the roll cage route but may have to give it some serious thought over winter.
So, big thanks to Adrian and the crew at Williams Crawford for use of workshop space – and especially to Adrian for the loan of his 911 rally car earlier in the year. Thanks, too, to Graham Rawlings at Rawspeed for the engine work and rolling road tuning, Jonathan Sage at Group 4 Wheels for the, er, wheels, and to Jonathan jwhillracer for his continued encouragement (and share of his legendary 911 at Wiscombe). Here's to 2023 and those elusive sub-50s at Wiscombe!
Those improvements are huge over such a short course 
