Autotest Report February 2009

Autotest Report February 2009.

Four cars and eight drivers entered the February Autotest event, held at the Co-Op Homemakers car park. The uneven though ‘tarmaced’ surface proved interesting for the competitors, throwing the cars around whilst negotiating the sharp right hand corner.

Championship leader and current Champion, Martin (Bimbo) Dorey started the event in blinding fashion being the only driver to record a time under 40 seconds in test 1. Brother Peter ( also driving the Metro) had to up his pace in test 2 now being 4 seconds adrift, and so his time improved by nearly 5 seconds , but Martin still beat that by 0.6 seconds. And so the battle was on. However collecting a 10 second penalty in test 3 threw the battle open. In test 4 Peter was 6 seconds quicker but also picked up 10 second penalty. By the end of this test(4), Peter was ¾ of a second ahead. Peter continued to put the pressure on so that by the end of test 8 he was 23 seconds ahead. However 2 tests later and Peter had appeared to slow down as the lead was down to a little over 11 seconds. But in the last 2 tests of the afternoon, Martin made 3 dramatic mistakes in his quest to take the lead, collecting another 30 penalty seconds. Thus this result leaves the Championship wide open as either competitor can win as they both left the event with equal championship points after dropping their worst score.

New comer (this only his second event) had an excellent afternoon in the Ford Ka finishing ahead of Peter Jory (Honda Civic) by over 4 seconds. The Suzuki automatic of Scott Rayson finished a creditable 5^th ahead of Shaun Leigh in the Ka, followed by Dave (Nasty) Williams (Suzuki) who completed the afternoon without doing any wrong tests, - a first for Dave! In last place, but not least was Trevor Breton (Honda Civic).

It is good to see all these last 6 relatively new competitors getting to grips with the sport and thoroughly enjoying the experience. The next and last of the season’s events will be at Alliance in 3 weeks time and promises to be a stunner!

KEN DIAMOND