Brighton Speed Trials

[andysteele]

Great to see Chris (aeroscreens) at Brighton today, here are a few of my pics - https://goo.gl/photos/MamtZ2k454PqKdf98

[Drumster]

Hi Andy,

Nice photos. Thanks for popping by and saying hello. The 'fastest' 7 wasn't the 620R which managed a final time of 12.51s (although it did have the highest terminal speed of 118.3 mph) but the 2.3l 270bhp Duratec of Jason Rankin who managed a 12.48s.

For the record the winning car & bike were:

Gardner Douglas Lola T70: 0-64ft 2.0s, Terminal Speed 134.7 mph, Time 10.69s

Suzuki Hayabusa Turbo 0 0-64ft 1.85s, Terminal Speed 172.0 mph, Time 9.21s

Although making the top 6 run off for the bikes the Suzuki Hayabusa SC that finished 2nd had the highest terminal speed of 183.3 mph !!

Me, a tardy 104.5 mph and 13.62s....

 

[andy couchman]

Great day out - I reckon we had 15 Lotus/Caterhams in total - many in the handicap class. Well done guys and hope you enjoyed it. Well done to to the six car Caterham display group parked up in the paddock to celebrate the 60th too. They looked great. The Lotus/Caterham 7 even had a two page spread in the programme, as the 7's first ever event was in 1957, driven by Edward Lewis. It was great to see so many 7s there and to chat to so many 7 folk. Didn't see a lot of factory presence though...

For the main event we were shifted this year from Class C2 (production cars 1401cc-2 litres) or C3 (above 2 litres) to C5 - for unlimited engined low production cars. Too fast to race? Hmmm...

Weather was perfect though and a good time was had by most. My little 1700 crossflow fought hard and actually managed an all-time personal best (I first ran in it at Brighton in 1996), beating my previous best of 13.50 secs by a whole 0.01 secs. Not sure how, as my tyres are the same ones I used in 2010 and so a bit old and not so grippy...

That left me 7th in class, out of 16. Chuffed with that. However... had we been allowed to run in C2 again, we'd have come second. Another what if...

Great day and well done the organisers. What Chis didn't mention is that he still beat a Ferrari F40, a 27 litre Napier-Bentley and a 27 litre Merlin engined Rolls Royce special, among others. Not every day you can say that...

Andy