Comp Sec

We are very pleased to announce that entries for the 2022 Northampton Motorsport Caterham and Lotus Seven Speed Championship are now open. The permit has been issued by MSUK and the regulations can be viewed here. You are probably aware that there are some changes this year to classes 4 and 5. Please check the regs if are entering these classes to ensure your car will comply. The calendar can be viewed here You are able to register for the championship in LoveAdmin accessed from the menu bar at the top of the club website. Select events in LoveAdmin and scroll to the bottom of the page. If you have any problems logging in please contact the Admin team at adminteam@caterhamlotus7.club. Everybody entering by March 1st will receive a T shirt, Competitor Handbook, Championship stickers and have a competitor number reflecting previous results. Also it will be helpful to the comp sec team if you can enter as soon as possible so we can have the T shirts and handbooks available at the first round on April 2nd. We also thought it would be a good idea for the Speed Championship to support the club charity, Prostate Cancer Research, and there is an option to make a donation on the entry form in LoveAdmin. The January issue of Low Flying has a guide to the season, if you are new to sprinting the article should answer at least some of your questions. Please contact me (compsec@caterhamlotus7.club) or post in the Speed forum on BlatChat if you have any questions. We are looking forward to another great season of competition, we hope to see you on track this year.

This has been sent out as an email to the Speed interest group...... I have been in contact with Prescott again to confirm the way their entries system works It is important to register as a competitor on the Bugatti Owners Club website as soon as you can https://www.prescotthillclimb.co.uk/competitors By doing this you will be notified when entries open and get a login for their entries system. They are updating the list of championships to include us but for now you can just skip that part of the form. We have been allocated 40 places on a first come first served basis and this may be increased if the event doesn't fill up. They plan to open entries on 17th January assuming they get permits by then. We are still awaiting our championship permit from MSUK. If we don't get our permit by 17th Jan and you want to compete at Prescott you can enter before entering our championship.

Hi Andy i think I left the class blank and it lets you continue. Their system does not seem to be updated from 2021. I will be contacting Prescott next week for some clarification around this.

There will likely be a limit on the number of entries, I have asked for 40 places. If the popularity of speed events continues into 2022 most rounds will be oversubscribed like 2021. The best plan will be to get entries in as soon as they open to avoid disappointment.

Hi Stephen Registrations should be open early January in LoveAdmin. I will announce on Blatchat how to register and also by email to the speed interest group. Look forward to seeing you on track in 2022!

I am pleased to announce that we have had confirmation from The Bugatti OC that round 11 of our 2022 championship will be at Prescott. This is the first time that we have been invited to compete at what is arguably the UK's premier hill climb venue. This is on 24th July with a non championship round on 23rd July. We also have an invite to the practice day on 9th April.

Yokohama A539's are also the favoured tyre in class 2.

The provisional 2022 calendar is now in the Competitors area: /competitors-area/championship-calendar As mentioned at the awards the only event in doubt is Prescott, still waiting for confirmation.

And the result is...... 22 yes 11 no So that means that we will continue to allow scoring in our championship by competitors running in other classes at the same event. And in a more informal poll of the ladies, all 3 replies we received wanted to score based on the winners time. So that's what we will do in 2022.

32 have voted so far. Don't forget to vote today if you want to influence this.

There doesn't seem to be any consensus on the issue of competing in other classes, and the Comp Sec team have discussed at length how we may make this fairer by taking account of weather conditions on the day. We haven't been able to come to a conclusion as you cannot define a wet or a dry day. So we have decided to leave it to you the competitors to have a vote. You will shortly be receiving an email with a link to a voting form. The email will give full instructions. Voting will close on Friday at midnight so we can conclude this before the awards on Sunday.

Nigel, the time between double drives is usually a lot less than that between Class 2b and our classes. At Anglesey on the wet Saturday there was a point where the track was drier than for the rest of the day when some cars were running, not during our class runs. If you want to run in multiple championships why don't you just ask the organisers of the other championship for your time to be counted from running in our classes?

So there appears to be a remarkable amount of agreement to these changes, . We all know that we cannot agree 100%! After some minor changes to the wording below is what we plan to go ahead with. For the Ladies Scoring I have only had 1 reply to my email and we set a deadline of tomorrow. Please let us know how you would like the scoring otherwise we will just leave it as it is. Technical Class 1. Simplify the engine regulations as we have already successfully done in classes 2 and 3 with a simple power limit. This class is for Lotus or Caterham Seven, road cars – specialist production and has a maximum power limit of 130bhp. They shall be powered by: Any normally aspirated car derived engine up to 1600 ccA 3 cylinder turbocharged 660cc engine as fitted to the Caterham 160, 165 and 170 models. Class 2 and 3. Further simplify the engine regulations by removing the higher power limit for single cam engines. Remove “Single cam engines of 1601cc and greater. Power for these engines is limited to 160bhp” Class 4 and 5 We now find ourselves in a tricky situation with class 4. The lack of supply of the preferred list 1C tyres means that just about everybody with engines producing more that 155bhp will end up in class 4. We propose putting a power limit of 220bhp (no tolerance) on class 4 and making class 5 an equivalent class for cars with more than 220bhp. The most difficult part of this is what to use as a basis for records of the new class 5 needed for overall championship calculations. We have looked at the times achieved by the 3 drivers competing in class 4 in 2021 who previously competed in class 5. Comparing these shows an average time loss of 2% between 1B and 1C tyres. We propose therefore to add 2% to class 6 records and use these as notional records in the new class 5. We will review this before 2023. For Veterans, Novice and Ladies Championship calculations we will use the winners time on the day. Class 4: Any Lotus or Caterham Seven, road cars – specialist production and has a maximum power limit of 220bhp. All cars must be fitted with an operational reverse gear. Tyres to be listed in the current Motorsport UK General Regulations Permitted Tyres (L) Lists 1A and 1B . Cars powered by non-car derived engines or equipped with sequential gearboxes are not allowed in this class. Driver Aids are not permitted in this class. Class 5: Any Lotus or Caterham Seven, road cars – specialist production not meeting the engine requirements of Class 4 including those with forced induction. A reverse gear is not required in this class. Tyres to be listed in the current Motorsport UK General Regulations Permitted Tyres (L) Lists 1A and 1B . All Driver Aids are permitted in this class. Classes 6 and 7 to remain unchanged, although we are not expecting any entries in Class 6. Nominated events for overall championship scoring. Add Aintree and Blyton Outer Dual Drives: The driver who finished higher in the previous year’s championship will run first or in the previous batch wherever possible. This is to reduce any possible advantage for the faster driver by running on warm tyres. Eligibilty for scoring championship points. Only drivers entered in the Caterham and Lotus Seven Club Classes on the day at the championship round will be eligible to score points. This is to reduce the likelihood of competitors competing in different conditions Scoring for novices, veterans and ladies. Based on whichever is the faster time of the existing class record or the class winning time in the day. This avoids situation at 3 Sisters this year where existing records were set in wet conditions.

Competitors Vehicles J 5.11.2 Be equipped with a reverse gear in normal working order unless stated in Specific Technical Regulations. I have been advised that we can add to the regulations: "A reverse gear is not required in this class"

We deliberated this for a considerable time before putting the proposal forward. One thing we did was to make list of class 4 and 6 competitors in 2021 with their declared power to see how many would have been in each class had the rules applied this year. The result was 13 in class 4 and 9 in class 5. That does not appear to be too diluted. The other issue is that if you have a 160 bhp car the only place to compete is class 4 and you could be up against cars with 300 bhp. The thinking is that class 4 should be for standardish 420R and R400’s just as Class 2 and 3 should be for the 310R and Class 1 for Academy cars. Class 5 would be for anything goes road going. We are always going to have small classes for the most powerful cars. We want to encourage newcomers and I think if you have a 360R for example you would be put off competing in an unlimited class 4. If the majority of class 4 and 6 competitors want a single class we will do it, but the silence on this from existing class 4 competitors signals support for the proposal. And our eligibility Scrutineer has advised that we will be able to remove the requirement for a reverse gear in class 5. So Roy you can join class 5.

I think Simon is correct.... 10.9.1. For Road Cars-and Standard Cars, the reverse gear must remain operable at all times. I have asked the question to our eligibility Scrutineer.

As you can probably gather we are a friendly championship and we rely a lot on the honesty of competitors, which works as the competition is very close. We keep an eye on speed trap figures and if we saw any car was significantly faster on the straight than others in the class we would have a word with the driver. Then he would either move to a higher class or ask him to reduce his engine power. We have never yet asked any competitor to verify the power of their car, that would only be a last resort. Most seasoned competitors know that engine power is only third on the list of ingredients for success after driving talent and car setup/tyres.

Just to clarify....Class 4: no bike engines, no driver aids, 220 bhp. Class 5 anything goes including driver aids and bike engines. As AB has said we have set the power limit slightly above the factory 210 bhp for a 420R just as we have done in classes 1,2 and 3 with the standard cars which fit into those classes. There seems to split support for the proposed order of dual drives. The current regs are a little ambiguous: Dual drives shall run with the secondary driver at the start of the Championship classes in reverse order with the fastest driver first. All other competitors shall be scheduled to run in ascending class & ascending competitor number order. If we go with the proposal we will allocate competition numbers to control the running order as far as possible. So far dual drivers are saying that there is little advantage with warm tyres, others think differently. What we would expect I suppose! Any other views on this? And Andy, we can have a vote on your proposal! Would it be worth moving to Watford?

Thanks Michael for your comments. We are guilty of not studying the specification of the Caterham 170 thoroughly enough! We will do as you suggest. Removing the increased power limit for single cam engines is all about simplifying the rules and it is highly unlikely that anybody now will take advantage of this, so it seems redundant. What are the chances of anybody wanting to compete with a 160 bhp cross flow? We took out a similar dispensation for Lotus twin cam and Cosworth BD series engines last year and nobody noticed. Perhaps "Mr Driver Aids" Simon Rogers would like to comment on the subject of driver aids. The 2 that come to mind are traction control and any kind of sequential or automatic gear change. And yes it is a given that the Club Name will be updated throughout the regulations.

This has been sent as an email to all 2021 registered competitors. Please leave your comments here for all to see. We are proposing the following changes in the championship regulations for 2022. All changes are guided by the following principles: Remove unnecessary restrictions and simplify the rules to encourage participation with all different types of Caterham and Lotus 7.Make the rules as fair as possible to encourage competition.Encourage newcomers to the sport. We have tried to follow these principles in formulating these changes. Technical Class 1. Simplify the engine regulations as we have already successfully done in classes 2 and 3 with a simple power limit. This class is for Lotus or Caterham Seven, road cars – specialist production and has a maximum power limit of 130bhp. They shall be powered by: Any normally aspirated car derived engine up to 1600 ccThe 3 cylinder turbocharged 660cc engine as fitted to the Caterham 160, 165 and 170 models. Class 2 and 3. Further simplify the engine regulations by removing the higher power limit for single cam engines. Remove “Single cam engines of 1601cc and greater. Power for these engines is limited to 160bhp” Class 4 and 5 We now find ourselves in a tricky situation with class 4. The lack of supply of the preferred list 1C tyres means that just about everybody with engines producing more that 155bhp will end up in class 4. We propose putting a power limit of 220bhp (no tolerance) on class 4 and making class 5 an equivalent class for cars with more than 220bhp. The most difficult part of this is what to use as a basis for records of the new class 5 needed for overall championship calculations. We have looked at the times achieved by the 3 drivers competing in class 4 in 2021 who previously competed in class 5. Comparing these shows an average time loss of 2% between 1B and 1C tyres. We propose therefore to add 2% to class 6 records and use these as notional records in the new class 5. We will review this before 2023. For Veterans, Novice and Ladies Championship calculations we will use the winners time on the day. Class 4: Any Lotus or Caterham Seven, road cars – specialist production and has a maximum power limit of 220bhp. All cars must be fitted with an operational reverse gear. Tyres to be any road legal E-marked radial tyre or listed in the current Motorsport UK General Regulations Permitted Tyres (L) Lists 1A and 1B . Cars powered by non-car derived engines or equipped with sequential gearboxes are not allowed in this class. Driver Aids are not permitted in this class. Class 5: Any Lotus or Caterham Seven, road cars – specialist production not meeting the engine requirements of Class 4 including those with forced induction. All cars must be fitted with an operational reverse gear. Tyres to be any road legal E-marked radial tyre or listed in the current Motorsport UK General Regulations Permitted Tyres (L) Lists 1A and 1B . All Driver Aids are permitted in this class. Classes 6 and 7 to remain unchanged, although we are not expecting any entries in Class 6. Nominated events for overall championship scoring. Add Aintree and Blyton Outer Dual Drives: The driver who finished higher in the previous year’s championship will run first or in the previous batch wherever possible. This is to reduce any possible advantage for the faster driver by running on warm tyres. Eligibilty for scoring championship points. Only drivers entered in the Caterham and Lotus Seven Club Classes will be eligible to score points. This is to reduce the likelihood of competitors competing in different conditions Scoring for novices, veterans and ladies. Based on whichever is the faster time of the existing class record or the class winning time in the day. This avoids situation at 3 Sisters this year where existing records were set in wet conditions. Curborough Events We have the option to have only one practice run meaning that the second run will be a timed run. We would like your opinion and will probably have an online vote. This can be decided after publication of our regulations.

Found some here Michael and I am sure that Laura will have some in the paddock.

Great pictures Geoff and I have taken the liberty of using one showing our new champion hitting an apex here Thanks for sharing.

In case anybody is worried we have just filled up at Tesco Holyhead, no queue and all fuels available.

We also have 15 to 20, so 4 in a row. As per Rob's allocations Suggest Class 1 and a bit 21-22 Class 2 and a bit 19-20 Class 3 17-18 Class 4-7 15-16