The weekend started early for me - Thursday in fact - as I helped set up the course. I work/study in Southampton so Gang Warily, a leisure/sports centre on the outskirts of the city is my "home" track. On the Friday I took Bob Beech our resident commentator on a trip round the course in both (the usual) clockwise and anticlockwise directions. It was surprising how different the course was going the opposite way round. The transitions from the opposite direction were very smooth to negotiate.

The Gang Warily course is quite short about 5/8ths of a mile with lots of chicanes and tight turns. The lap time of around 55 seconds means that we are averaging quite modest speeds, barely 40mph. There are overtaking opportunities if you can accelerate fast and tight out of corners, if you get stuck behind an F3 (in open races) that drifts all over the racing line it can be a real mission to get past.

The course is in a natural amphitheatre, spectators have an excellent view of the course bar one corner on the Fawley bank. The wind blows across the course meaning that the fastest corner (onto the straight) can get the wind under the craft with interesting consequences. Actually, the wind for the weekend was fairly co-operative with poor weather on the Saturday night but during the day, whilst overcast and dreary, the weather wasn't a major factor in the racing.

The reason our K & M Mirage Rotax was available on the Friday was that Ken had towed the transporter two hundred miles from Newark on Trent in the morning as he was booked to go out into the Solent (part of the English Channel) in a Griffon 3000 Hovercraft driven by Luke and his parents John and Sally Sedzikowski. They had won/purchased the pilotage of the 60 seat machine at the HCGB AGM auction.

Changes in the spec of the Mirage from the last meeting included a revision of the front skirts (now longer) and the large fuel tank removed from under the seat and relocated at the back left of the cockpit. This has the effect of moving the weight and therefore centre of gravity further back and to one side to counter the torque action from the thrust.

Practise

We had a number of preparation jobs to do on the craft on the Saturday morning so didn't get any practise in. This wasn't vastly important as we both knew the course fairly well and I had a few laps the previous day. Ken was allowed into the novice race to do a couple of laps to get a feel of the weather and chicane positioning, he got some leg pulling for that........

Race 1

An issue that came up in practise was that the relocation of the fuel tank had led to massive siphoning of  fuel out of the tank breather. Would you believe 20 litres in eight laps. That equates to 2 mpg.... Ouch. We needed to fit a breather pipe leading away from the thrust duct area, the size of piping needed was smaller than we had in our stock of parts so frantic trips to the local auto accessory shop were required.

In the meantime the race schedule had been changed so that the first F1 race of the day was brought forward by about an hour, to accommodate a break to watch a Football World Cup Match. This dictated that we couldn't do the mod to the breathing system in time and left us seriously worried whether we had enough fuel for the race. I was elected to do the National races (and Ken the Open Race series) so I was under orders to be economical with the engine and not run it too much before the start. This had consequences..........

As the lights went to green I whacked open the thrust engine throttle, on my (second) grid position and nothing happened, the engine simply didn't "pick up". By the time I had woken up the horses the grid was well away from me and it was catch up time. Conrad in number 12 raced off in front followed by Tony Goldney No 5, Luke Sedzikowski in his spanking new Pintail Hull No. 2 then Robin Brickles No.1 in his new Meteor Rotax that looks light, fast and twitchy and then Shaun O'Gallaher in Number 10. I managed to get past Shaun, Tony stopped in the "funnel" on the Fawley Bank, and I think, Robin then tripped over him.

During all this, Daniel in his own craft starting from further back down the grid (repaired from a horrendous ducking at Penton) was chasing after me. Daniels favourite expression to describe people up to no good is "Scallywags". On lap three not only did he punt me into the boondocks but the "Scally" did it under a waved yellow. If your are going to do it, do it large!! In the meantime Luke was having a whale of a time playing lets miss the markers and straight line the course. With the "funnel" blocked with Robin and Tony's crafts, Dan and I ducked round the outside of the trees using what was the "old" course. Rejoining the racing line was fun, Dan had his craft going every which way and I think I ended up missing a marker.

We finished with all of us chasing hard and none of us really getting away. Fun Race.

The sting was in the tail for Daniel as he finished with a seized thrust engine as a coolant pipe buried in the hull had let go so he had to put his craft away for the weekend. Fortunately Colin Horne with his 180 horsepower Polaris powered Pintail No.9 came to the rescue and loaned his craft to Daniel for the rest of the weekend.

Race 2

I got a reasonable start as did the rest of the pack and we went into the first corner in an orderly queue. At the Holbury turn, Luke went wide and I was able to duck inside into third behind Conrad and Daniel. From third I pushed Daniel all the way until Daniel started having lift engine problems so I was able to overtake on the start of the straight. Daniels engine finally failed on the water, leaving me to finish an easy second.

Behind me was Robin in his very light and manoeuvrable Meteor got going well after clearing the pack.

I was pleased with this race as the Mirage was handling well and I kept it tidy and in contention to finish second.

Race 3

Race three was not such a good start. I was sandwiched between the Pintails of Conrad on my right and Luke and Daniel on my left. I got squeezed by Luke and lost out on the contact. Daniel with Polaris power in his Pintail went round the outside to leave me in fourth at the first corner. Daniel, Luke and I had some close racing however overtaking opportunities were limited.

Eventually Daniel pulled out with lift engine problems which led to Luke and I going head to head. We swapped places a couple of times but Luke managed to stay ahead by taking some risks.

At the end of the race I pulled off to the side beyond the chequered flag because I could smell burning rubber and thought the thrust engine was cooking. Everything seemed fine and the odour disappeared so I handed the craft over to Ken for his next Open Race which he won. Ken remarked that he also had smelt burning rubber earlier in the day but could not trace it's origin.

Race 4

I was looking forward to this race as unfinished business with Luke.

Sadly this was not to be as when we fired up the craft at the 10 minute warning a loud knocking noise was heard and traced to the rubber donut coupling between the thrust engine and fan drive. With no time to remove the engine and replace the coupling I was advised to go easy in the final race and get the points for a finish.

Well, at least we now knew the cause of the burning smell. The coupling was new so we assumed an early failure but in fact the fan hub support assembly was loose on one side and was twisting under power causing undue stress on the coupling, a matter we identified and attended to before the final Open race by Ken.

The coupling when uncovered from the safety cage was completely wrecked and in three separate pieces. It seems that the smell of rubber was the coupling pieces rubbing on the safety cage which kept them sufficiently in place as to transmit power and enable me to complete the entire race!

Since Ken had won the previous race with the coupling quite possibly in a similar state I am left wondering whether I could have raced properly instead of just nursing the craft round. No doubt at the end of the season when the final points tally is made I will know if the cautious approach was the wisest.

Closing Notes

We now lead the F1 National Championship as a third place here gave us sufficient points to overtake Tony Goldney. However, Team Pintail are on the march and gaining. At some cost however, as they suffered a wrecked Rotax thrust and two blown Westlake lift engines during the weekend... Ouch.

Our craft has now done 17 national races (plus opens and exhibitions) without much maintenance and the longer break until the next meeting will give us a breather. The development of the skirts is for the moment complete. As Fawley is mainly land and slow speed a full appraisal of the latest changes was not possible.

We have plans now to look at the cushion pressure....... and beyond that some other performance issues have been identified, but we will stick to our programme of chipping away at making the Mirage even better, stage by stage.

And finally............

The Style Police !!

"I give that 9.6 for artistic impression and colour of helmet.... or is that 96 db and a black flag for no exhaust.........."

Race marshal Terry takes notes whilst Conrad points the noise meter in the final open race.

The first race start left me behind the pack after the thrust engine failed to pick up first time.

To say that lap three was scrappy is an understatement.... Daniel punted me off the racing line across the water and into the boondocks....... Yes Dan, that is a picture of craft contact and a waved yellow flag !!!

The last picture in the sequence is of Dan exiting the Fawley turn with the craft on its side and going backwards following a deliberate detour off the course as the track was completely blocked in the "funnel".

Race 2 saw all of us get a tidy start, Clockwise from the foreground... Robin Brickles, Tony Goldney, me, Luke Sedzikowski and Daniel Newton. Conrad Beale is just out of frame to the right.

Getting past on the twisty course was not easy.

Luke had to take some risks to stay ahead. He got away with this, but several craft ploughed in spectacularly, at this point, during the weekend.

The Pintails suffered several lift engine failures as well as an over heated 809. The blue marker drum was not filled and bounced away very satisfyingly when clipped in a race!!