Round One - Mere Brow 1st May 1999

Photographs courtesy of David Beech 1999
My introduction to senior racing turned out to be very enjoyable, partly because of racing against "old" friends and also because the racing was more competitive than juniors has been of late. Stephen Scotney, as he has been for the last few seasons, was the person to chase.

I was unable to make the first days racing so I was pitched in to open practice, learning the course whilst mixing it with F1 anf F2 craft!. Towards the end of practice I managed to over take a couple of F2's!! The course was on the same lake as last year, except the small island came into play as no rare birds were nesting this year. The water level was also much higher which meant that last years first land section was under water so the course had only a 25 yard stretch of land. Just enough to get out of shape on if I took it flat out and caught the full thrust of an F1 or F2 accelerating away across the lake.

The course was roughly half on the lake and the remainder in quite narrow canals with trees overhanging the banks. The entrance to the canal section was very narrow and required a "wriggle" around a tree that demarked the course. A number of craft in several formula came to grief at this point.

This technical and narrow course favoured the F2 craft, the F1's could not use their power to advantage. Even the quick F3's were lapping to within two or three seconds a lap of the F1's time.

My craft, now numbered 111, was really going well, during Sundays first race I moved from the back of the grid to fourth and spent most of the race chasing Lee Willars in his Rotax 257 powered Eagle. I was absolutely flat out right through the entire race making up ground from the default grid position.

In the second of the days races Mr Farr took Team Farr's (co-driver Sue Goldney) craft and started ahead of me on the grid, although I had now moved up from the back. I spent the whole race chasing it. At times getting quite close. Two metres after the chequered flag he ploughed in. Oh, for another lap or even the finish line back to where it was on the Saturday!

On Monday the weather was fabulous and my craft was going even better. Both the days races were great fun with my start from the second row of the grid slotting me in behind Scott Tilley as he chased after Stephen Scotney. Lap after lap the order remained the same but I was flat out. Sometimes I got quite close to Scott but just couldn't get into position to pass. The craft are very evenly matched. On one occasion I came into the blind corner around the small island absolutely flat out and caught Scott, but had to lift off and away as passing was impossible here.

One bit of luck during the weekend happened when the lower left mounting frame of the radiator sheared and bolt, spacers, section of the radiator frame and the mounting nut (still attached we guess) disappeared. We think it went through the fan, if it did the blades weren't touched!

Nice Photo from David Beech (who was on duty at the marshalls point as part of the medical assistance team) of Sue Follond in an Eagle with side joystick with Injecta Racing colours.


Team Scotney's F3 lapped to within 2 seconds of the F1 craft

The entrance to the canal section was quite narrow and required a wriggle around a tree that jutted out

Bit close, that