Loton Hill Climb September 7th

Return trip to Loton park with a car running perfectly after a trip to the local Integrale specialist, yes we have one just up the road !  No Audi quatro this time, but the RS Cosworth was there to give a benchmark, first practice saw a slight improvement over the times of the previous visit, but the track was slower (apparently according to those that know) Practice 2 saw a significant improved time by 5 seconds, that’s a lot in hillclimbing, but it was now apparent that with full power, the handling issue returned, it was very difficult to get the car to turn in, it just wants to straight on.

Race 1 saw a drop of half a second , a lack of confidence with handling in the narrow twisty track, and a missed gearchange on the last bend didn’t help, and playing with tyre pressures after practice may not have been a good idea.

Race 2 … wow !  had a good start, almost perfect first corner and held good speed through the second third and fourth corners, fifth corner through nicely controlling the understeer, the next kinks right and left held well with excellent exit speed into the straight, I was so amazed at how much more speed I had on the straight, almost flat in third over the brow that braking was left a tad late and off I went to visit the grass, no serious damage and a lesson learnt … if you don’t go off your not trying !

Loton Hill Climb: August

First ever hillclimb event for me and again another test event for the Lancia, still no work done, due to lack of time more than anything, thought the misfire was fuel surge at Anglesey, wrong, it was worse here, but gave us a chance to learn the event at a steady pace.

There was a really friendly bunch of people at this event, especially the other people in our class, yes there were other people in our class! Just a 500bhp Audi Quatro Sport, oh and a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. We were quite excited to see the Audi Quattro, videos of which Gareth had been watching on YouTube to get to grips with the track before coming. Lots more spectators too to add to the excitement.

The hill climb is a bit different to the sprint, here again you go on your own on the track and it is based on timings but it is just a linear track. This means after you’ve gone you have to wait about 15 mins at the top with the other competitors to then all come back down in a kind of car parade.

The car still wasn’t firing on all cylinders but a narrower and slower track meant that the cornering was a bit better. A slow first practice to begin with 75 seconds on the clock, but Gareth chipped it down to below 73 seconds by the end of the day.

We ended the day 5^th out of five, but again a really useful day for us. We weren’t that far off the next competitor’s times, so for a first event we felt it was pretty positive.

Anglesey: The first outing.

Trac Mon on Anglesey is in a beautiful location, made even more so by the dozens of exciting cars gathered to take part this weekend. The Lancia hadn’t had much work done to it apart from taking the wheels off and upgrading to meet current regulations so this was really just a test to see how the car handled and how it ran to see what work would need doing to it.

A walk around the track the night before was useful but not as useful as the first practice lap to see just how well the Lancia was going to perform and whether I was up to handling such a classic built for world champion rally drivers, soon found out that Integrales understeer in a big way on Tarmac, the transmission is designed for Gravel rooads. Another practice lap then it was time for the race laps. The sprint event means that you each have a turn on the track rather than racing against the cars in your class. Luckily this weekend there was nobody else in our class so we couldn’t lose!

Although it was just a test event for us it was still very encouraging to see Gareth getting quicker each lap… times best forgotten, but it was great fun.

The photographs revealed that there was a lot of movement in the suspension during breaking and around fast corners and it was apparent that the Lancia wasn’t firing on all four cylinders all the time, but overall we felt that it was a nice event for us.  Friendly people and a beautiful sunny day, oh and best in class of course!