| Subject: Gurston Race Report - Sunday 11th Aug. |
Author:
Tom Worsley
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Date Posted: 02:57:46 08/14/02 Wed
Race Results: Sunday 11th August – Gurston.
Streetluge: (Best Qualifying Times)
1st – Tom Worsley – 0.58.67
2nd – Tristan Rothwell – 0.59.55
3rd – Jason Linford – 1.01.25
Lee Priddle - 1.01.74
Simon Andrews - 1.01.99
Joel King - 1.02.27
Josh Nall - 1.02.59
Stewart Thompson - 1.02.63
Dan James - 1.07.04
Sinead Williamson - 1.07.16
Seth Hunter - 1.07.59
Simon Stockton - 1.08.30
Matt Roberts - 1.16.08
Steve Blackwell - 1.23.36
Matt Lammas - 1.27.68
Gravity Bike:
1st – Ian Round – 0.53.63 (Faired)
2nd – Russ Cooper – 0.59.77 (Unfaired)
Prodrive Soapbox:
1.04.49 (Unfaired)
On Sunday the 11th the hill at Gurston saw possibly the most diverse array of gravity machinery ever. 15 Luges, two Gravity Bikes, one Soapbox a, Buttboard and a weird Freeboard thing on castor wheels…!
The weather was marginal – threatening to rain all morning, dusting the track with light drizzle and with a headwind blowing directly up the straight – It was obvious that no records would be broken, but the racing was close and competitive. As the day progressed the weather lifted, making for an excellent afternoon of gravity racing.
Ian Round made the trek all the way from Leeds, to race his Gravity Bike against Russ Cooper’s new machine. A relative rookie to gravity sports, Russ proved to be a formidable opponent (Years of racing Vespas - giving him the edge). Russ’s bike proved to be everything we had anticipated – built around a Redline frame, MONSTER disk brakes front and rear, dropped bars and a custom saddle. Ian and Russ battled it out all day, but Ian’s superb fairing kept him a few seconds ahead of the unfaired Russ. Ian also experienced his first high-speed wipeout (Parking accidents in Aviemore don’t count!). We could all hear the crunch of fibreglass from the top of the hill, as Ian stacked it on the first corner. Both Ian and the bike survived relatively unscathed – a sore shoulder for Ian, and a scratched fairing for the bike. Ian had mentioned a day or so before the race, that he was curious to explore what happens in a crash – seeing as he had never had a serious off at speed before….. Well, I guess he knows all about it now!
The Luge racing saw the arrival of Joel King on his new ride. A pan luge of conventional construction – with superb workmanship throughout (But still lacking the handlebars – Andy!). This race was his first race in anger on the new luge. The rest of the field was composed of mixture of rookies, and a few more experienced riders. The competition was fierce and some good times were put in. Simon Stockton arrived with a ‘Helmet – Cam’ and obtained some superb onboard footage.
Possibly the most unusual entry was the ‘Prodrive’ soapbox. For the uninitiated – soapbox cars are gravity racers, built by all of the most prominent names in motorsport – Ferrari, Williams, Benneton, Prodrive,… to name just a few. They are built for a single annual event at Goodwood festival of speed. The vehicles feature state of the art technology throughout, and are some of the most impressive machines I have ever seen. The Prodrive racer was no exception – Featuring a lot of innovative technology, including an on-board Data Logger device. Tracked by six satellites, the tiny GPS receiver recorded a wealth of information on each race. This was all downloaded into a laptop between runs. It could draw a ‘virtual map’ of the course - recording speed, acceleration, deceleration, lateral G’s, braking points, turning points….etc, etc, etc…
In all, the race was a huge success – Thanks to Ding for organising everything and driving the van, thanks to Rain for freezing her arse off doing the timing – and thanks to all the competitors for making it into a race. The best result was the opportunity to meet up with Ian, Joel and Russ – and talk about future races, Scammonden and Traws to name just a couple.
Be warned though, as I write this – Russ is working on the next incarnation of his Gravity Bike, he wandered back into his workshop muttering something about Gravity Sidecar racers…..watch this space.
The next event at Gurston has been provisionally set for the 15th September. In the meantime, see you all at Traws!
Tom Worsley.
P.S. We have a whole heap of vids and photos from the event, I'll post them online as soon as possible...
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