Anyway, after an
uneventful run up to York, it seemed that we'd be in for a pleasant
late-summer day. There were nine NSCC cars qualifying, just enough to
bugger up a nice eight-car ladder, and way out in front was Russ
Pursley, his 9.67 at 142mph giving him a commanding lead. Next in
line was Ian Walley, still struggling for form on a 10.9 at 128mph,
then Derek Beck in the TVR, still playing it safe with the gas on
11.9 at 114mph. James Murray was back up to speed, his 12.1 at 116mph
netting fourth, followed by Pete Smith's late model Shelby in the
centre of the field with a 12.6. The lesser-spotted Lee Opey in the
little Punto ran 14.1, Steve Gilmour in the repaired Cortina clocked
14.8, Dave Smith in the Lexus barge managed 15.7, then Rick's 16.0
closed out the field.
Round one opened with
Pete racing an empty lane, Opey having trailered the Fiat for various
reasons, all of which helped Pete cement a certain second place
overall. Next, Derek trounced Dave with a 12.1 to the barge's 15.7,
before Russ took advantage of his bye to run a mighty 9.600 at
143mph. Gilly was trying hard to holeshot James, but tried a little
too hard, leaving 0.009 of a second before the green light and
cherrying his chance away, before Ian put the smackdown on Rick, a
10.0 showing exactly what Ian was after this afternoon, including
third place overall in the championships, leaving Rick to claim
fourth.
The semis opened in
entertaining fashion with Russ throwing the flyweight Dutton down the
track in 9.5 seconds against Pete's 12.8. Ian had a bye and used it
to the full with a 10.2, that nine-second run just eluding him again.
Then it was Derek versus James, which should have been a close-run
thing. It wasn't, as Derek tore off an 11.1 at 123mph to seal the
deal. In the other lane, James' timing ticket showed that he was on
for a NPB but at half-track, a jet of smoke or steam from under the
bonnet caused him to back off. It turned out that the second stage of
nitrous had had a spot of windy-pops and blown its high-tech copper
pipe out of the air scoop via the ever-extending bend in the bonnet –
what James saw wasn't smoke or steam; rather it was a lot of nitrous
venting into atmosphere...
That set up the
three-car final. By this time, the weather was beautiful, the sun was warm and I was sweating like Cliff Richard's lawyer. Derek, the already-champion, wasn't taking any
chances, and just broke the stage beams on his bye to go through to
the final. Meanwhile, the winner for closest race of the day had to
go to Ian versus Russ, the two yellow terrors. Neither was
particularly sprightly off the line, but Russ got a slight jump and
both were on a mission. At the stripe, after having run a string of
mid-nines all afternoon, Russ could only (“only”!) manage a 10.1
at 138mph as Ian claimed the win with a 9.99 at 136! I figure that to
be a margin of victory totalling three hundredths of a second...
And so it came down to
the final, the last pairing of the whole day's racing, and it was
Ian's turbo Cortina versus Derek's gassed TVR. Derek had the
advantage off the line as the Cortina spooled up, but then Ian was
away, catching Derek and sprinting past him to a 10.1 at 135mph, with
Derek crossing the stripe a moment later on 11.4. A good, clean final
to see out another day's racing and another year's NSCC championship.
Derek may have lost the
final but he won York's Hot Rod Challenge, and is overall champion of
that, too, so he still got a pot for his mantelpiece. He'll have
another round of trophies come the AGM. He's going to need a
mantelpiece the size of Blackpool prom if he carries on like this.
After prize-giving, everyone headed home – well, everyone except
James who was helping Des Taylor with a fuel pressure fluctuation on
his Fox Mustang – with the grim realisation that another season is
over and now we have the slippery slope down into winter, Christmas,
and all the joy that brings. It's jolly depressing to be saying
goodbye to people you know you're unlikely to see until next year,
wishing them a merry Christmas in mid-September. Still, that's six
months to be preparing for next season, or saving up to pay off on
the last one. Will we be ready? Or, more likely, will we find
ourselves with three days to go before Easter thinking “Shite, I'd
best get cracking on the car!”?
Eugene
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