Wiscombe 120507 Results

Wiscombe Park 12th May 2007

The forecast bode ill for our Club’s Wiscombe Park hill climb and true to form the day started wet and slippery. This situation wasn’t helped by a car which having knocked its oil filter off driving of a trailer proceeded to drive down the hill to the paddock before the start of practice. I arrived to find marshals frantically sweeping after having applied copious amounts of cement dust to most of the hill; this caused the start of the meeting to be delayed while the MSA steward inspected the track.

The first practice runs were therefore run in very difficult conditions with rain and an oily course. In the pre 1954 class John Dent (Cooper- JAP Mk VI) led the way posting 55.63 seconds from Nigel Ashman (Cooper- Norton Mk VI) on 58.91 seconds. Sadly missing from the paddock on the day were Colin Rawlinson’s Smith Buckler and Tony Hodson’s Cooper Mk II which has not been seen for a great many years, the restoration of which could not be finished in time.

On the second practice runs Nigel Ashman found plenty of speed to improve to 53.62 seconds to pip Alistair Dent in the Hornet by one hundredth of a second while John Dent was unable to improve on his first run time. A smaller number of cars ran in the 1954 on class with Charles Reynolds (Cooper-JAP Mk IX) non starting. Simon Frost, sharing Mark Palmer’s ex Murray Rainey Cooper-Norton Mk IX, was quickest in the first session posting 61.69 seconds from James Holland (Cooper- JAP Mk VIII) on 62.20 seconds. The positions were reversed in the second session with James Holland improving to 55.35 seconds with Simon Frost improving to 57.04 seconds.

A good number of V-Twins turned out including the interesting Cooper Mk VI of John Bennett fitted with the unique ohc JAP V-Twin created by Robin Jackson. This features cammy Norton heads and barrels mated to a JAP twin crankcase. The engine has a long and illustrious history, albeit not fitted to this car. First practice showed Andrew Bennett (Cooper Mk V) to be quickest by a substantial margin on 56.42 seconds from Guy Murray in the Harley powered Cooper Mk V on 63.34 seconds. In the second practice runs Andrew Bennett improved considerably to 50.37 seconds while Tom Willoughby got to grips with the fearsome blown ex Dickie Henderson Mk VII to record 56.54 seconds.

For the competition itself the course was largely dry with the only serious damp patches remaining in the Esses under the shelter of the trees. Starting with the pre 1954 cars, Alistair Dent was quickest after the first runs recording 52.10 seconds from Nigel Ashman on 52.90 seconds and Jan Nycz in his beautifully turned out Staride-JAP on 56.38 seconds. Shirley Munro had the misfortune to melt the piston in her Cooper-JAP Mk IV a mere ten days ahead of the journey down to Pau for the 500 race at the GP Historique (She made it and finished - Ed).

Classified Results Pre-1954

Pos	Name	Car	Time	In the post 1954 class in the absence of any dedicated hill climbers, James Holland led after the first runs on 53.72 seconds from Simon Frost on 54.14 seconds and Mark Palmer on 56.89 seconds. Andrew Bennett led the Twins class by a country mile with a very quick time of 49.85 seconds from Tom Willoughby on 54.53 seconds and Guy Murray on 57.35 seconds. With the track now substantially dry the second runs promised to be the quickest of the day and Nigel Ashman improved significantly to record 50.45 seconds and win the class from Alistair Dent who pared his time to 51.33 seconds. Jan Nycz’s Staride failed on its second run but still finished third in the class. Simon Frost turned the tables in the post 1954 class to win with a time of 52.29 seconds from James Holland on 52.94 seconds and Mark Palmer on 55.19 seconds – all improvements on the first run times. Andrew Bennett pared yet more from his first run time to record 48.22 seconds – easily the quickest of the day as far as our cars are concerned. Tom Willoughby failed to record a time on his second run while Ruth Ross showed much increased confidence with her Cooper-JAP Mk II after experiencing clutch problems in practice to gain third place with a time of 55.49 seconds narrowly beating Richard Ashford who was sharing the car.
1	Nigel Ashman	Cooper Norton Mk VI	50.45
2	Alistair Dent	Hornet JAP	51.53
3	Jan Nycz	Staride JAP	56.38
4	John Dent	Cooper JAP Mk VI	56.72
5	Darrel Woods	Kieft JAP CK52	57.59
6	Humphrey Collis	JLR Triumph	59.50
7	Shirley Monro	Cooper Mk IV	NTR
Classified Results Post-1954
1	Simon Frost	Cooper Norton Mk IX	52.29
2	James Holland	Cooper JAP Mk VII	52.94
3	Mark Palmer	Cooper Norton Mk IX	55.19
4	Nigel Challis	Cooper Norton Mk VIII	57.12
5	Mike Gilbert	Cooper JAP Mk IX	58.89
The meeting was blessed with the appearance of no less than eleven ERAs which had gathered for the following day’s tribute to Wiscombe expert Martin Morris. Fittingly David Morris won the class in R11B aka “Humphrey”. Report by James Holland. Thanks to Carol Foster who so ably organised a super day of club motorsport.