AWDC – Walters – Round 2 – April 2013
We planned on a long weekend for our first safari of the year – the weather looked promising although it was Wales we were going too.
We set off from work on Friday at 4 and after a steady drive arrived on site at 8. Within the hour we were set up and eating tea. When we had finished we headed to the fire to catch up with old friends over a glass or two.
Saturday we woke to a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky, so after an egg and bacon breakfast outside we set off to walk the course. 6.5 miles and 2.5 hours later we were back.
Off to scrutineering, then more socializing, the rest of the crowd had arrived by then, so sat out and caught up, although the blue sky was now scattered with cloud. After tea we headed again for the fire then it was early to bed as it was really cold.
We woke to a cloudy sky with the promise of rain!
After the usual drivers briefing, we headed for the start line, 2nd off after Andy Deguilio, set a good time of 10.30 fastest time – I could tell Rick was enjoying the new ‘engine’ even after 6 month of not driving, The course was great, fast and flowing with quite a bit of water, although after the first run it had dried up quite a bit.
Run two we were fast but overshot a turn and was beaten by Chris Bird who was flying in his Milner R5, but we were still leading.
As we sat on the start waiting for run 3, it started to rain quite heavy so it made it quite slippy on the tracks, especially as we were on well-worn tyres, so lost a bit of time on this one, but still leading but only by 6 seconds
Run 4 still raining and just into the start we got a rear puncture, which made thing very interesting.
As we got back into the pits, Rick said the engine was boiling, when we pulled up at the trailer, he checked and found no water in the system – but where had it gone? We decided to finish as we didn’t want to damage the engine. After about 20 mins of looking he decided to do one more, so off we went again, but after half the stage decide to pull off as it was boiling again. We let it cool down and limped back to the pits – game over.
Racing photos by Alix Jones – thanks.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Filed under: UK Race Updates on April 28th, 2013
