Last hill climbs and Goodwood Revival

I wanted to write a lovely illustrated blog post but I am using Alex's computer, so will have to add some photos later!

September was a mad round of hillclimbs, 3 weekends in a row which was pretty tiring!  Two at Wiscombe which were both wet, and one at Charmouth which was dank in the mornings, but dry for the afternoons. We like the final Charmouth hill climb as it is run by our Club, Woolbridge MC, and is a friendly event with the advantage of the camping being right next to the paddock which is a definite bonus with the dog!

After all the wet events we've had this year, our confidence in the car and how it handles has improved massively, and both Alex and I managed to post good new personal bests at each event.

Having competed in the MG Car Club hill climb on 14th September, we headed off the next day at 6am to the Goodwood Revival, in the Imp of course.  We had a cracking drive over through the Meon Valley with the sun burning off the early morning fog, and the Imp flying along enjoying the run.   The show was as good as ever, and although it started raining we had another good drive home without the Imp missing a beat.

Now we have finished the season and are looking forward to 2014, not only with the Imp's new 998cc engine and closer ratio gearbox, but we're also thinking of fitting some units into the Transporter since we will be spending every other weekend, for 6 months of the year, camping!

Wet stuff at Wiscombe!

The 5 Clubs (well 4 now) ran another great hill climb at Wiscombe Park at the weekend, and what an intense weekend it was!  The forecast was sunny mornings and showers in the afternoon, and that's pretty much what it did, with the addition of rain on Friday night to start off with a nice greasy track.

This event is very popular and was over-subscribed, we were fore-warned to enter early. One of my fellow lady drivers managed to get an entry for Saturday but not Sunday - the moral being "Get your entry in as soon as they open!".  Most of the friends we have made at various venues over this season were there which made it very sociable; and we made a few new friends as well.

So, Saturday morning dawned to the afore-mentioned greasy track and everyone took it fairly easy. By the second practice run it was stickier and most of us put up a good time, while casting suspicious looks at the black clouds looming from the south west.  It took its chance over the lunch break and started bucketing down; we ate our lunch in the Imp which has to be a first!  All we needed was a newspaper and we'd have made a good impression of tourists at a beauty spot viewpoint.

The afternoon runs were done in alternate heavy downpours and sunny spells, which arguably were worse as the track was half-dry half-wet. Alex managed some decent times but I lost interest and had two shocking timed runs so was in my usual spot at the bottom of the fleet. Never mind, tomorrow is another day and driving in so many different conditions is very good experience and does wonders for confidence.

On Sunday morning, having had a night in the tent listening to more downpours, I was thinking "urgh, do I really want to do this?".  Of course I did, and also couldn't possibly let down all the marshals who were doing a sterling job standing around getting soaked on our behalf.  Once I was up and ready I was feeling much more positive and practices went fine, with pretty much a carbon copy of weather and conditions from the day before. A first practice of 63.07 and second at 62.42 meant I was heading in the right direction to break my previous personal best of 61.25 (also achieved in damp conditions). Alex had a slowish first practice but did 60.95 in the second one, so I was chasing him.

We managed to get the tent down reasonably dry at lunchtime, the breeze having got up and the sun out during our second practices. By the time we'd walked back down to the paddock the queues for the food were too long so my customary Sunday sausage and chips was put off until after the first timed runs.


Yet again during lunchtime the heavens opened right on schedule, to many sighs of frustration from those with more powerful cars.  We weren't too worried in the Imp and our first timed runs were pretty good: 60.57 for Alex and 61.30 for me (0.06 off a new PB!).  That definitely got my competitive spirit flowing, and the secret weapon of sausage and chips completed it: I was determined to really go for it in the last run of the weekend.

Alex, to my surprise, came in a bit slower at 61.02 in his second timed run because he left a gear change too late in the Esses.  It was all to play for!  On the way down to my start I could feel the adrenalin building up, this was my last chance.  Alex and I had been talking about the "brake LATE and HARD" advice we'd had; and that when you want to brake you should say "A thousand" and then brake.  Clearly even experienced drivers suffer from the automatic caution that our brains use to protect us! I'd been getting braver with late braking into the Gate and two hairpins, and on this run I totally forgot about any dodgy track conditions and went for it; the whole run felt fast, but that can be deceiving.  When I got to the top my heart was going hammer and tongs, and I was desperate for the loo!  Once I got to look at the time I was amazed to see 60.37 and had to check it several times before I believed I'd knocked almost a second off my PB, and beaten Alex... I had the biggest grin on my face then for the rest of the day, and all the way home in fact!

Impish August

Here are a few photos from the last month:

Castle Hillclimb 3/4 August was interesting! Our first visit to the event and the Sunday was very wet; we did ok though since there are advantages to lacking power!  The long drag hill on the second half was a bit painful as were stuck in 2nd, the gap to 3rd being just too large.

This is what happens when a single seater racing car cleans the mud off its wheels right in front of you....

Stripped out to remove sound deadening and bitumen from between the ridges in the floor... 13kg plus! 

Our sexy new Sparco Rev seat is around 7kg lighter than the previous Cobra one, but is rather more snug (extra trips to the gym required for me!)

Roll cage in position.  We don't need one for our road-going class, but we were offered it at a good price and any extra safety has to be a good thing.  Even adding this (15kg) the car will still be lighter than before.

A couple of events and plans for 2014

Since I last wrote, we have taken the Imp to Wiscombe Park again, and to Manor Farm at Charmouth which some people consider a 'mickey mouse' course but we quite like.  It is very different to Wiscombe, being open apart from going through a bridge under the A35, which provides the threat of concrete contact!   This year it was a damp weekend so we spent it experimenting with how the car behaved in the wet, while still keeping it on the black stuff. At least spinning off at Charmouth you're not likely to hit anything too hard.

The car is going well with the 930cc engine in, but we have our sights set on going faster and have just ordered a 998cc engine to be built for us, by the chap who built the 930cc and is ex-Hartwell.  It's a bit of an investment but once we have that we won't need to tinker with engines any more, at least that is the idea!    There are loads of ways we could make the car lighter to be more competitive, but firstly we want to stay in the production road car class, and more importantly we like the car as it is.   We don't want to strip out stuff to the limit of the class because we get a kick out of competing in a car in genuine road-going standard condition; and we think other people appreciate that too.

Photo www.simonrawling.com

We are making more and more friends as we go along on the hill climb circuit, whether it be ladies who have been competing for 26 years, or other newcomers to the sport, and everyone in between.  I was discussing the welcoming spirit of hill climbing with the aforementioned lady and we were comparing it with other sports and hobbies that we had done, most of which seem to have a hierarchy, snobbery and bitchiness which hill climbing just doesn't have.  We could chat away to a chap by the burger wagon and find out that he had won fastest time of the day, while we were slowest, and it doesn't matter! It's really good to feel part of it, I can't imagine anyone feeling like an outsider in this sport.

 

Photo www.simonrawling.com

Our next event will be at Wiscombe on 27/28 July, a National A Championship event as well as National B, so all the fast boys will be there (and girls, but usually there are only 2 or 3 of us at events).   The week after that we are venturing down to Cornwall to a circuit we haven't been to before, at Castle Hill which is near Lostwithiel.  We then have the rest of August off before a full programme in September, and that is the end of the season!  

The 998cc will go in for 2014, we'll run the rest of this year with the 930cc, firstly for consistency and secondly to save stress mid-season trying to get a new engine set up and running properly.

South West adventures at Werrington

Last weekend was the wonderful Werrington Park hillclimb organised by the Plymouth Motor Club, and held near Launceston which according to Googlemaps is about a 3 hour drive from us.  We were planning to have our new trailer ready, in fact this was the first event that we really wanted it for, but irritatingly it still hadn't materialised.  We couldn't borrow the one from Alex's work because they were using it (most inconsiderate) and we refused to pay to hire one for a weekend.  So there was nothing for it, we were going to drive the Imp and the van down to Devon/Cornwall on Friday afternoon.

We both got home from work early and after some final preparations (which included buying some get-you-out-of-the-mud grippy things for the van) we set off at 1.45pm with Alex in the Imp and me driving the Transporter with camping gear and dog.  All went well and we swapped over roughly halfway in the middle of Dorset somewhere.  I had the dull half which was mostly dual carriageway and a bit of motorway, so amused myself by singing loudly while bowling along at what I thought was 65 mph ish and we arrived without mishap at the venue.   At which point Alex said 'Why were you driving so slowly?' - it turns out that the speedo is reading about 7mph fast and hence it took us about 4 hours to get there.

We found ourselves a good camping spot at the top of the paddock in lush green grass, pitched the tent and fell into bed pretty early. Unfortunately our neighbours decided to party... but we managed to fall asleep about 11.30.

Saturday dawned wet, oh great.  The paddock announcement was 'there is a lot of mud on the road, please take care!' Werrington Park is an estate with a big house and cottages, and it turned out that somebody had driven a tractor through the estate on Friday morning, after it had been meticulously cleaned!

We both therefore took it easy on the first practices especially as it was our first time there, so put in un-amazing times but that was fine. It had stopped actually raining and rapidly dried out so all our runs from then on were on dry tarmac and got steadily faster with Alex ending the day on around 59 seconds and me on 60.   After a social barbeque on Saturday evening, we went to bed and slept very soundly, awaking raring to go on Sunday which was warm and dry. 

Somehow, after lunch on Sunday, we both managed to knock 1.5 seconds off each of our times. In my case it was because I had trouble selecting 2nd gear going into the 90 degree left so changed down later. A-ha! Now to try that intentionally.  In the final timed runs we ended up even faster with final best times of 57.83 for Alex and 57.66 for me, we were enjoying having our own private Hillman Imp championship!  With 1380 Minis etc in our class there was no way we were troubling the prize-winners, but we had a blast.

Alex drove the Imp all the way home since I said we'd get home quicker than if I drove it!  There had been a bit of rattling and knocking over the weekend and when Alex investigated on Monday, he found that the bolt holding the alternator on had sheared off and the alternator was working loose. Thank goodness it didn't come off completely or things could have got nasty.  We still need to take a look at the track rod ends and the suspension in general to check things over before the next event.

All in all it was a great weekend and we'll be back for more next year (it's a shame there is only one hillclimb a year at Werrington, it's a good, challenging course).  In the meantime we're off to Wiscombe again in a couple of weeks so looking forward to that.



Wiscombe Park 27/28 April 2013

After all the stresses of the previous blog post, we were glad to be on the road to Wiscombe Park, with the Imp ensconced in a rather posh trailer borrowed from Alex's work.  The trip is a couple of hours and we arrived early, only to almost get the van stuck in the camping field, with the trailer on the back.   Luckily we managed to recruit some help from a fellow hillclimber and were soon parked in a better place and pointing downhill (always good). 

After walking the hill, we settled down for the night and woke bright and early the next day to find that the car wouldn't start.  Oh brilliant. A slight panic set in as we jump started it from the van - we thought we'd solved this non-starting problem? it had been fine for the previous 4 days.  Thankfully it was fine for the rest of the day but we made sure that we kept her pointing downhill!

 

This was Alex's very first hillclimb, and he was the first of the day to run. With double driving, the 'A' driver goes up in the first batch and then there is a quick changeover for the second driver who goes in the next batch.  Unsurprisingly, Alex loved it and got a time already down near 60 seconds for the run, something I had distantly dreamed of when I ran the car with the 875cc engine last September.  His best time of the weekend was 59.4 which he was very pleased with.

 

I was loads faster than last year and managed 64.5 secs on the Saturday, improving it to 61.64 on Sunday. There weren't many classic cars at the event, which made the paddock a bit less interesting to look around, although there was a Gilbern Invader which was interesting as we have a Gilbern GT which is next on the list for restoration (and hillclimbing!).

 

The weekend stayed dry, and as at the two events last year we got chatting to lots of new people, and some we had met at previous events.  Hillclimbing is such a friendly sport, everyone has time for a chat. The Imp got loads of attention and we discovered that lots of people started out their hilllclimb careers in them, so it sounds as though we are starting in the right place! 

  

We came home on a high, although exhausted! We're looking forward to Werrington in Devon, which is our next event, although we are going to have to drive the car down there, 3.5 hours, as we don't have a trailer available.  We think the engine will like it though, it could do with a decent run.

 

We are both definitely hooked!

 

 

Shopping!

By Jenny

Just back from a weekend's camping and shopping, not IN the Imp, but FOR the Imp. The final collection consisted of:

One Imp Sport engine 875cc
One standard spare engine 875cc
Twin Weber carburettors and manifold
Montecarlo springs front and rear
New handbrake cable
Brake kits
Replacement dash from which we can take a temp gauge. At the moment we just have The Light of Doom.

So that's a few things for us (well mostly Alex let's face it, while I'm studying) to work on while waiting for hillclimbs to resume in April!

How XLB got into hill climbing

by Jenny

Until a few months ago, ‘hill climbing’ to me had meant donning walking boots and setting off with the dog up a Scottish mountain. Now it has taken on a whole new meaning of donning a race suit and helmet and setting off in my Hillman Imp up a kilometre or so of tarmac.

My experience of competitive sports to date has been limited to yacht and dinghy racing, mainly because of my technical job in yacht handicapping. However, I have always enjoyed driving, and over the years both I and my husband Alex have hankered after taking part in historic rallying but were put off by the potential cost.  We then heard about speed hill climbing and realised that it was a great way to compete in motorsport on a limited budget.  A change in personal priorities a couple of years ago was the incentive to stop procrastinating, and so it was that at the age of 46 I became a speed hill climber.

Alex & I have had various classic cars over the years, including a Jaguar Mk2, Austin A35, Triumph Vitesse 6 and a Gilbern GT1800 which we still own.   We decided that our perfect car for hill climbing would be a Hillman Imp, so started looking in Sept 2011 and very soon found XLB 889G in Cornwall, a very original Imp Super with 32K on the clock for £1500.  At this point we discovered that low mileage doesn’t always equal less work, as after passing the MOT the car started rebelling once we were using it regularly!  Alex rebuilt the suspension and we got a new head gasket fitted as a precautionary measure; since then many hours have been spent fiddling with various settings and replacing ancilliaries in an effort to get the engine running reliably well.

In summer 2012 we spectated at two local hill climbs and in July it was time to enter my first event, the MG Car Club event at Wiscombe Park in September; followed 2 weeks later by the Woolbridge Motor Club event at Manor Farm, Charmouth.  At this stage we could only afford one set of gear and entries, so it was up to me to see what the Imp could do, while Alex was mechanic.

The month before the first event was spent getting and fitting new seats with headrests, and more tweaking of the engine as it still has a few running issues we couldn’t pin down.  I already knew that I wouldn’t be competitive in the A1 class (standard production ar up to 1400cc) but it didn’t matter – my aim was to enjoy myself, improve my personal best times, and not bend the car!

Camping at Wiscombe

After a 2.5 hour drive in the Imp down to Wiscombe on the Friday night, 8^th Sept dawned foggy but with the promise of sunshine.  I was pleased to ‘buddy up’ with the driver of the car in front of me, and we walked the hill together which was helpful.  Being in a paddock full of gorgeous MGs and derivatives, racing cars and obviously very experienced hill climbers could have been intimidating, but we have found without exception that hill climb people are some of the friendliest we have met.

My first practice run was slow! Over 80 seconds (the Minis do around 50-55); despite having walked the hill it looks very different from a driving seat, and I was finding my way. But when I got to the top I felt quite emotional that after all the anticipation of the last few months, I had actually DONE IT!!  After that I had a target to beat and was already planning where I could save time, and the sun had come out. By the 4^th run I’d got my time down to 70.8 and knew where I could save more next time. Not too bad for a first timer with an ancient, standard 875cc engine!

Some of our neighbours in the paddock at Wiscombe

Manor Farm is a totally different and much shorter course, and again we had a dry day. Unfortunately the car was running on kangaroo fuel, coughing and hesitating at inopportune moments, but it was an intermittent problem and we didn’t want to change things and risk making it worse!  This time I tried a different tactic for each run especially on gear changes, and ended up with a best time of 45.52 seconds.  I had entered the ‘Woolbridge class’ for beginners in a totally standard road car and was the only entrant in that class, so I took home a 1^st place award at the end of the day – a definite incentive for next year.

I’ve had lots of comments about the Imp and people saying how nice and original it looks, and how good it is to see a standard one competing. We do have plans to improve the performance over the winter, while staying in class A1 and keeping the car looking as standard as possible, which is important to us; it also has to also perform well as an everyday car.  

Alex will also be driving next year, we will be sharing the Imp; I’m really looking forward to the new season, and it will be a great incentive for me to get my times fast against his!