Caterham Academy Round One: Aintree

Riggers follows the giants of motorsport with the PH fleet Caterham at historic sprint venue

Nerves build queueing for the start

Moss, Fangio, Riggers. These are certainly not three names you would normally utter in the same sentence. But last weekend I and 41 of my fellow Caterham Academy novice racers had our first taste of proper, competitive motorsport, running in the same wheel tracks as some of the greatest names in F1 history, albeit separated by more than half a century.

As a place to begin your motorsport career, Aintree is pretty special; it's right up there with Silverstone and the long-defunct Brooklands as one of the most evocative and historic venues in the UK. It held five British Grands Prix between 1955 and 1962, and was the place where Moss passed Fangio on the last corner of the last lap to win the 1955 British GP - the first time a Brit won his home race. But did he pass or was he let through? That was a secret Fangio took to his grave.

One of the straight bits between the corners

There was no passing on Saturday, though - the full GP circuit closed back in 1964, and the last race held on the shortened club circuit happened in 1982. Sprints have continued on part of the course, however; our first outing in the Caterham Academy was one of these - a one-at-a-time affair against the clock.

The course itself is just 1847 metres long, there are only three corners, and we got only five runs (two practise, three competitive). That's less than five minutes of flat-out motorsport, but it was far more fun than 300 seconds of left-right-right has any business being.

Taking what looks like a nap in the paddock

It's all about adrenalin. Getting strapped into the car, queuing up for a run, getting in the right frame of mind, nailing the start, and linking the corners and straights together properly all happens in such a blur that you barely have time to take it all in. But get it right and you'll see a good time on the timing screen as you flash past the finish line - and that is truly exhilarating.

A surprising further part of the excitement is the closeness of the competition (especially when you have 42 identical cars). Despite a track walk in the early morning, I still had no idea where to brake, turn in or accelerate for the practice runs and, looking at the timesheets, it seems everybody else was in the same boat - after the first run fully 10 seconds separated the Caterham field.

"Not sure, but I think the track's over there..."

But by the time everybody had completed three competitive runs things were somewhat tighter. In my group (2 - the series is effectively split into two separate championships), second place to eleventh place were separated by just over 0.8secs. Somehow out of all that I bagged third place with a time of 55.20secs - although with several very quick folks close behind me it was more down to getting a clean run than any innate speed. I fear I may not be so lucky next time...

Apart from the electric Kurt Brady, who somehow managed to pull almost a second ahead of the rest of us in group 2 with a spectacular best of 54.18secs (we plan to put tyre black on his treads for the next sprint) nobody in group 2 broke the 55sec mark. Group 1 seemed faster; with Mike Hart, Wesley Fox and Merlin Edwards all breaking the 55sec barrier - and the first two separated by just 0.02secs.

Grass roots motorsport, grass roots signs

There was very little in the way of incident, too - not bad considering the Armco backed by an earth bank that lurked on the inside of turn one. There was one casualty, however, as Ross Macindoe (seventh place, group 2) over-corrected a major tail wiggle and gently parked its offside rear wing into the barrier on the third competitive run. It was little more than a flesh wound, however and a spot of gaffer tape had Ross back in the queue for the final untimed 'fun' run of the day.

It might only have been five minutes of motorsport, but I can't wait for the next one. Now, if I could only work out where Kurt found that extra second from...

^{Pics: Rachel Horgan}

Kurt Brady on the way to a convincing win	Ross Macindoe, pre-armco contretemps...
	One to watch - Martin Pass was 0.08secs off a podium

OP Posts Only

Author

Discussion

mmm-five

11,431 posts

291 months