Caterham Academy Round Two: Curborough

Twists, turns, spins and oil spills: more excitement than ought to be possible in a Staffordshire field

Trying not to fluff a gearchange

"The marshals will be looking out for cases of enthusiasm outstripping ability," we were told at the drivers' briefing. This was met with a ripple of giggles and wry smiles. 'We won't overstep the mark' was the collective thought. But motorsport marshals are rather like parents - they've seen it all before and it's surprising how often they're right.

And sure enough, the marshals at Curborough - the venue for the PistonHeads.com Caterham Academy's second sprint last Saturday - bore witness to a fair degree of over-exuberance. To be fair, none of the offs resulted in significant damage, with a gentle nudging of a nearby hedge the only 'proper' contact with the scenery, but there can't have been many of us who didn't at least have a moment of some sort (the more spectacular of which have been captured on camera below).

James Bishop's diff oil gets cleared

For me it was more a case of nerves outstripping ability - sitting on the start line for the first practise run I was acutely aware that the majority of the field had either attended Curborough's sprint school or been at the semi-impromptu test day held the day before the sprint. And my only acquaintance with the track? About half an hour studying in-car videos (thank goodness for YouTube).

As I watched the traffic lights turn green to signal the all-clear for the first run it occurred to me that a YouTube session and a 15-minute track walk is perhaps not the best way to learn a twisty, narrow, technical sprint course and that I might not be able to repeat my Aintree podium. The Aintree sprint course has 3 corners in 1847 metres - Curborough's long course has 12 in just 1424 metres.

65.91secs - close but no podium

I didn't even need to reach the first corner before running into trouble, though; the supposedly flat-out curve before you reach the first corner was less 'flat' than I had imagined. Suddenly cold rear tyres were breaking loose from cold Tarmac and, for a moment, visions of broken suspension and apologetic phone calls to Caterham swam before my eyes.

Somehow, my sudden knee-jerk lift-off (absolutely the wrong thing to do in the circumstances) actually pitched me into the first corner at the correct angle, and I managed to keep the Seven pointing broadly the right direction for the rest of the run.

A Riggers-eye view

The second practice run went mildly better, as I began to learn the track and, by the time the first official run came (one of only two we would get), I managed to post a time of 65.91secs - good enough to put me a provisional third in group 2, with one run still to go.

It wasn't to last. Having vowed to copy group 1's Mike Hart (who eventually posted a stunning time of 63.99secs - quicker than some more powerful Sevens also at the sprint) through the first corner, I entirely failed to do so, managing only to put a wheel on the grass and ruffle myself sufficiently to fluff two gearchanges and post a disappointing second time of just over 67 seconds.

Only the fastest of your runs count in sprints, however, so I was left to rely on my 65.91secs to keep me in third. Which was fine until David Menzies posted 65.85secs - six hundredths of a second faster. I only held onto fourth place by a few hundredths from fifth-placed Spencer Horgan, too.

With positions at the sprints being settled by such small margins, it's clear that the racing is going to be tight when we all get let out onto a circuit at the same time. Bring on Rockingham on 4 July...

^{Pics: Rachel Horgan}

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