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First Ever Round Of Bristol Motor Club Clio Cup Tomorrow



  Clio 172
The first ever round of Bristol Motor Club Clio Cup is tomorrow - the Great Western Sprint at Castle Combe.

There are six cars out, I'm in car 455. It looks like I have the honour of being the first car on track for the Championship, at least for Practice. No idea if this is seeded, if so it must be reverse seeding as I'm rubbish at Sprints, I'm much more competitive on Autosolos amd Autotests.

Anybody else on here out tomorrow?
 

koksracing

ClioSport Club Member
  clio 172
hi alan, yes i was there yesterday in the red clio trophy, was great fun. Here is my summary i posted on the 182 trophy website. Hopefully get a few more clio's entered for round 2.

cheers

Pete
 

koksracing

ClioSport Club Member
  clio 172
Hi All,

Just to follow up on my post from earlier in the week, i was at the Great Western Sprint yesterday at Castle Coombe - the weather turned out to be sunny and fairly warm all day and except for a few incidents luckily none for me it was a really good day. There were 6 Clio's entered in the Bristol Clio Club Championship organised by Bristol Motor Club so there was some decent competition with a mixture of 172 Cups, 182's and a Clio 200.

The sprint was 3.3 miles so 1 3/4 laps of the track and you got one practice run and then two timed runs with the best of your timed runs to count. In practice i did a 163seconds which put me 3rd in practice but i caught another car at the end of my lap so reckon there was another 1 second in that lap alone.

The timed runs went pretty well and was fastest in both of the runs. My car held up pretty well and the Mintex 1147 pads were awesome right from the start combined with the front sachs (Refurbished by Rik - mega job) and my rear Koni shocks - i didn't adjust them at all - as i wanted to follow the rules to the letter but definitely think if i stiffened the car up more i would have gone even quicker.

i did try on my 2nd timed run to run the car up to the limiter to avoid changing up to 5th on the straight and 4th for the 1st chicane but decided it wasn't worth breaking my car - as it is my daily driver after all and needs to do around 600miles a week for work. Reckon with a test day there is another 3-4 seconds to find as well

Overall though pretty chuffed to win the class by around 1.8seconds, considering i didn't do a track or test day, my first ever sprint and a 117k mile old car.

Hopefully a few more people will enter for the llandow round on the 13th of May. Here is the onboards as well.
TR1 -
TR2 -
cheers
Pete
 

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  Suzuki Jimny
I was there yesterday for a rally experience thing, ended up taking a load of photos of the cars lapping!
Got a few pics of your trophy too if you want them posted in here?
 

shiftspark

ClioSport Club Member
  R53 GR86
Looks good although 3 runs is a bit low, we did Anglesey last year and only got 2 practice and 1 timed run which wasn't great either.
What are the regs as you mention not adjusting the rear dampers ?
 
  Clio 172
I must admit that the first word which came to mind after competing at the Great Western Sprint at Castle Combe on Saturday was "bored". One practice run in the morning, no timed runs until after 3pm for us. Only two timed runs. A total of around 10 miles for £135. At least there was good 4G coverage so I could watch Australian GP coverage on Sky Sports!

The event was very well run by Bristol MC. The organisers hit many problems, mainly due to people crashing and the single seaters breaking down. It was entertaining watching the fastest car on track lose its rear wing on the way in to Quarry then having a huge spin. At least he missed the wall.

I swore not to do any more Sprints after experiencing similar at other Sprints last year - lots of hanging around, low level of seat time for the money, the same "course" every time.

Yesterday (Sunday) I competed on the Javalin's Jumbo Targa Rally at Wethersfield Airfield (in my Endurance Rally spec Rover 214). Sixteen tests, at least 25 miles of driving, each test different, for £50. We had four tests spread around the airfield and four loops of the four tests, each test modified and/or run in the opposite direction for each loop. I then also navigated for the person who navigated for me in his car (MG ZR 160), so I had the event again from the passenger seat. Yes, a day of driving and navigating for £50. We started at 9am and ran almost non-stop until 5pm, with just short stops for lunch and to modify the courses. Certainly no time to get bored.

Gravel, mud, broken concrete, clean tarmac, constant changes of direction and a dependance on the navigator to guide you round the cones. No videos I'm afraid as they're not allowed on this status of event and it's on MoD land. M&H Photography will have some pictures however. I use these events to use up old tyres I wouldn't dream of using elsewhere - four rims liberated yesterday, ready for the next batch of old tyres! Good cheap fun in all areas.

There were a few Clios out yesterday, I must look at getting another more modified Clio for this type of event, my 172 is the shopping car as well. Having said that, many standard cars compete on these events, but I like to attack - my Rover is built for rough events so is heavy and slow, but I can hit almost anything flat! My 172 is set up for Autosolos and shopping. As Pete mentioned I'd also go a lot stiffer if I was going to do more Sprinting or track days - the front end dive under braking and resultant loose rear end was "interesting", especially coming in to Quarry.

So I think that's my last Sprint. I will be out on the Bristol MC Autosolo later in the year, but I'll be doing that to chase various Autosolo Championships. I can't do the Sprint at LLandow as I'm out on the Hughes Clubman Rally, going for the hat trick of overall wins on the event.

Each to their own. I'm from a rallying background so like varying surfaces, constantly playing with the attitude of the car and not always knowing where I'm going. I'm also used to driving a stage/test, then immediately on to the next, all day, with just a little down time for service and to eat. I found that I'd just woken up after a run at the Sprint, was ready for more, but then had to wait again, go off the boil, wake up again, ...

Congrats on your win Pete, a great drive. I don't believe you'd been to Castle Combe before. Good luck for the rest of the events and I'll see you on the Autosolo.
 
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shiftspark

ClioSport Club Member
  R53 GR86
Sprints for time vs ££ is never good, I look at it as more of a car related day out with driving although the longer runs with double laps always have a big impact on runs.Most events at 3 sisters or Aintree we average 2 practice 4/6 timed runs.
 

Rob Thomson

ClioSport Club Member
  Clio 172 Cup
Hello,

Just randomly stumbled over this thread while looking for something else. I was in Car 454, one of the 172 Cups, finishing second in the class. I thought the margin at the end was loads more than 1.8 seconds, but having just checked the results it was actually only 1.5 so not too far behind. Watch out at Llandow. ;)

Matt, if you have any photos of my car I'd love to see them.

Cheers, Rob.
 
  Clio 172 Cup
Hello! Stumbled across this thread too. I was 451 aka the guy Pete caught on his practice lap. In my defence I got held up at the start line....
Good day though my first time at Castle Combe and I was nowhere near as fast as Pete on my debut. I did improve on each run but going to need a few more than 3 runs to get towards the top. Notice from the results I was the fastest off the line (<coughs> in practice) so only the other 3.2 miles to work on :)
Same as above I'd be interested in any photos though suspect they'll look pedestrian!
Great idea for a series and only wish I could fit in more events. For anyone thinking about it go for it! Friendly competition and a good day; it would be good to see it grow. From my perspective think I need to figure out how to get a test day/tuition in there so I become less of a limiting factor!
Cheers, Steve
 
  Megane 175 & BG182
I thought the black 182 was the quickest when I was there watching the practice runs? What happened to him in the timed runs?
 

Rob Thomson

ClioSport Club Member
  Clio 172 Cup
Yep, he (Mark Tozer) was loads quicker than the rest of us in practice and would've been loads quicker in the first timed run but had his time disallowed for running off the track somewhere. He over-compensated a bit much in T2 and only finished third.
 


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