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October 2001 - Part 1

September Surprise

Graham Raeburn wins Falcon's 2nd September Autotest by less than a second.

It was another glorious day for Autotesting. The weather forecast wasn’t very good but the sun remained shining for the competition, although the rain came down for the results! 15 competitors lined up to do battle with ten tests devised by Peter Manning.

Class A had nine entries, five of which were Mini’s. Peter Barker made a welcome return in his blue car. This was co-driven by son Matthew, making his Upper Caldecote debut, as was Graham Raeburn in his similar looking car, except his didn’t have a red roof. Graham is an enthusiastic member of Watling Motor Club and is their web master amongst other things. I hope he won’t mind mentioning that he has a rather famous father, Nigel. Older Gassers will remember Nigel Raeburn from when he navigated for Will Sparrow in the heady days of the Motoring News Rally Championship. Graham is no novice behind the maps himself, navigating in championship road rallies for Jamie Turner, and even directing out own Murray MacDonald around the lanes in local 12 car events. David Manning was also Mini mounted, with Dan Savage sharing the driving of David’s smart red car.

One particular Mini was missing. Our landowner Neil had double booked and was at the local village fete giving rides in both Primrose and his model C Ford while his clubmates were driving round his back garden!

Owen Turner and Ed Nikel represented the Imp community. Owen had come straight to Upper Caldecote from a road rally in Stoke while navigator Andrew Dadswell went home for a kip! Mike Turner was driving his very standard looking Rover 200 in class B and Simon and Matt Robson were up against Kith Pettit (AH Sprite) and Ross Nuten (Dellow) in the fresh air class.

Simon Robson bolted out of the starting gate to set the fastest time on the first test, just ahead of Arnold Lane in the smart yellow Nova, which I always thought was Andrea’s shopping car! Graham Raeburn was a second slower than Arnold, but that was to change on test two. Ed Nikel flew round the cones in his Imp but with Graham just behind. Both of them left Arnold and Simon in their dust. Graham gained three seconds on Arnold and three on Simon, putting him into a lead he carried into the lunch break where the overall standings were Graham Raeburn (160.86), Arnold Lane (164.56) and Simon Robson (165.44). The top three were closely followed by Dan Savage (167.49), Mike Turner (169.62), Owen Turner (169.30), Matt Robson (169.83), Peter Barker (170.42), Keith Pettit (171.06) and David Manning (171.34). So as you can see the proverbial postage stamp covered more than half the entry. It also shows how you can go autotesting and be successful in practically any motor car!

Battle resumed after lunch, with Simon Robson setting a stunning time on test five to pull out three seconds on Graham Raeburn. Simon really started to fly and set another fastest time on test seven. Graham gritted his teeth and round out a wonderfully consistent set of times to maintain his lead and gain FTD by less than point one of a second at the close. The afternoon seemed to favour the open cars with Ross Nuten and Matt Robson also setting fast imes with Matt just pipping Keith Pettit for 2^nd in Class D.

In Class A Arnold Lane followed Graham home some seven seconds behind to take the class award, distinguishing himself by setting fastest time on the last test where poor Dan Savage did two wrong courses which plunged him down the standings. This was a shame as he was going very well and was fastest overall on test eight.

The rain came down just as the last test finished, which was great timing. Congratulations to Graham Raeburn but watch out, Simon will be really gunning for you next time!

Testing Tales - I did a little bit of analysis on the test times. As you can see our man Robson grabbed the majority of dastest times but Graham won on consistency.

Simon Robson - 4
Graham Raeburn - 1
Ed Nikel - 1
Arnold Lane - 1
Dan Savage - 1
Matt Robson - 1
Ross Nuten - 1

 Imp Tales

I had a chat with Ed Nikel after the autotst and he was telling me about some of the transmission problems Falcon’s Imp community has experienced recently.

Ed, Richard Tompkins and Owen Turner were all doing a PCT in the summer. Richard broke the diff on his blue Imp during the event. Owen’s went on the M25 on the way home and Ed’s gave up the ghost in his white car while he was driving around near home.

Richard is putting his faith in Uncle Henry and is having a Ford diff installed the Imp transaxle. Ed has decided to stick with the original component although he is a bit worried how it will stand up to the extra power when he gets his new engine back from the builder.