AMOC Speed Series - Round 9 – Curborough, Nr Litchfield, Staffordshire, Sunday 15th September.
Curborough Sprint Course is part of an old WW2 airfield – RAF Litchfield - used mainly to train crews on Wellington twin-engined bombers. After its closure in 1958, the land was sold to a local farmer, and in 1963, the Shenstone and District Car Club took a lease of the part of the land, and the Sprint Course was born. It has been in constant use for grassroots motorsport ever since.
The layout of the course is a bit like one of those rather indulgent tomahawk steaks – you start and finish at the end of the long bone, and go round the meat in three different ways depending on what has been decided for that day. So you can do a single run round it (830m), or do a double lap (1,447m) or take in a figure-of-eight (1,467m). Today was the figure-of-eight.
Some people are a bit sniffy about Curborough, but I like it – especially in figure-of-eight configuration. It is really challenging, particularly in the wet. The first long left-hander (the bone bit) has a tricky reverse camber, but it ends up being quite fast, and to set a quick time you definitely need to take a brave pill. The rest of the circuit is a series of tight bends and hairpins – 10 in all I think - with short squirty straights of various lengths in between. The track is 4.75m wide - sounds a lot, but it really isn't, particularly if you happen to be going sideways at the time. The final straight, from the far end right back down one side gets cars going pretty quickly – 100 mph plus for the really fast boys. Once past the finishing line, it can be quite a challenge to scrub off speed because you are going slightly downhill and about to turn right as well – I have to cadence-brake in the DB2/4 to stop the old thing locking up and slithering across the track, over the grass and into the bushes! Never a good look.
Your good old boys this time were – Guy Staudt (Luxembourg, V8 Vantage Sportshift 2); Mark Chandler (Wales, DB7 supercharged manual), your author, Nigel Grice (London, DB2/4Mkll, no artificial aids). But hang on a moment – what's this? A V12 Vantage with Sportshift 3 in the hands of a newcomer (to us, at any rate) Tim Price! What a treat.
Our target times were as follows: Guy, 67.08; Mark 69.16; and me: 78.80. Obviously set in perfect conditions.
In practice, under a warm sun and fleecy clouds, our times were: Guy, 73.61; Mark 75.78, and I was on 81.81. To be fair, though dry, the course was definitely a bit more slippery that I had thought it would be, but I was sure I would be able to find another 3 seconds or so to beat the target time. The others also were reasonably confident about getting close to or beating their target times.
The first timed run came up, about 11.30. We strapped in. But...what was that? Was that a RAINDROP? I looked up, and sure enough, an enormous black cloud that had not been there five minutes ago had snuck up on us. Off we went to the start. More raindrops. And then more. And just as I set off, the first of the four Astons, it really was raining – the wipers had to come on. But the track was still pretty much dry.
So did we break our target times? Er, no. I missed mine by .88 of a second, and managed 79.68. Guy missed his by 4.43 seconds, and Mark by 4.81. There were probably three minutes between my run and Mark's – and these figures show how quickly the grip disappeared.
So, now with a fully wet track (it was showers on and off for the rest of the day) we all threw caution to the winds, and had the full roast pork and apple sauce job at the cafe. Nothing to lose, you see.
Our best runs in the wet were: Guy, 82.95; Mark 93,24; and me 93.36. To be fair, I think Mark also entertained the cheering crowds with a bit of a pirouette through 360 degrees, as is his habit, which probably slowed him down a bit. And of course, his tyres are made of granite.
And what of our newcomer, Tim Price? In practice, when it was dry, he managed a very respectable 73.34, and crossed the line at 99mph. But for his timed run which counted for the competition, the track was half wet, half dry, and his best run was 81.14.
So the day ended damply, but we were delighted to welcome Tim into the fraternity of the Aston Martin Speed Championship.
Nigel Grice