Seven Astons turned up for the Ray Heal Memorial Sprint organised by the Borough 19 Motor Club. Seven! And all of them Magnificent.
Here they are in starting order:
Tom Whitaker, white GT4 Vantage
Nigel Grice, DB2/4 Mkll (no paint, some dents)
Guy Staudt, white Vantage S
Peter Watts DB2/4 Mkll (lovely green paint, no dents)
Peter House, green GT4 Rally Vantage
Rikki Cann, blue V8 Vantage X-pack (late 1970's powder blue, called Rosie)
Mark Chandler, green DB7 i6
The weather, which threatened to be the hottest day of the year, turned out OK – hot, yes, but with a bit of a breeze and a few fluffy clouds to take the punch out of the sun. And speaking of “out of the sun”...yes, we had Spitfires. Of course we did. The wretched things seem to rock up whenever there are Astons, blue skies and a few fluffy clouds. And this was Kent after all...I half-expected to see the odd Messerschmitt as well.
The name Lydden is derived from two old English words meaning “hidden valley”, and this is what makes the circuit great for spectators, because there are several vantage points where you can see the whole thing. And drivers love it – lots of changes in camber, some surprisingly steep gradients, and corners ranging from the long 180 degree sweeper to the hairpin at the highest point. Also a very challenging 90 degree right hander at the bottom of the longest downhill straight, so by the time you have to hit the brakes and turn in, you are carrying a lot of speed. And that of course is where one has the least amount of run-off, with a somewhat inadequate-looking gravel trap behind which lurks a very hard bank of old tyres. Hit them, and it will probably not buff out.
The sprint is timed over one and three-quarter laps of the circuit, with a maximum of three cars on the track at any one time. That is helpful in keeping things moving given that there were just shy of 120 competitors. This included loads of Lotuses (Loti?), Caterhams, Jedi, Morgans, and many obscure but fiercely quick single-seaters. Even three Teslas – though it was noted that they only allow one of those on the track at any one time, accompanied by dark mutterings amongst the spectators along the lines of “if those bleep bleep things catch fire, you can never put them out!”
The organisers had hoped to give us one practice and four timed runs. In the event, due to some unforeseen delays (a timing equipment malfunction and a “noise break”), we only got three timed runs.
But it was still pretty action packed. All of us found the hot track more slippery than perhaps we had anticipated.
To put things into context, the fastest time of the day was 65.55 set by Steve Broughton in his SBD DJ Firehawk Mk2 SC – in essence, a full-on open-wheeled single-seater race car on slicks weighing less than a cheese sandwich, and with about 300bhp. So it was always going to be a bit quick.
Tom (GT4), a Lydden Hill newbie, was sensibly cautious in practice at 92.20 but ended up being fastest in our Aston class with 85.67 on his second timed run. Fair play to him. The ever-smooth Guy (Vantage S) was second, at 86.37, and remarkably consistent, his slowest recorded time being less than a second off his fastest. Third was Peter H (GT4 Rally) on 88.20, though his exuberant driving also gained him DSQ (all wheels off the track I suspect) and so we could tell he was trying!
Fourth was Rikki with 89.92 on his second timed run. His first one was unfortunately marred by his being held close to the start line for a long time to make way for pesky double-driven Loti, resulting in his beast getting all hot and bothered and then refusing to start. Whatever: his sky-blue stripped-out 600bhp monster of raw Aston V8 muscle was awesome. And the noise!!
Fifth on 92.20 was the indefatigable Mark Chandler in his 6 cylinder supercharged DB7. He still hasn't replaced the tyres, which one might politely describe as “period”. He was trying hard as well, as he always does, and also got a DSQ instead of a time. This was not surprising, since he took a trip across that gravel-trap at the bottom of the steep hill but managed to avoid kissing that devilish tyre barrier – just!
Bringing up the rearguard, with 102.16, was me in the old DB2/4. Last year, no matter how hard I tried, I could only manage 103.13. This year I got past that on the first timed run, and then kept nibbling away, with each run just a teeny bit quicker. Like Guy, there was less than a second between my practice and fastest run – and I still felt on the ragged edge. Will have to try harder/be braver next time. Or steal some horsepower from someone.
And finally, heroically last, but in a most sporting manner, was Peter Watts, in his deliciously pretty and beautifully turned out DB2/4. He managed 110.63, a full 3.4 seconds faster than his practice time. We all dismissed as a sort of reverse gamesmanship a) his pretending to run out of petrol, b) his complaint that his left-hand exhaust pipe was hanging off and slowing him down, c) that he had forgotten to remove a five gallon pot of brake fluid from the engine compartment, d) that his car has paint and mine doesn't, and e) that he had removed his spare tyre (which I could not be bothered to do) which everyone knows makes you slower.
And so we all had a great time, drove hard with myself, Rikki, Guy and Tom all setting new Class records, talked about tyre pressures, the perfidy of solonoids, the best way to approach a double-apex corner, and whether or not we should all go and have an ice cream. Guy's loyal wife, Huguette, also seemed to have a good time. She barely looked up from her book all day (it was in French again) but she told me in a quiet moment that she only chose it because it had a picture of a red Mini on the cover. So we were all petrol-heads of one sort or another...
Nigel Grice