British Sprint Championship — Blyton Park Sprint Weekend
John Loudon reports from Blyton Park where he was competing in the 2023 British Sprint Championship. Saturday was on the shorter more technical Eastern Circuit more suited to his nimble Force TA racing car and Sunday was on the longer Outer Circuit, more suited to higher powered cars.
As Saturday’s Eastern Circuit event got underway, I was optimistic of a trouble-free weekend and having made a few changes to the car since last time out at Anglesey in April. But motorsport is full of curve balls and my newly fitted gear position sensor decided to malfunction and the engine decided to start leaking oil. Challenge accepted and I set about remedying the issues with the aim to make it for the following runs and to my relief making it just in time and didn’t miss any runs. As a reward for my efforts, I managed to claim an 11th place in run off one and 7th place in run off two with an improvement on each run, but my times were well short of my previous best and class record for the layout which was playing on my mind. However, upon examining the times for other competitors, we all appeared to be in the same situation so track conditions and tyres were laid to blame and not to be too hard on myself. The good news is that the changes I made to my launch control settings were working and I had consistently good launch times.
Sunday’s event was on the longer Outer Circuit, so I was up early on Sunday morning to change gear ratios, having recovered from the frantic activities of the previous day. This seemed to pay off and with times improving which each run when it mattered, I managed to come 5th in run off one and 6th in run off two, narrowly missing out on a 4th and 5th respectively to a more powerful car. I was again short of my class record for the day’s course layout but by a smaller amount than the previous day and other competitors were with the same conundrum.
I left Blyton Park still in 4th place in the championship which I would have taken at the start of the weekend.
The next round of the championship is at Lydden Hill on Saturday 20th May.
A huge thank you to my sponsors Laser Tools Racing for their continued support.
