This was the CCC day, better known as CCD (consistently crap driving) day at Castle Combe. It was a very busy day with basically anything with 4 wheels allowed out onto the track. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun though. As long as you were prepared for the total lack of etiquette from those drivers who thought it was hilarious to hold you up all the way round the track! 

Just to give you an idea!

This was first meeting with the MK1 club and it was good to finally meet some of the people who I had been emailing for the last few weeks. To my delight there were other superchargers there (at last some company for ‘Yummy’) what was going to be even more interesting though was how they would compare with my little babe out on the track.

With just the merest glance towards the circuit watching the odd pirouette I was itching to get out there and give it a go. In my first session (thanks for the free one!) I soon found that it was pretty hectic out there as I found that I was consistently catching just about everything through the chicanes (the day’s tuition was paying off!). It didn’t take long though ‘till I got extremely annoyed when an Impreza Turbo wouldn’t get out of my way for the last two laps. This guy (typical eh?) just wouldn’t pull over and let me past even though I easily had more speed through every corner. I couldn’t believe it when I got level with him down the start finish straight and he cut me off at Folly. I was only upto 110mph at this point! It soon got even more interesting though when I let an E30 M3 through on the inside at Quarry. This guy wasn’t hanging around and took a much more aggressive stance to the duffer in the Impreza.

As I was now behind these two I had a perfect view. As we came through The Esses and out into Old Corner the M3 had a quite rightful stab up the inside as at this point the Impreza had run wide. Next thing the Impreza does exactly what he did to me at Folly and comes looming into the inside in search of the Apex (he hadn’t a clue) and very nearly rubbed wings with the M3! The M3 then had to yield but eventually managed to get past on the run upto Tower Corner. I have all this on tape, including the swearing! I remember going through Bobbies muttering “For F***s sake learn to drive!”. It was very irritating as this guy had successfully ruined half my session. Maybe if he had thought about it he would have realised that if after half the session ( I had passed about 5 cars or so before I got to him) I had caught up with him, I must be lapping faster.

The track was quite busy!

In the early afternoon I spent much time meeting people and catching up with Andi Flower hot off the rollers after a tuning (and turn the boost up) session at Millway. It didn’t take much persuading before Andi & I were on-route to race control to get tickets for a session. Andi took me out in his (265 or is it 272Bhp) bright yellow tubby! Andi was a track day ‘virgin’ so he was keen to have a passenger who knew the track to tell him what way it went! 

Andi did very well as he kept up a very respectable speed and overtook/undertook a fair few cars in his session. Of course Andi is now well and truly converted to the adrenaline rush of trackdays. Next up was my turn to take Andi out in the SC to return the favour. We had a pretty good time out there including me extending the track to include the grass on a bit of a wayward exit out of Quarry! Andi’s face was a picture as I just kept my foot down and straightlined the grass. 

I was on for a challenge as well as Tim Higgins in his SC had specifically supercharged his car after I beat him at ‘Combe last year (we were both in standard NA’s then). He had found that since my supercharger conversion he had left one vital ingredient out. Yes, that would be the big pulley kit then! This meant that I was running 12psi boost compared to his 7! It took me most of the outlap (he was 3-4 cars ahead of me to breeze past him (sorry Tim!).

Of course there was the question of track etiquette again as a girl (I was very dissapointed!) in a well-tuned Astra GTE 16v made it impossible for me to get past her. Never mind that she was a good 10-15mph down through the corners she just would not get out of the way! How frustrating. The air was blue I can tell you! I tried flashing my lights getting on the horn, but all to no avail. In the end I tightened my line out of The Esses chicane wapped it down to second, planted it and did a nice (unintentional) powerslide to ensure a very tight line up the inside into Old Corner. I got past her and now was away. About half a lap later I caught up with another slow car and then the Astra was right behind me (losing all the ground I had built up over the last lap, grrr!), in the end we got past the slow car and waved the Astra goodbye.