I feeI’m definitely a spur of the moment
girlie. I managed to sneak in and gatecrash the
second official Brands Hatch novice trackday for
the last couple of hours, mingling with the Ford
RS Owners Club who had hired the track for the last
dregs of light into the evening.
And there was a majorly good Ford turnout with
some real classic old skool race prepared Escorts,
Capris and a couple of very rare rally RS200’s
with a reputed 650 bhp and a 0-60 in around 2.1
seconds!! Weyhey! Alex Baker from Brands was telling
me that one of the drivers sticks a fifty pound
note to the passenger dashboard and jokes that if
anyone can reach this whilst he’s out on the
circuit they can keep it. For the record, no one
has pocketed it yet. Give-us-a-go! One of these
gawjus RS200’s came back into the pits late
on in the session in a cloud of steam and smoke.
The marshals ran for the fire extinguishers expecting
the worst. In the manic moment that unfolded it
turned out to be just overheating, not grilling
its driver.
My friend Kieran turned up to play in his modded
Nissan 200SX and I jumped in for a few laps, expecting
a change of underwear afterwards. Okay I admit I
turned into a front seat driver so badly as my last
track day tuition all came back to me in a jiffy,
that I’m surprised that Kieran didn’t
kick me out at the first bend and force me to thumb
a lift back to the pits! We passed a blur of rally
Escorts and chased an Escort RS Cosworth that was
so slammed to the floor the exhaust kept grounding
out in a spray of orange sparks each time it past
over the camber on the finishing line. Was I tempted
to take my Lupo GTI back out again round the track?
Hell yeah! But Kieran admitted he’d pass on
being a passenger. Wimp!
Can I just say, the pit lane was probably not the
best place to announce loudly out of a Nissan 200SX’s
drivers window during a Ford RS Owners Club track
meet, that you haven’t spun off yet thanks
to Japanese technology. Unless of course you want
to be attended to by the St. John Ambulance!
After all that Brands Hatch BTCC finals fever on
2 October you’ll be gagging to get out round
the track yourself so now you have no excuse but
to book the next novice trackday for 12 October.
It’ll be tops so see you there!
Sezza
