Firstly my apologies for not providing any reports for the last two issues of WW. The end of 2003 was hectic work wise and either took me away from home or out of the country. For those who may be reading this for the first time and wondering what we get up to I have done a review of 2003 with more details on the events I have not previously reported on.

At our first club meeting of 2003 the full schedule of planned events was revealed to around 20 members.  Our first event was the Indoor Karting at Swindon with our friends from Glos/Chelt. Rob Marshall won the event for the hosts but Bristol Et Bath fitted the rest of the podium.

April  
The first of the Castle Combe Action Days took place in April with Nick "Disaster" Cook picking up a yellow card from the organisers for "unacceptable driving standards", spinning twice with me in the passenger seat. For some reason he was reminded of this a number of times throughout the year.

May  
May heralded the first show of the year with the trip to Stoneleigh when Tony Wiltiams our navigator got us completely lost as soon as we set off and took our convoy through the middle of Badminton Horse Trials. He later said that he wanted to give us two shows for the price of one.

June  
Events were now coming thick and fast. We had our first dedicated track day of the year at Hullavington with our friends from Glos/Chelt. John Kidd had a day to remember in every sense  of the word. This was followed by the Bristol Et Classic Car Show where we had a full stand cars, which attracted a lot of interest from one paying public and hopefully some new members

We also had our second Castle Combe Action Day where Chris Varey went home on a hand throttle made of cable ties.

This also brought to an end our meetings at the Compass Inn ‑ 30 paying people were too many for the landlord to be nice to, so we moved to the Cross Hands Hotel just down the road.

July  
After the success of the mid‑summer blat, Bary Ashcroft organised the Mendip Blast for the July meeting but guess what  it rained. We hastily took cover in the pub to dry out and covered the cars with whatever could be found.

August  
August saw the hottest event of the year with the thermometer topping 35 degrees as we went on the Tulip Rally over the Cotswolds organised by Tony Sighe from the Glos/Chelt club.  With many of the roads resembling farm tracks it did little for the happiness of Barry Ashcroft in his immaculate SEight with it's under slung exhaust. On top of all this the directions told us to turn the wrong way at the crucial time to meet at the pub for lunch. This meant that some dined in a different pub to others, but overall a very enjoyable day. 

The final Castle Combe Action day where once again we took the full allocation of free entrance and track passes. The weather was great as were the Club stands, displays and camaraderie; but a Lotus 21 driver had his car destroyed when a BMW driver did not stow down for the waved yellows and smashed into it in a big way. His BMW was not in ideal shape either but sympathy was not on his side as the originator of a needless incident that destroyed a racing classic. 

September 
I was away on business or holiday for most of September but a small convoy managed to make their way to Donington for the Kit Car Show Et Track Day. We also had the second of our dedicated track days, this time at Keevil, but once again the rain came on the same day.

October  
You would expect to see things winding down in October due to the shorter days and clocks changing but we still had two events to pack in. The first of these was the Ice Karting where we hired Bristol Ice Rink for the evening and had a (Friendly) contest with the TVR club in an endurance Grand Prix. You can read all about this here, but I must say that it was a superb event and will now become a permanent fixture in our annual calendar.

Our final track day of the year was also in lots of ways the most enjoyable as it raised money for the Stroke Association. We provided 4 cars to give the paying public 5 taps at full chat for £30 or less.  This is the second year we have supported this event although last year we had no takers due to the Westfield's lacking the showroom appeal of a Ferrari, Radical or Ultima. organisers having a two tier charging rate which they adopted. For £30 (the usual fee) you could choose to ride in any car you wanted from the paddock. F or a negotiated lesser fee the organisers put you in a car of their choice making sure that all of the cars were fully utilised. Chris Bradley was looking forward to this more than most as both track days he had paid £99 each for had been a washout and he had just had his suspension professionally set up and was eager to test it out. 

As it turned out he had the most eventful day of all the WSCC drivers when a securing bolt sheared on his anti roll bar in the morning checks, then he spun out in the afternoon when his throttle cable frayed and subsequently stuck open. I seem to recall him muttering something about Westfield quality which is not printable in this dignified magazine.

The cars we provided were:

Ultima 6 litre on full sticks ‑ Chris Varey
Westfield 2.0 Zetec 190BHP ‑ Chris Bradley
Westfield 1.6 X‑Flow ‑ Chris Goodchild
TVR Griffith ‑ Mike Mace

The most eventful ride went to a lady who had a huge spin in a Triumph TR6. I was talking to the owner at lunchtime who told me all about the £5K engine and suspension rebuild the car had just had.  Coming onto the start/finish straight a rear hub disintegrated and the wheel came flying off complete with brakes still attached. The car did two full 360‑degree spins before sliding off the circuit and digging in to the grass on the side of the track.  The car went up in the air as it dug in but fortunately had lost enough speed not to turn over and came back down the right way up. 1 spoke to the lady afterwards who agreed it was the ride of her life.  Overall it was a fantastic day and over   £5,000 was raised for the Stroke Association and we were justifiably proud to have played our part.

November  
Where did the year go? Our final event of the year was the Skittles Evening and Black Awards. For those not familiar with our ritual the "Black Awards" are for those who have displayed an outstanding level of stupidity or incompetence at some stage throughout the year. The skittles competitions were held first and were won by lan Lord but that didn't seem to matter as the Black Awards were the main interest. These were presented by Chris Varey who is a very entertaining public speaker. He had good background information on all of the nominees (can't think where he got that from), which was used to good effect to humilate them one by one as they recalled their story

The nominations were as follows: ‑  
Dave Bence ‑ deleting a club document on his PC that had to be returned.
lan Williams ‑ checked his oil [eve[ and [eft the cap off on a track day.
Tony Williams ‑ getting us lost on the way to Stoneleigh after setting off.
Dick (Megadick) Dimmock ‑ pushing a Porsche off the circuit on a track day.
Nick Cook ‑ a yellow card for "unacceptable driving standards" on a CC day.
John Kidd ‑ Hullavington, a track day to remember in every sense of the word
1) Drives off with the marshal's cone after his sound test.
2) Drops a rubber grommet in his (dry) oil sump ruining his coat in its retrieval.
3) Has a huge spin plastering the inside of his car and passenger with mud.
4) Throttle sticks open on the main straight, has to hit battery cut off to stop.

The awards were as follows: ‑  
Dave Bence ‑ a club word document on paper so that he could not delete it.
]an Williams ‑ a small container of oil in case he does it again.
Tony Williams ‑ a paper bag to practice finding his way out of.
Dick (Megadick) Dimmock ‑ a pork sausage (need you ask).
Nick Cook ‑ a framed certificate of him with yellow card courtesy of CC circuit.
John Kidd ‑ The Overall Winner

He was awarded a scale model of his car bought from the Goodwood Festival of Speed, clean and in one piece (as never seen before).

There was a final surprise award from the members to me as Area Organiser, w ic consisted of a mounted and framed sump gasket (sore point) and a bottle of champagne.

Thank you to one and all for the kind gifts and everyone who has helped make our club an outstanding success throughout the year.

Special thanks must go to Chris Bradley our club Webmaster who has kept our local website up to date throughout the year despite work taking him all over Europe and having a family to care for. If you want to see his handiwork including video clips of our track days and a lap of Dijon in Chris Varey's Ultima the address is at the top of this article.

So that's it for 2003. Make sure you come along to the new venue at the Cross Hands Hotel on the third Thursday in Feb at 7:30pm to see what we 2004.

Ken Robson