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august 2012 the magazine of the bristol pegasus motor club cover nigel mansell and some other bloke!

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month aug aug sep sep oct oct oct nov nov dec dec date 11th 13th 10th 16th 8th 26th 27th 12th 23rd 10th 27th day sat mon mon sun mon fri sat mon fri mon thur event bpmc track day club night club night autotest autosolo club night navigation scatter pegasus sprint club night navigation exercise/scatter agm buffet xmas noggin natter venue castle combe bawa southmead road bawa southmead road announced in time for the event bawa southmead road announced in time for the event castle combe circuit bawa southmead road announced in time for the event bawa southmead road announced in time for the event deadline for next backfire 29th august 2012 as always we are looking for contributions for backfire editor martin emsley email backfire@bristolpegasus.com or by post 61 simmonds view stoke gifford bristol bs34 8hq the views and opinions printed in this newsletter are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of bpmc cover photo nigel mansell requested his picture be taken with your editor and appear in backfire he said your editor scared me more than any opponent i have faced on track send him back to aa hospitality for more free food and drink brian johnson ac/dc frontman and roberto moreno enjoying silverstone classic

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editorial martin emsley hectic and great fun think over the last month or so the eunos roadster to give it the correct name has travelled more miles kms than many of my previous cars put together and i just love it we have done wales air museums two charity runs read about the second one later in this edition a run to silverstone which put a tick through another bucket list item and only today a wonderful run to shelsley walsh to thoroughly enjoy my first hill climb attendance and i will be back then for the late autumn i am planning another awesome tour taking in some of the brilliant roads in mid england what frustrates me some is that i know that i am not alone in these type of adventures and it would be great to be able to fill backfire with a good cross-section of member s activities finally i must say a huge thank you to steve dummett for again arranging sponsorship of the sunlight textile services pegasus sprint 2012 this is hugely valuable to the event and we really appreciate steve s efforts and what it then allows us to do contents editorial forthcoming events chairman s chat membership meet the committee escursioni articles event reports letters clubman s championship fantasy f1 market place remember when meeting details bristol pegasus needs you the successful running of club events requires marshals and organisers · · · · get involved be close to the action meet other club members no experience required we would encourage members to try and marshal on at least one event each year and would ask that competitors hoping to enter larger events such as the pegasus sprint show their support by making the effort to come out and marshal on events such as the chepstow auto challenge which is on sunday 16th september important information club night venue update

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our new regular venue will be bawa leisure centre 589 southmead road filton bristol bs34 7rg we will meet from 8.30pm in room 7which has excellent views of the sports field as well as parking visible from within the room there is a public bar area next to our room so members arriving early may enjoy a drink and a chat before the formal club night proceedings start during our summer meetings we will be able to open the doors to our room and have direct access into the car park please note there is no requirement to be a bawa member or show a membership card ­ simply mention that you are here for the pegasus motor club in room 7 as many members will know we will be returning to bawa which was our regular club meeting venue for many years we are very impressed with the updated room and bar facilities as well as the excellent view and access to our parking area we are also pleased there will be no issues for non-bawa members coming to our evening.

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forthcoming events bristol pegasus castle combe track day saturday 11th august our popular combe track day returns to a summer date for 2012 saturday 11th august at castle combe motor racing circuit tickets on sale to bpmc members at the same price as last year of £129.00 see the event website www.castlecombetrackday.org.uk for full details or call andy moss on 0117 9912702 if you would like a printed entry form posted now sold out a reserve list has been started summer classics easter compton saturday sunday 11th 12th august bpmc will be having a stand here on sunday only whether you ve got a classic car or not just come along to bristol s very own festival of transport saturday or sunday or stay the whole weekend we ve got something different going on all the time set in the beautiful countryside overlooking the severn valley at easter compton south gloucestershire just one mile from junction 17 m5 the self contained site is ideally placed for bristol and all motorway connections a vast array of classic vintage and retro cars scooters and bikes displayed in dedicated areas for british european and american vehicles with an off-road track for land rovers and 4x4s summer classics will look after everyone with great entertainment kids play area village green with local crafts traditional fresh foods bar trade stands autojumble and displays the main arena will include car parades and tech talk as well as the popular funzone for welly wanging horse shoe throwing pony rides and more contact nick 07786936941 01275 833098 nickswood@hotmail.com for more info http www.summer-classics.co.uk bpmc club night monday 13th august come along and drink and a chat with like minded enthusiasts

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the chepstow challenge sunday 16th september 2012 following the success of past events we return to chepstow for more fun around the cones the event will use the stables area at chepstow and will be run as an all forward autotest giving us a bit of freedom in the layout of the courses and allowing a wider variety of cars to enter our aim is to run a fun driving event rather than a memory test the course layout will use numbered cones and yellow marker cones if you enjoy auto solo you will love this event supplementary regulations now available from website www.bristolpegasus.com come and join the fun marshals also required please the organisers of the pegasus sprint would like to compete rather than marshal so please come forward to marshal and allow some off those that help put club events on to also have some fun behind the wheel if you would like more information about this event contact chris thompson on 01454 615604 or alternatively by email cmtbristol@tiscali.co.uk.

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saturday october 27th the sunlight textile services pegasus sprint 2.05 mile course layout with 2 practice 2 timed runs supplementary regulations now available details from the club website or dave bence mail@davebence.co.uk due to the event being pushed back a few weeks we have decided that we have no alternative but to reduce the number of entries compared with last year in the last few years we have had to turn entries away please bear in mind that entries are being accepted on a first come basis and we would therefore recommend that you get entries in as soon as possible more details and entry forms for these events on the club website www.bristolpegasus.com chairman s chat andy moss at long last we have had some summer weather what a sudden change from grey and miserable to hot sunshine sadly the rain was still around when we were due to go drag racing and with the special surface on the strip being very slippery when wet we made the decision not to travel up on saturday the raceway themselves cancelled the sunday what a shame hopefully we will be able to have another go next year.

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lets hope it stays bright and sunny for our annual tuition and track day at castle combe while there are plenty of opportunities these days to do a track day we like to think our day remains a little special and most of those who have done it in the past seem to agree with the current difficult economy it was no great surprise that tickets have sold a little slower than in the past but we have now sold out so your only chance of getting a last minute entry is to put your name on the reserve list which has now been started even if you are not entered you would be very welcome to come to combe and see what is going on there is no charge for admission looking forward into september we have our annual blast round the cones at chepstow which is a great opportunity to compete in your ordinary road car without the need for a competition license helmet or overalls the entry fee is low and this is always a great days fun whether you are a seasoned competitor or new to motorsport why not check out the photos from previous years in the gallery section on the website to see what it is all about other than a very enjoyable treasure hunt my own motoring activities have been quite limited this month i missed out on the frenchay show which looked as good as ever i have however made some good progress in getting the marlin running much better as some of you may remember myself and martin emsley spent a long time trying to get it sorted and while we got it driveable it has never really run very well i finally bit the bullet and booked it in at the rolling road at maynards near stroud i had visited them recently with nick wood who had taken his focus st there it was certainly entertaining to watch the focus on the rollers with 270 bhp although i am not sure watching your own car making lots of noise is as fun as watching someone else s the marlin of course is very much old fashioned technology and my recent experiences suggests many rolling roads are only really happy if they can plug a laptop in to easily adjust the ignition and fuel injection fortunately for me martin on the rolling road at maynards has not forgotten how to sort out carbs and distributors it seemed most of my problem was down to the distributor which we ended up replacing already the car is transformed and a return visit is planned to change the carb needles and do a final tune up which should make things even better if anyone is looking for a helpful and good value rolling road i would definitely say maynards are worth a try i also liked the way everything was explained and the fact they were more than happy for me to be fully involved in the process the main part of the business there is engine machining and they seem to have a well equipped workshop as well as a shop selling motorsport related parts and accessories in these days of large faceless companies it is always good to find a small business run by real enthusiasts.

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meet the committee richard reynolds web meister tell us about yourself i live in ivybridge south devon with my wife sharon and daughter abigail who is 6 what do you do for a living i m a senior software engineer at a company providing social housing repair/maintenance services and a leading domiciliary care provider in my spare time i build websites and computers for friends and family when did you join the club and why i started out at bae systems back in 1986 as a software engineering apprentice and ended up in the same department as andy moss chairman in 1990 there andy introduced me to the motor club as i was a citroen fanatic and wanted to do something interesting with my cars when did you join the committee i originally joined in 1991 and left in 2000 during that time i was an ordinary committee member equipment officer and competition secretary after a break of a few years and moving down in south devon i was asked to rejoin the committee in 2007 after all the work i did producing the new club website what does your role in the club involve it all started in 2006 when i asked andy moss whether if he wanted me to help to look after the club website as he was then a very busy backfire editor he said yes which started a long standing revamp of the entire website i publish club event regulations/booking forms and promote the club events on the website i also publish invitation events as well i look after the website and email hosting for the club and ensure we get the best value for money i publish the monthly backfire email to all members with all the different versions of the backfire on the website for members to download i have though managed to move the photo/video gallery system to a specialised photo hosting system allowing other members to publish event photos and video instead of myself what cars do you drive my main car is still a french car but it s now a renault scenic 1.5dci instead i also drive a red seat ibiza which is my wife s car when i first started in the club i owned all the citroen 2cv derivatives at some point gs cx bx and xantia but they only did events such as autotests treasure hunts or pcts i never sprinted any of them as they were never suitable candidates due to the distance from my home to the main area of the club i don t compete in any events anymore except for the occasional treasure hunt i still manage to see the castle combe track days most years.

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escursioni martin emsley sometimes it is the unexpected and unplanned situations which turn out to be the best adventures having decided not to visit goodwood this year i received a call on the wednesday afternoon from a work colleague ­ they had free tickets to the thursday moving motor show and had already sorted transport would i like to join them well a little rearranging later and i was ready to go at 5.00am the next morning what a day we had the weather was so much better than predicted we felt silly carrying our coats around all day really thought they would be necessary but got burnt heads instead first stop was the giant `hanger with the roadway through the centre and manufacturers stands on either side we saw people going out for rides in some pretty tasty vehicles unfortunately we soon found out that these were all pre-booked and despite best efforts we failed to get a seat that is until richard decided to tackle the rolls-royce stand having explained we were all `employees he had both his coat and pass with him we were treated with the utmost courtesy shown to some very nice chairs as the chap went to `see what i can do gentlemen upon his return it was `follow me please gentlemen as we were escorted to a superb looking `ghost with chauffeur doors held and closed for us then we joined the queue for a ride up the `hill i was just in awe and folk were staring at it trying to work out who was in it even lord march gave us a cheery wave comfortable does not even begin to describe it and our `man explained some of the features before we reached the start line the arrays of proximity sensors are very impressive i imagine you would have to be fairly clumsy to bump one upon being flagged off he floored it not usual rolls-royce behaviour and it just took off it may weigh several tons but the 6.6 litre twin turbo sure has some grunt past the house i was incredulous of the ride from the air suspension i have never experienced the likes of it before just unbelievable smoothly through the curves to another straight where once again we were propelled forward effortlessly and extremely rapidly over the finish line and then a drive down through the woods back to the `hanger the room inside and luxury i felt like some kind of star and as we rode down the track and over the metal pathways i was completely lost for words about the ride have never been in any vehicle like that before yes it was extremely quiet even when ungracefully peddled hard upon parking the doors were opened for us thanks and handshakes all round and we had to go for a sit down and coffee to let the experience soak in incredible.

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how could we top that well rich had boasted due to his bmw ownership he would get us lunch at the bmw stand but as it was only 9.00 we had a lot to do before then we took in a lot of the stands on the cricket pitch side of the course saw some great mustangs custom bikes and cobras before hitting the bigger stands we had a long marmite discussion about the new range rover and i almost got removed from the brabus stand as i could not understand why a modified mercedes was not fully painted the salesman explained it was carbon detailing but i gave him a very hard time i think it was only my `clarkson jacket that saved me as my colleagues were laughing so much the more they laughed the more naughty i got my other re-occuring favourite was it seems there is a trend for matt finishes and i would be complaining that for a car costing `how-much it did not even get lacquered i was loud on the bmw stand and got quite a sniggering crowd until the salesman tried to take me down a peg or two so i just carried on complaining until he had enough and walked off which almost jeopardised lunch we had all gone dressed smart figuring blagging stands more chance if well presented however dave the driver was exceptionally sharp his day was made when amongst the stands we found one selling italian shirts he loved it so much so that we carried on exploring until he eventually appeared with a very smart £50 shirt needless to say to me that is excessive normal for him though so there was much banter for the rest of the day eventually needing some fodder we returned to the bmw stand the lady at the stairs demanding we show our bmw car keys before entering panic as we had travelled up in dave s very comfortable turbo diesel saab estate rich had left his bmw ones at home in a flash i produced my house keys with my rolls-royce fob that is fine sir she said they are part of the same group so up we went soft drink were free and i ribbed richard mercilessly as he had boasted about blagging lunch and could not even get us in one-nil the food was pretty pricy what to be done eventually richard remembered he had all his bmw owner cars etc with him so off he swaggered returning looking smug he was followed some minutes later by a lady with food `complements of bmw to which rich looked me in the eye and declared two-one i think we laughed so much great fun so far ­ so good no money spent and having a wizard time we walked talked obtained free cakes and water thoroughly enjoying all the sights saw mr elvin who was down there for 4 days with bloodhound loved the new audi a3 and generally made the most of it in the past i have viewed the champagne stands and areas and wondered who the people were who could afford to sit in there quaffing bubbly so we decided it would be us now this time there was no getting away from it we had to put our hands in our pockets or more to the point rich had to very generously profer his platinum card so we sat there like bloody royalty whilst the world walked by staring and wondering who those knobs were who could sit there enjoying the bubbly it felt good and gave us more entertainment.

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a wander over the bridge to admire the `lotus sculpture outside the house one of the best i thought then up to the main paddock to view the racing cars what was nice was though there were a fair number of people it did not feel overcrowded was fairly comfortable and we could get to see everything including the contemporary f1 cars needless to say my camera was working overtime and i am delighted with the results i took hundreds of pictures the lotus line up was simply incredible especially all the cars in jps livery though i got a bit excitable seeing the mclaren lola and shadow canam cars resting adjacent though with hindsight they were not the best examples from any of the manufacturers loved being up close to the recent red bull stripped of bodywork the packaging and detail just fantastic better was to come though the cartier et lux on the side lawn had a fantastic display of royal and presidential vehicles some quite stunning others quite ordinary i was taken with hm qe2 ford zephyr farnham estate woody until i saw the pullman coach wow trust lord march to spring another surprise it was awesome but i declined joining the queue to walk through it on to the cathedral paddock and joy of joys almost deserted some empty spaces but in the top corner were renault historic f1 le mans and rally cars cracking next wow down three dtv vauxhall s further along three rothman s porsche s diagonally four silk cut jaguars and two mercedes and in amongst them all dan gurney s mcleagle and lola t70 spyder my favourites of the day yes i drooled over them amazing but by this time we were l very hot and tired so we decided to saunter back taking one last look in the `hanger at the wonderful and not so wonderful skoda citygo cars that comprised the moving motorshow needless to say i slept all the way home having had what can only be described as an awesome day the bpmc committee on a day out?

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photos martin emsley

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how to go racing paul bird april 10th put my 306 in to the barriers backwards at quarry yesterday at the combe meet quallied 22nd due to oil on track by end of lap 1 i was 16th by lap 11 i was 11th and trying for 10th abandoning common sense by lap 12 i was back down to 20th or so and by the finish i was back up to 17th ho hum i have damage to the already damaged right rear corner that the previous owner did when he stuffed into quarry too that is not too much of a worry as a bit of straightening should sort the impact damaged the radiator by snapping the coolant return to the expansion tank and it got a bit hot the engine has run hot before so i am hoping the head gasket is ok broke my race virginity though and i did it on dry tyres even though i have wets in the garage when i bought the car the previous owner said that oh yeah i used these wheels/tyres in the wet i tried to fit them the day before the race when everyone was shut and they didn t fit due to the car being converted to studs and conical nuts whereas the bloody so called wets would have used bolts with no chamfer so i was forced to use the brand new and unscrubbed dry tyres thought i did pretty well considering and even finishing 17th i still think that i had the highest gains had i not dinked the car and had retained 10th then a class award would have mine one place behind tony dolly ex-touring car driver in a 280bhp/800kg 206 gti on wets mine is 230bhp/900kg on drys the guy i was trying to pass for 10th was kevin bird and he was called in to the stewards to explain the incident he did squeeze me a bit and i tightened my line as a result i think ­ memory starting to play tricks but really i was still under brakes trying to reduce my entry speed and i should have been back on the gas at the point i swapped ends my fault no one else s castle combe motors tv may 7th 2012 race report yes well i kind of made hard work for myself in qualifying as conditions were awful and i didn t think i was progressing so i came in early everyone else who stayed out improved their fuel load and cleaned the track gradually put in better times and all of their final qually times were made at the end of the session note to self keep going during qually the so called wets old 195/50x15 goodyear s that i inherited with the car offered less grip than the original inherited dries worn 195/45x16 toyo t1rs or even the new dries 205/45x16 yokohama ad08s

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