RE: Join the PistonHeads Sporting Tour!

[boldey]

Ok we rolled in at 5.45pm to find out it had all finished,awards done ,we thought it was 7pm,were was check point 4 we were there but no one was,such a shame we wanted to chat and see how everyone got on ,we were Billy no mates in bar and restaurant, how did the point system work ? Other that that good day great weather some roads a bit dodgy

[Joyrider1]

Flipatron said:

Fantastic event though, thanks to all at PH. Me and Norbs will be back next year (Clio Sport 46)

That was us in the R8 in front of you, had to crawl along some of those roads as we were grounding out so much, probably not the most suitable car for that type of event! But had great fun nonetheless. We were one of the first cars to leave the car park at lunchtime but went completely the wrong direction, so had to come back (twice! Lol). Thanks to the guys in the Bentley for stopping to see if we were ok when we thought we’d damaged the front end on a particularly nasty dip in the road (thankfully we hadn’t)

[BenLowden]

Thank you to everyone who came yesterday and made our first Sporting Tour such a fantastic event. As you're probably aware, it takes a lot of organisation to make these things happen so it was really rewarding for us to meet so many of you and see how much you enjoyed it.

I'd love to use your photographs in my article on the event, so please do share your favourites from the day here. As Tony mentioned, we'll be sharing a questionnaire with you all soon to get some feedback and to find out how we can improve for our upcoming events next year.

I'd like to apologise to anyone who arrived later in the afternoon and may have missed the trophy presentation. We had anticipated most of you arriving back at the hotel by 5:30/6 so 7pm made sense, but as nearly everyone was back by 3:30/4 we decided to move it forwards to 5pm so that we weren't holding people up from heading home. Many of you expressed an interest in having an evening dinner after the event, so this is something we'll look into for next year.

I'll save the rest of my waffle for my write up, but thanks again to everyone who took part and for those who've never done any motorsport before, I hope you enjoyed taking your first step onto the motorsport ladder

RESULTS

The full results are now available on the competitors page on the GT Motorsports Club website.

[tsp]

Had a great day. Thanks to the organisers.

And a massive congratulations to JohnClem88 in the escort Coswoth who proposed to his girlfriend on the finish line of the auto test.

I captured the special moment on video:

https://youtu.be/sji9ER1pnZE

[Dave Bee]

Had a thoroughly enjoyable day and we're really looking forward to the next one.

I don't think we got lost although the closed road was a small challenge.

Thanks to PH, GTMSC and anyone else organising.

Dave and Meike (RS6).

[Zaphoidx]

Fantastic day! Nothing like chasing the white 911 through some Suffolk back roads!

Auto tests were a really nice way to break up the two legs - definitely something to keep and even build on for next year

Hope to see a good portion of you next time 👌

Fraser and Scott
Car 8 - Red Clio RS

[JohnClem88]

Had a great time! Really looking forward to the next one.

It’s great to be convoying with one set of cars, get lost, or separated then end up joining another set of cars, giggling and just enjoying the moment!

Great cars and great people.

Thanks to the guys at the auto test 2 for bearing with me while I proposed to my girlfriend Sam! It seems the star aligned and it happened how I planned it!

Thanks again

John and Sam Car 68 (Escort Cossie)

[Haltamer]

Audi-Ben said:

Just curious how people got on removing the window sticker. We bought a magnetic plate for ours for less than £3.00 each. Wasn’t sure if they would stay put. Touch wood stayed well attached all day. Got home peeled off chucked in boot for next year. Would recommend to anyone for a similar event.

On the window, Peeled off perfectly with no apparent residue without issue.
Stayed no the entire time, and for the drive home - Took them off at home so I can stick them on something solid and cut them to shape to keep.

[Damp Logs]

Absolutely nothing to add to the comments above👍👍👍👍
Didn’t encounter any locals, other than police and protestors etc.

Will be back......


Thanks for the mugs

Great to meet everyone

[AMGSee55]

Fantastic day and thank you PH/GT Motorsports for organising it. Echo other comments on here re camaraderie and good spirit - we will definitely be back for one or more of the events next year! And most certainly in the oldie as the decent ground clearance and lack of width were well suited to the single track roads

Andy / Phil (No.4 Alfa Berlina)

[luke2397]

I've put together a little video of the day. Hopefully I managed to include as many of the cars as possible and apologies if I missed anyone out



https://youtu.be/Is4XHjfiVvU

[B'stard Child]

coyft said:

Looks like I'm in the minority here, but I was struggling to see the point of it.

The roads were too narrow and cars too closely spaced to have any fun driving. The navigation was novel, but as soon as you were following a train of cars it was less purposeful.

That was why on several occasions I pulled over and created a gap in order to concentrate on the navigational element and run at my own pace - I really think the gap at the start could be increased and the check in stations could also re-gap the cars and help to keep every get out of the convoys

coyft said:

I enjoyed the timed trials in the middle though, I thought that was fun. Would have enjoyed more of that..

They were a bit mickey mouse but it's an element that can be developed - I've done full Autosolos and Autotests and they are huge fun even in what would be regarded as completely unsuitable vehicles

coyft said:

Having said all that the Mrs enjoyed it and was nice to do something car related together.

My chances of getting Mrs BC in the LC on an event like this is zero - thank god for good friends

[Audi-Ben]

We had great day we spent most of the day with only a couple of cars. Finished with four. My Mrs finally enjoyed a car related activity and wants to do it again. So for us a great day roll on the next one. A couple of minor tweaks would make it even better. I hope the bumpy roads don’t put off the more exotic vehicles being around them and competing of sorts on a more level playing field made the day. Following the white 911 Gts was great. Fair play for not hanging about on the less than perfect roads. How some people managed to finish with such clean cars I have no idea ours was rotten. Doing the second test with the windows open was a bad move!

[stumpage]

Audi-Ben said:

We had great day we spent most of the day with only a couple of cars. Finished with four. My Mrs finally enjoyed a car related activity and wants to do it again. So for us a great day roll on the next one. A couple of minor tweaks would make it even better. I hope the bumpy roads don’t put off the more exotic vehicles being around them and competing of sorts on a more level playing field made the day. Following the white 911 Gts was great. Fair play for not hanging about on the less than perfect roads. How some people managed to finish with such clean cars I have no idea ours was rotten. Doing the second test with the windows open was a bad move!

I think I spent most of the drive with a look of horror on my face hearing the bottom of the car scrape along those roads! Pulled over at one point sure that something must have been damaged (luckily it wasn’t). Good fun day and Mrs S really enjoyed it, shame the awards were moved, we finished went to the room for a shower, returned to the bar about 5:30 to find everyone gone. Ended up checking out and going home.

The stand off with the horse boxes was funny though.

Edited by stumpage on Sunday 14th October 22:54

[Haltamer]

stumpage said:

The stand off with the horse boxes was funny though.

I think I missed that one!

Did get stuck behind two of them for a fair way though; Not sure if they were just slow or maliciously so

I did notice a (recently?) burnt out X5 in the forest being attended by a police motorcycle; May have been the doing of the hunt saboteurs I drove past earlier in the day.

[AdriaanB]

Thanks for organizing guys, my wife and I had a great day out. Had a right laugh as well at some of the country roads - our '63 Galaxie was probably one of the most unsuitable cars to take! Thanks for people's patience when stuck behind us - a 55 year old Nascar proved to be quite a handful on these lanes, as we were working hard trying to keep speed up.

We drove quite some miles together with the chaps in the yellow Caterham; I think we were both struggling with some of the backroads in completely different ways

Edited by AdriaanB on Monday 15th October 10:44

[Harry_523]

Second lots of thoughts on here, fantastic day, well run. Chasing the A110, R400, and silver exige were definite highlights, will be back again!

some thoughts:
Spacing: Obviously this event is most fun when the road is clear ahead and behind. Perhaps more check points, respacing cars to the 1 min interval would help this. Some sort of rule on courtesy of letting cars travelling more quickly past might help too (trackday style "if it wasnt there a minute ago and now is, let it past")

Locals: A number of us had one local in particular set up a protest to the event, even getting a tractor to block the road for some time. With the council and police giving us their blessing, presumably its their duty to inform the locals that the event is happening? If this sort of thing happens in future, what are the competitors options?

Vehicle choice/road type: I was personally very chuffed with my choice of vehicle (black mk3 MR2) as it had just the right combination of width (not a lot) and ride height (quite a lot), but I can imagine there are some mclaren/porsche/R8 etc owners who weren't best pleased. Perhaps some photos of the road type before the event would help people decide what to bring?

Thanks once again to the organisers and volunteers!

Edited by Harry_523 on Monday 15th October 11:33

[Norbury90]

I quite enjoyed being in the convoys to be honest... trying to reel in the Z3 M Roadster was good fun. Now we have the Tulip book, people are always able to return at their leisure and do it again by themselves if they want to.

[Haltamer]

Norbury90 said:

I quite enjoyed being in the convoys to be honest... trying to reel in the Z3 M Roadster was good fun. Now we have the Tulip book, people are always able to return at their leisure and do it again by themselves if they want to.

If you want to brave the locals alone!

[Miserablegit]

I thoroughly enjoyed the run - some good roads to stretch the legs a little and still be sensible / legal. If I caught another car I dropped back a little to give myself some open road but on the more narrow sections I merely maintained position and didn’t sit on their tail.

It might be an idea to have a no overtaking rule as the roads were not really suitable and it wasn’t a track event. I only saw one bit of unsuitable driving and it seems a few of us experienced the same from that vehicle. I had plenty of fun into the corners as the exhaust popped and farted and then opened up on the straight. The v10 car behind me seemed to be having fun and at no point did they feel the need to overtake.

A few cars pulled over to get out of the convoys but I wouldn’t expect anyone to do so - I think that would be a shame as the event is not a speed event. Now that we have an idea of what it is all about we should have a strict mileage check for the next one so that it is all about the nav!

Thanks once again. Huge kudos to the Galaxie team as we guessed you might have a few five-point turns on the route! Perhaps an award next time for most unsuitable vehicle!