Woodbridge Speedtrial 19th July 2008

[keithbaker]

I left home at 6am to drive up to Suffolk for my first "Woodbridge Speedtrial" - a day for just 40 Jaguars and five other "interesting vehicles" to sprint along the runway of a working RAF airstrip. It's 2.2 miles long, and the timing gear is located 1 mile along the strip.

The first drama happened at about 7.40 on the A12. I passed a lorry in the nearside lane, and as I checked my mirror before moving back to the left I saw the BMW 3 series that was following me draw level with the lorry then smash into the side of it. It ruptured the fuel tank of the lorry, spewing hundreds of pounds worth of diesel onto the carriageway, making the road impassable. Fortunately, of course, I was on the "right side" of the blockage! Despite stopping to check that no-one was injured, and to give my details to the lorry driver, I arrived in plenty of time at the airstrip.

My son-in-law was going to come with me for the day, but had to back out at the last minute, which was initially disappointing (more of that later). Although I was still looking forward to the day, I was now expecting to be sitting around as a "Lonely Joe" between runs. However, I found a really friendly atmosphere, with a mixture of single people, couples, father & son teams and groups of friends, all of whom were friendly and open.

I was in the first group of 5 to be called to the start of the strip. At this point we had a heavy downpour. We then took our turn sprinting along the strip, came back along a parallel road and did a second run, before returning to the car park to wait to be called again. We were advised to take it easy for our first run. My car is an automatic, which of course saps a lot of power. For the first run I put it in sport mode and just let it change up when it wanted to. I hit 133.19 mph at the 1 mile point. For subsequent runs, which were all done in the dry, I manually controlled the gearbox, and improved my speed little by little as my technique improved. I wanted to know how much difference it would make having the roof down, so I did one double run with the hood in each position, and found that having it down knocked the speed down by 1.74 mph. Not enough to excuse driving around with the roof up in normal conditions!

So, what did it feel like? The only negative was that we had to wear crash helmets, which did anaesthetise us from the action somewhat. The other thing that hit me was the amount of braking I needed to do once past the 1 mile point. 1.2 miles sounds like plenty of room for that, and I expected to be able to just lift off to slow down, then gently apply the brakes at the end. In reality it soon became apparent that I needed to apply the brakes firmly if I wasn't going to land up on the grass! There was plenty of room, but brakes were definitely necessary!!! I have to say that the car felt just as stable at these speeds as it does at road speeds, and it also felt very sure footed under firm braking.

Towards the end of the day, as my speeds were improving, I decided to remove the 2 x 5 litre cans of petrol I'd put in the boot, plus the spare wheel, in order to get the speed up a little more. On my last double run (of 4) I offered to take one of the marshals with me, (they were all volunteers), as he had been admiring the car. It was on this run I posted my best speed of 139.02 mph. Oh so close to 140, which I think I would have achieved without the marshal. But hey, we all had a great time, and he took a photo of my speedo for me just before we hit the 1 mile point. And the top speed of the day? Apart from a motorbike that would check the strip for debris from time to time who hit 210 mph, the top battle was between a Dodge Viper and a Jaguar XJ22O. And the winner - the Jaguar at 199.40.

So all in all a really memorable and enjoyable day, when I got to spend time with some really interesting people and experienced a different aspect of my car. And I'm so glad my son-in-law couldn't come - I'd have only done 4 runs instead of 8, and 8 really left me wanting more - much, much more!

[PaulE]

Congratulations - 139.2 is a good speed. Has your car been specially prepared in any way or just standard? You will have the AJ16 engine? Brighton next?

[keithbaker]

Sorry, Paul - I missed your post. Thanks for response.

The car is completely standard, and yes, it does have the AJ16 engine.

Brighton, and beyond................

Regards,

Keith.

[PaulE]

Has there been a meet at Woodbridge this year? Not seen any reports.

[jBlackwell]

Hi Paul,
The Wood bridge speed trial no longer runs. I believe 2012 was the last one.

A shame indeed.

James