261 Wayne Helliwell

After my outing at Skeggy, we spent all day Saturday re-sorting the car for Wayne Helliwell to race at Belle Vue the following  Monday.  We also had a minor clutch niggle to sort but this was traced to nothing more than some adjustment on the clutch fork.

We arrived at BV at around 5.15, unloaded and were soon called as Wayne was drawn to race in heats 1 & 2 of a 2/3rds format  Heat One went very well, Wayne drove a steady race in an unfamiliar car eventually coming home 11^th but with no damage to speak of.  As the race progressed the car seemed to develop a push though the corners so we changed a few things for heat 2 with the aim of sorting the problem.  Unfortunately a tangle with Tony Smith (91) before the green flag put paid to his race and he ended up relegated to a spectator for the entire race.

So to the final which was an "all in" job.  Wayne got off to a good start and was fending off several attempts to pass from Stu Heppenstall (189) who eventually got past after several hard hits on the 261 rear bumper.  Wayne held on and came back at the 189 car with a lunge into turn 1 which would have been great if held just managed to make the bend himself!!  The pair ended up locked together in the turn 1 wires for a lap or so and eventually ended up with Stu "towing" Wayne around for a lap trying to unlock their bumpers.  The cars eventually separated and as Wayne had damaged his outside front wheel he was left on the infield just near the start line.  As the race progressed a flying Ray Witts (180) clipped the outside rear of the 261 car which spun Ray through 360 degrees and caused a bit more damage for us to sort over the coming week.

All in all, even with the damage, we thought the car went well enough and Wayne will be back out on the loose stuff probably for the May Coventry and following Bank Holiday Monday BV.

Damage to repair before I can race it at Birmingham and Hednesford (21/22 April) includes:

Bent front axle,

Bent steering arm and panhard

2 badly damaged wheels and tyres

Outside rear bumper ripped away

Bent outside nerf