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SCOR 2026 Round 4 - Bilsington Priory : Race Report

 

 

Before the Race...

After round 1 at Manston, I said I wouldn't do another event until the front suspension was sorted. I watched round 2 and took some video, round 3 was cancelled, but with round 4 approaching and the new front suspension still not finished, I decided one way or another I needed to get back to racing! My thinking was that if I was careful I should be able to race on the 'original’ KYB setup. After all, I’d managed ok there on them last summer.

 

The only change I would make would be the bumpstops. The power flex universal ones had lasted about 2 minutes at Manston, so after a bit of internet research, I settled on some new OEM bumpstops from a RAV4 MK2.

 

 

There were a few other jobs to tackle like cleaning and servicing the brakes. This quickly turned into a much bigger job when the perfectly good offside rear brake shoe (yes the Rav currently still runs drums on the rear) fell apart in my hands whilst cleaning it. Luckily I had a set in stock, but as I looked at the condition of the rear brake nipples I decided it was time to replace the wheel cylinders as well. I also needed to investigate a flat tyre. A day or two after Manston I noticed the near side front tyre had a slow puncture. I took it to Micheldever tyres and found it had a cut in the sidewall, so another tyre had been claimed by Manston…

 

Whilst the Rav was at MMF having the jacking tubes welded into the sills, I noticed that some of the belly pan mounts were starting to crack, so repairs were needed once it was home. I didn't want a repeat of last summer where a mount broke at Bilsington and was repaired on site with help of a fellow competitor and his welder.

 

The day of the race (and the day before)...

To avoid a super early start on Sunday morning I decided to travel the evening before and camp onsite. It's been a while since I camped anywhere so I dusted off the tent and made sure that all the bits were still there and it didn't have any moth or mouse holes in it. I’ve found a new local super convenient trailer hire place just up the road, so I collected late Saturday morning, loaded up and then headed off to Kent.

 

On route I filled up the van, the Rav and a fuel can. About 30 minutes later I was pottering up the M3 and indicated to pass a slower truck in lane 1, I checked my mirrors, and noticed the Rav fuel flap was partially open. I suddenly had a flashback to the fuel station and remembered opening the Rav fuel flap, removing the cap and clipping the cap into the back of the flap in its little holder. I quickly pulled back, and dropped onto the hard shoulder. I jumped out and ran round to the back of the Rav and amazingly the fuel cap was still clipped into the open flap. If I’d lost the cap it could have been a very short weekend.

 

 

When I arrived I picked a spot to set up ‘race HQ’, pitched the tent, ate my dinner and then walked the first part of the course. The layout was very different to last summer as a couple of the fields that were at the start of the course previously were now being used for horses. After my walk I settled down for the night to the frog chorus, and was woken at 04:10 by the local cockerel. So much for not having an early start.

 

 

Run1 (attempt 1)

The first lap... didn't go so well. After the look-see lap we headed straight for the start. We let a couple of faster cars go ahead of us, then took our place at the startline a few minutes after 10:00. After the start and the first complex of corners on the open fields, the course dropped down steeply through a gap in the hedge to the horse gallops. (see the picture above). Travelling at a reasonable speed, I turned the bend in the track fairly aggressively but the Rav understeered on the cut grass track, running immediately on to the long uncut green grass. This was very very slippery. I tried to adjust our course unsuccessfully, and crossed back across the track into more long grass, foliage and nettles. Now with the car now pointing at the trees I tried to slow down. I momentarily got the sensation of speeding up, not slowing down. I thought we were heading for a big impact with one of the trees in front of us, but suddenly the car started to tip over as we slid into a large hidden ditch. As the car slowed it finally fell into the ditch, ending up resting on its side, wedged in the gully.

 

 

After checking my co-driver was OK, we set about getting out, I asked that he not unclip his harness immediately and fall on top of me. The door was too heavy to open, so we climbed out of the open passenger door window. A marshal was immediately with us and as he radioed through we warned the other cars about our semi hidden racer. Whilst he started to look at recovery options, I set about warning other drivers. After I waved a car past, I heard the revving of another racer and I turned to look north along the gallops. Car number 5, a can-am style buggy appeared and was driving the ‘slalom’ the course followed between the horse jumps. As he passed the last jump, his right rear wheel clipped a barrel, spinning the car around. As it spun, it dug in and then rolled over several times.

 

Focus quickly switched from us to the crash, to check the occupants were OK and to stop the race. I waved down another driver to get them to stop whilst the marshals radioed through for medical support. The onsite paramedic was there in moments, along with other support staff. They quickly stabilised the driver who had sustained some injuries, and worked with the NHS ambulance team when they (quickly) arrived. As they prepared to transfer the injured driver to hospital, the marshals returned to the Rav to attempt recovery so the race could continue safely.

 

 

After a couple of failed attempts pulling the Rav forwards, backward and sideways, it was decided that we needed to get the weight off of the drivers side of the car where it was pressing into the bank. With one winch secured to the roll cage to lift the car towards the passenger side, another pulling on a strap around the chassis at the front, and me back in the car applying full left hand lock, we gradually eased the car back upright and onto the track.You can watch the recover part way through this medley video on youtube.

 

Once back on our wheels, we let the car sit for a few mins to let the oil return to the sump before starting the engine. After a first quick look over we returned to the pits to straighten up the car. Unfortunately the impact had broken the windscreen. There was already a small crack in the drivers side bottom corner (from the bonnet opening incident), but the impact propagated this vertically to the top with a few side shoots. It was mostly obscured by the roll cage tube and was out of the line of sight. I had a roll of Gorilla Crystal Clear tape, so patched it up inside and out. The steering had taken a bit of a knock so we tweaked the tracking, and we also had to make a small adjustment to the dented drivers wing as it was pinching the door as it opened. With the car patched up, we headed off to see the scrutineer to get the car the green light to rejoin the racing, followed by an interview with the medic to get the green light for us too!

 

Run 1 (attempt 2)

With the track cleared and the injured driver on his way to hospital, the drivers were called together for a second drivers briefing. We were to restart around 12:00. The target would be 10 laps.We took our place a little further down the running order and set off with a little more caution. 

 

We were making good progress, and I slowed and turned less aggressively at the scene of the accident to avoid the understeer, and cleared the section and headed into the woods. I took some good lines, and the Rav felt fairly quick on the extremely dry hard packed woodland tracks.About ½ way around the woods we were stopped by a marshal waving a red flag. We were told one of the cars had stopped up ahead due to a fire. We were directed off the course to another track that would take us back out onto the gallops so we could return to the pits.

 

Later in the day we discovered car 56, our neighbour in the pits was the vehicle involved. They lost their rear exhaust box, which broke the fuel return as it was jettisoned and leaking fuel caught fire, but mostly on the ground… Back to the Future style! Luckily he didn’t reach 88 miles per hour. After recovery and some repairs in the pits they were back out racing.

 

Run 1 (attempt 3)

It was now 12:40 and we hadn’t completed a single run. We lined up for our 3rd attempt at run1. I took some good lines on the grass section before the woods, avoiding repeat incidents, and heading into the woods over a small bridge. After a technical climb between the trees I realised that I was driving part of the start of the course from last years event in reverse. 

 

At about 2 miles there was a tight right hand hairpin and I noticed a reasonable chunk of bark had been freshly removed from the tree at bumper height. This was followed by an undulating downhill and a steep climb at the top of which was a reasonable size unseen cross rut that we hit hard enough to knock the wind out of us. After negotiating what seemed like a hundred more corners and several more challenging drops and climbs we crossed the second of the small bridges, up to what I found one of the worst parts of the course, a section of dry hard baked ruts that were just deep enough for the Rav to rest on its underbody protection and scrabble through. From here the course opened out a little into some sweeping corners in through the trees, final exiting onto the fields via another very rutted Rav unfriendly section. 

 

We were now back out on the open fields, taking in the jump from last years event (slowly to protect the suspension) then through a complex of corners that had been used last year. At this point my muscle memory momentarily kicked in and I almost headed off in the wrong direction. The track then dropped down onto the gallops around the horse jumps where car number 5 had crashed so badly on lap 1. From here it was a superb blast around the field margins for almost a mile and a half, with multiple corners to negotiate and a new field with a steep valley to cross before crossing into the finish line field. 

 

We recorded a lap time of 11:33. For that moment, we were fastest in class A

 

 

Runs 2 & 3

Over the next couple of runs we remaind fairly consistent, chasing Gary Port in the number 21 Suzuki. I posted times of 11:23 and 11:31, whist Gary was 11:16 and 11:15. Neither of us could match the pace of Nicky Hall in car 6 who was almost a minute faster at around 10:25. 

 

Run 4

By run 4 I knew the course, where to avoid and where to push a bit more and recorded an 11:19. This would be my fastest lap of the day. It was twenty past 2 and we took a break.

 

Runs 5, 6 & 7

We had lost time earlier in the day getting the car straight and getting back out on the course. The afternoon was getting on, the sun had come out and the temperature was really climbing We had to get back out and we had to keep up the momentum. Laps 5, 6 and 7 were driven more or less back to back, only a quick stop at the pits to take on some water and we were back out on the course. The suspension was getting hot and the ride was getting rougher. Our times were fairly consistent, 11:53, 11:54 and a little slower on lap 7 with 12:16 as I had a brush with the trees around the 1 mile mark. 

 

 

At this point the course turned left out the trees onto a fairly straight sandy climb along the southern edge of the woods. The suspension was very hot and the front of the car felt very loose. We were being bounced from side to side and I drifted left on the camber and ran along the edge of the shrubbery, clipping a few saplings and (again) spitting the mirror glass in through the open window into the co-drivers lap. By the time we reached the end of the lap it was rattling around in the passenger footwell, still unbroken!

 

Earlier in the day I'd noticed some pressurisation in the fuel tank again. This had also happened last year at Plurenden Farm. It didn’t reoccur at either of the Manston events and despite checking the pipework and breathers, I’d not been able to find the cause. As we fiddled with the mirror I could hear the fuel cap hissing. I opened it, expecting it to release a puff of pressure, but it kept on outgassing for many seconds. I could see fuel vapour haze escaping from the tank. I pushed the little flap in the filler neck open with my finger and I could hear gurgling in the tank.

 

I got under the Rav and I could hear bubbling in the fuel tank. I touched the tank and it was more than warm to the touch. We soon surmised that as the day was so hot and the going was slow in the woods, after 3 runs back to back the heat from the engine was soaking into the fuel system, either directly from the fuel circulation, of from the heat from the engine being channeled between the floor (which also gets very hot, almost too hot to touch) and the underbody protection, past the fuel tank.

 

Whilst we were considering what to do next, I walked across to my van and immediately noticed damage to the front bumper and headlight. To cut a long story short, another competitor was reversing his racer in to his service area to fuel up and looking over his right shoulder clipped the front of the van. The damage wasn't too serious and he said he would put it right.

 

Run 8

With about 35 mins to go until our last start time we only had 7 of the 10 laps under our belt. We had lost time earlier in the day, a sprint to the finish was technically possible with our 12-ish minute current lap time, but with the car running so hot this felt unwise and a finish was looking unlikely. I then remembered that we were allowed to take 2 ‘maximums’ and still record a finish. This meant we could take one final ‘slow and steady’ lap, giving us the 8 complete laps we would need to have driven. We decided to let to car cool down for as long as possible, and then rolled up to the start line a couple of minutes before our latest start time at 16:00. We were last out on the course. We set off with purpose, but it was a lap of short shifts, low revs and tidy lines. We dropped a further 2 and a half minutes, recording a time of 14:33. 

 

We had a finish and we had finished last. We still collected some class points, with car 56 not getting a finish, we were 3rd in class A. Overall, only 12 of the 21 starters finished.

 

 

Retrospective…

Bilsington is a great site with a good mix of fast and slow, of open fields and tight twisty woodland. Again the front shocks really held the car back, but we still managed to put in some OK times, even though we had to run very slowly over some significant parts of the course to protect the car. The heat soak also started to impact the performance, so we need to look at some cooling modifications to get the heat out of the engine bay. We were as high as 10th position by lap 6,  and if we could have maintained that pace we would have finished 8th. Despite the early drama of our first ‘proper’ accident, we still got in some good racing. The Rav has taken a few knocks, but with a new windscreen, wing and some suspension realignment it should be ready to race Bovington in June…!