Has anyone seen online pics of Gareths trophy presentation yet?

I haven't found one

 

Got there around 9.30 yesterday morning, totally unprepared for the rain and cold. Got a hot drink and went to sit in the grandstand. By 10.30 I was considering going home.
Got to lunchtime and still wasn't really enjoying the day, the rain had stopped but was still cold.

However, come 1pm the temperature began to rise (slightly) and the track dried out, Im sooooooooooooooooo glad I didnt go home in the morning now. The drift semis and finals were much better on the dry track, you could tell some of them were desperate to qualify with more than a couple of cars hitting / scraping the track wall.
The pro demo drifters were awsome in the afternoon, amazed how close the cars for to the wall and each other but remained totally controlled, respect to the 2 drivers, and pmsl at their comedy antics in the pit lane

From a spectator point of view, the Time attack practice sessions were a waste of time. However, once they moved onto the main circuit (and it did say in the programme they would move the action in the afternoon for all of you who said you didnt know ) it was awsome from wherever you were watching it!!! I was lucky enough to be in the pits for the finals and the atmosphere down there was buzzing.

Steve aka Itsmeagain, im sorry for my rather rude introduction to you, but you look nothing like I expected dude! lol

Mucho respect to Sean for doing as well as he did, there were some stupidly quick cars on track yesterday and he was considerably down on power compared to ALL the other cars, but his driving skill and the cars handling capabilities meant he was a strong contender in the finals.

Some of us went to dinner at the hotel afterward and although the food wasnt up to much, the company was a riot, with Mike Rainbird finally letting slip what he really wanted Did you enjoy the 8 inches Mike?!

Finally, after Sean and Brom took us 'the long (very loooooong) way' back to Brum some of us made it back with enough energy to go on to a club.

Big thanks to the Reyland and Zoo crew for just being a fooking good laugh, and big to the organisers of GT Battle, im sure they will have learnt a lot from yesterday and will make next years event even better!!!

 

It may be better in life tho so don't worry, is probably much more of an experience, i've only watched the DVD's but they just seem to get worse! More chav's and people that have more money than sense!

Best of luck! lol

 

And that's supposed to make me feel better!!

It doesn't matter too mucj anyway, it's always good to go out with the crew.
The company is good and we usually have a good laugh one way or the other. And if we do get bored / cold / drenched... then we move on!!

I take it you're not coming then.....

 

Doubt I will go to TOTB, what is the date this year?

Your dead right on people's company etc, and having fun is the main thing!

 

Thought it best to reply to this post first due to the nature of the last paragraph. If your friend feels he was short changed then by all means tell him to get in touch with me please. We never set out to hold this event and undervalue peoples support so if he felt that sitting in the wrong area restricted his view then I can't argue that really. Unless your in a grandstand at a small Banger Racing event every racetrack I have been to does not have a perfect all track view so I don't know what to say about this. We have visited Rockingham on several occassions to see various events and spent a lot of time discussing vantage points and such like.

We also had a problem with a crash on the M1 that caused us problems with start times in the morning that were out of our hands. Not to mention the weather that generally didn't help in any way shape or form.

We did have a small A5 programme that outlined what was going on throughout the day, and the tracks being used, but this didn't seem to get around as we had wished. This would have helped spectators get a better handle on where to go etc.,

At the end of the day no motorsport activity can guarantee 100% that they will be able to provide what they say they want to and people generally accept this. I do but perhaps I am a minority case.

I felt the final period including the practice and final on the large course did give people the opportunity to see the top cars running past the start finish but as I mentioned this info was available in the ghost like programme .

At the outset this event was planned with a passion and enthusiasm to raise the standards of some events we go to and provide a level playing field for the track boys. It was never based solely on a expectation of high revenue but on a will to bring a full-on track event into our calendars. We don't have anything like this in our scene at this level and we got the competitors to enter our event because of what we were trying to achieve. No way would we have had the standard of Time Attack competitors enter in our first event if they felt it wasn't sitting right. The format we chose, Time Attack, enabled us to get drivers on track who never really get the opportunity to come face to face, as in the 'open practice session'. This format allowed us to see if this would work and I think it does. We can build on this as the reactions from the drivers was brilliant and so supportive. To see a group of nearly 20 of the top cars in the country out on track at the same time was brilliant, no denying this.

Critcism of this event was and is expected but we also made sure people knew this was a new event and therefore would perhaps come across problems. Many areas need to be addressed by us for this to be a 100% tight operation and feeback is paramount to us so thanks to everyone who gives positive and negative. We have a lot of work to do now for the future and I can only say thankyou to everyone who turned up and apologise to those whose expectations where not realised. It's not for the want of trying that we failed people.

Perhaps this was/is an event too far but to want to see the top track guys in EVO's, Cossie's, Porsche's, Skyline's, Subaru's etc., mixing it is something we all want. And at the end of the day I am honestly pleased a Cossie won as you guys have had lean times of late and this event albeit not upto scratch did at least show that a proper track is a great leveller and their are some superb driver/car combinations out their .

Regards.

Glen
ps. and the D1 Grand Prix Demo wasn't too bad either really
pps. no one from Passion Ford was directly involved with this event other than in a morally supportive/entrant way

 

so true well cold but well worth it

 

Damn forgot to mention the 0-60's, sorry .

We did not run these on the day for safety reasons. When it may have been possible to run these the time left (they were due to finish at 3 ish) would not have been long enough to have signed on people, got the cars safety checked, got them to the staging area and got them running. We may have been able to run a handful, if that, and then all people would have said is "they only done it so we couldn't moan about the 0-60" . We lost a revenue stream here by not running the 0-60 but was not prepared to compromise safety for a few quid, sorry.

Glen

 

Wish i would have pulled my finger out then and sorted the S1, Ford might have cleaned up then!!

 

Glen, i think you did a great job, i really enjoyed the day, i left Blackpool at 5.30am and in my opinion it was well worth it. You will always get someone who isn't happy, but at the end of the day, don't let it dishearten you as i think you did a great job and i can't begin to imagine the time, money and effort that is involved in something like this, but every credit to you for getting out there and having a go. You can never please everyone, the only bad thing in my opinion was the weather and it was forecast rain all week so people shouldnt have gone if they didnt want to get wet lol Bring on the next one, i will deffo be going

Well done to everyone that took part

 

Thanks Nicole. Perhaps I/we are worrying too much but we so had our hearts and souls into the event. I totally knew we were to fcuk up something(s) somewhere but even when in the morning we were having nightmares we never gave up because we had a responsibility to the people that turned to do what we could 100% .

Here he is



Glen

 

Well said Glen.


I thought it was WELL worth the money, and being on a club stand was only Ł12 and we were there for 9 hours, albeit, 6 hours of that was wet and cold but you couldnt have helped the good old British weather


i actually really enjoyed it later on when the full time attack track was opened and we could see what those awesome cars could really do.


was a bit dissapointed that we couldn't venture down to the turns on the time attack track because some of them looked really techincal from the grandstands


we spent a lot of time braving the weather (in shorts ) sat on the grandstand watching pretty much everything, it wasn't until about 4pm that we noticed loads of people sat inside, above us in a bar , balls


all in all a GREAT day out m8


those D1 guys weren't shy either



p.s. what the fook was going on with the drifting near the end, was waiting expectedley for the time attack final and all the drifters kept going out and going out even though they should have been deminishing in the knockout bit




WILL DEFFO GO AGAIN

 

Yeah as I said in the Bar afterwards mate, I thought it was a top event. Your a clever bloke and I know you will have learnt sooooooooooooo much from this one the next one will be off the charts!!!

I will have more power for next year as well, but still stand by my request of a corner every 100yds!!!!

Sean..

 

Hi Elliot. Hows it going?
Congratulations to Gareth, top work
Saw him in a que of cars, think he had just come off track. Made my over to him to say hi, got within about 10 yards and he drove off
Would of been interesting to see how his other car would of faired in the time attack. Probably not too good in the wet but in the dry perhaps.....

He could of entered it in the drifting....
Now that would of been a sight.... lol

 

Glen, agree 100% with you, it's rare to see such a good mix of modified cars in one place, having a right old scrap.
I found that the venue was very good (simple things like clean toilets ).

I would personally have liked more signage, I wasn't sure if we were allowed into the paddock area (in the middle) and decided to give it a go eventually, mainly because I saw OPIE Oil's flag and had placed an order with them, these places are not usually open to the public.

I also missed the programme for the day, could have printed it before we left, but plain and simply forgot, that might have helped some people stay longer. At some point during the day (2pm or so), I had no idea what was going on...
But as you said, they existed, just not been distributed

I am sure it will get better and I am glad to see you are taking all the comments for what they are worth - good feedback.

 

[quote="TOKYO"]
Glen,
I was one of those that thought it could be a lot better for the spectator viewing, but that does not knock the effort you and everyone has put into it
I again did not see a program, and was more embarrassed for the people i had dragged along as i had been hyping it up so much.
As i thought they were racing around the main track allday? As they say assumption is the mother of all F**k ups

I will be back next year as the basis of the event sounds

Nick b

 

just a side note when the time attack first moved onto the main circuit it was a fair site to behold! Cosworth's, evo's, skylines, porka etc etc all gunning it big time down the start/finish straight made for awesome watching and it's not something you see everyday as usually you get 'ford only' show track days and 'jap only' track days etc, seeing them all out on track was just brilliant

 

Mr & Mrs Frog,
Sorry about that, but I was looking behind you to make sure that there was nothing coming from my right, and It wasn't until I then changed where I was looking at, that I saw someone waving frantically out of the corner of my eye . However, by then it was too late to stop . I can assure you, it wasn't deliberate . You should have shouted my name, I would have then realised that you were wanting me to stop .

 

Well said Glen, I came up with a mate and we totally loved the whole day, we didn't even worry about the weather, the track action alone was worth braving it!

I don't understand people complaining about the view's, when I was sat in the grandstand I could see everything fine and to be honest mate, alot of the time we we're stood on top of the pitlane garage's, and from there the action was brilliant!

Both of us will defo be back next year, a fantastic day out mate, well done to you and all invloved!

Great Work mate!

 

We will next time mike

 

Next time Mike I'll have a HUUUUUUUGGGGGE sign made up!! With neons and stuff!!

Or I'll wave my credit card at you!!!

 

even so, you did well. sounds like a good event. i hope it runs next year, i'd like to see it.

 

It must be catching

 

A flash of your tits and I would have performed an emergency stop .

 

Glen Tokyo I dont care what anyone says i thought it was wicked and the 20-30 mins of open track free for all was genius

Sean B if you still had you Escort you could of one the bloody thing I reckon

 

Glenn - thought it must have been you we met in the bar afterwards (I was standing next to Sean) - never met you before, but pleased for all involved......

Some more feedback on another forum I use:

http://www.mr2oc.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/t=16517.html

 

Hows that then???

 

well i mean if it was finished and he gave it to Gareth to drive

Martins new monster should be good at this event to hope its on next year much more appeal for me than TOTB

 

I seem to remember her saying something along those lines , but then, my camera might have been pointed in her direction rather than yours

Kim, it's hoooooooooooooooge

 

Ok hun.... will have them at the ready next time... just for you...

 

@ Nat - Greg won't know what to take a pic of first

 

Hun, I am sure he knows where his best interest is.... and depends on where he wants to sleep really...

 

Kim, the camera's way too slow, they would be back in the warmth of her jacket before the camera got a chance to focus

It's like it's powered by a steam engine, you press the button then wait for a few seconds while it warms up and decides to take a picture

 

pmsl........Nat you do make me laugh

Greg - get a quicker camera

 

Nice to have met you Elliot, me and my dad were the ones who came to work on Gareth's car (well him mainly, i just like to watch ). Hope the CSL comes back ok on Tuesday and perhaps see you again if Gareth decides to do Oulton Park.

 

Awww....

 

Another pic of Gareth



Times from the 'GT Battle Time Attack Final' ran on the big course:

1st Gareth Lloyd Ford Escort Cosworth 1:30.73
2nd Andy Barnes Nissan Skyline GTR34 1:35.08
3rd Steve Rance Porsche GT3RS 1:35.16
4th Dan Lewis Ford Sierra Cosworth 1:35.77
5th Darren Bly Nissan Skyline GTR32 1:35.99
6th Kevin Atkins Mitsubishi EVO V1 GSR 1:36.38
7th Andrew Baughan Porsche GT3RS 1:36.39
8th Sean Breslin Porsche GT3RS 1:36.52
9th Simon Norris Mitsubishi EVO8 MR RS 1:36.61
10th Peter Everitt Nissan Skyline GTR33 1:37.24
11th Mike Rainbird Ford Escort Cosworth 1:37.93
12th Adrian Smith Toyota Corolla 1:39.90
13th Sean Bicknell Lotus Exige 1:41.57
14th Robbie Thornton Nissan Skyline GTR32 1:42.49
15th Matt Taylor Lancer EVO V1 RS2 1:44.02

Andy Barnes:



Steve Rance:



All these boys are stars, no doubt.

Oh and Sean Bicknell, I have a trophy here for you as you were the fastest RWD from the qualifying course .

Glen

 

2nd & 3rd pics, bird 2nd in from left... I'm in love!

Wicked pics Glen, really was an excellent day, making me sad to be at work now!