My Boy's a Winner !!

[Dick Winchester]

Just had to share this with you all......

My son won his first race in the Scottish XR2 championship yesterday at Knockhill and it was in very wet conditions.. He was second in qualifying by 0.004 sec but he and the leader were soon swapping places at the front and leaving everyone else behind.. Andrew finally clinched it with his third - or was it fourth - overtaking move at the hairpin and hung on the lead until about three laps later when the race was red flagged because of the number of other cars that had slid off into the tyre walls...

Carnage everywhere but the boy did a great job in lousy conditions although there's a few dents to knock out now

Formula One has got nothing on club racing like this ......

[Ken Malone]

WELL DONE THAT MAN

[John R Walters]

Congratulations to the Man. Tell him I had a beer on his behalf. Is this the one who dropped your Caps lid? If it is it seems you didn’t damage home too much

[Dick Winchester]

That's him John..... The scars have healed now though

If you've got 15 mins to spare then here's a link to his in car video from the race he's put up on his website.... Run it at 100%...

http://www.andrew-winchester.com/html/videos/20-08-06_XR2_Round8/August%2020th%20Race.wmv

[Ken Malone]

Jings Dick that's better than Formula One - Full screen- headphones on - stero sound - BRILLIANT. That's one cool customer you've bred there.

Great racing - great video cam too!!

Do watch it people - it's well worth a bit of your time.

Congratulations via Dick to 'the man himself'

[Tracy Hickman]

Congratulations to your boy, and it's a great video

[Danny Skehan]

Well done, both guys - very cool and collected - great video - how far ahead of Scotty did he finish?

[Lisa Balsom]

I hope we will get more installments Dick, great fun, very exciting!
He did brilliantly in hard conditions.

Perhaps there could be a rear view mirror for the camera so the action behind the car can be seen too.

[Dick Winchester]

Funny you should say that Lisa but we were talking about that last night... Some of the still photos show how close the two front runners were

http://ken666.fotopic.net/c1058631_37.html

and it would be great to get this on video.... Been considering bullet cams instead of a digicam...The issue is weight and making sure any installation will get past the beady eyes of the scrutineers !

He's No 87 by the way.....

[Dick Winchester]

Well, he ended the season second in the championship.... So his mum and I are quite proud of the little soandso despite the small fortune it's cost us...

Now it's engine out and rebuild time and finding a new drivers door to replace the one that got smacked in the last race....Oh and a new sill and a few other bits and pieces.

Watch that last Oct 8th .. Andrew and two others were pretty much neck and neck up the main straight when the bloke on the outside decided to take a lunge across the track, got tagged by the bloke in second place, T boned Andrew nearly knocking him off the track and then proceeded into the tyre wall and rolled it about three or four times.... He's OK but his car was utterly wrecked....They're good things these roll cages !!

[Dick Winchester]

Well here we go again..... It was the first race of the new season on Easter Sunday... Beautiful day if a little windy at Knockhill..

My lad got pole in qualifying, won the first race, came second in the second race and just for good measure took the fastest lap and set a new lap record..... I'm one very proud daddy..

6th May we'll be at Cadwell Park for one of two away rounds.. t'other is to Oulton Park..

[Lisa Balsom]

This winning lark is becoming a habit.

Perhaps he should have a chat with Ron Dennis and tell him he'd like to drive one of his cars one day.
I've heard it can work wonders

[Dick Winchester]

Nah - F1 is utterly boring compared with XR2s...

Much prefer Touring Cars... That's real close action all the time..

We taped this weekends F1 race.. I gave up watching it after about 15 minutes... Couldn't stand the lack of excitement

[Allan Brown]

I agree.
ITV go mad for F1 with it being shown twice plus highlights. But they dropped the World rally championship to ITV4 and the new Touring cars coverage was rubbish as it was show about midnight and they cut big chunks out of the exciting racing.
Maybe F1 could be half an hour long so we don't get the boring bit in the middle.

[Adrian Furniss]

It's all true but if you want to see REAL bordom, try watching indy!!!!!

[Dick Winchester]

Forgot to do the update... Sorry..

Cadwell Park was a pain... A driveshaft CV joint broke on the green flag lap for Race 1 and the exhaust down pipe split during practice on the Saturday. We welded it three or four times but it went again after just a few laps so he was down on power... So we had a "Did not Start" for race one then the fastest CV joint change change ever and only managed third place in race two..

But then onto Knockhill on May 27th and........... two wins !!!!

[Allan Brown]

Dick,
Did you see your son on TV this morning?
They showed two of his races at Knockhill on Race and Rally UK on Channel Five at 5.35am.
He came second in the first race and he won the second race.

[Dick Winchester]

Hi Allan

No I didn't see that one.. I was blissfully asleep at 5.35am having been out at a party until 4am! He was still somewhere in Aberdeen then...

Anyway we've done with XR2s... Too darn unreliable. Still did OK though coming second in the championship by less than the points for a race win which was very frustrating...

So the XR2 is sold and we're moving up to Mini Coopers this year and entering this championship :

http://www.scottishcoopercup.co.uk/index.html .

Got the car in my garage now ready for some fettling over the next month or so..