WEST SCOTLAND RSOC REGIONAL DAY - 2008

Mark, Emma, Lindsey and I have just returned from Scotland, we traveled up last Thursday (15th May) stopping in Brigsteer in Lakes for a night then onto Motherwell Friday.

I did manage to talk Mark into taking his Mk1 as we have talked about attending a Scottish RS show for a few years now and he was going to take the Racing puma, how right he was to take the Mk1 as they had Old School Racing sponsored by the Retro Ford Magazine at Knockhill Friday afternoon and into the evening. Knockhill is north of Edinburgh over the forth bridge about an hour drive from our hotel in Motherwell.  What a track Knockhill is, very tricky as it has some large hills and tight corners - nothing like Combe!! We did manage to have some passenger drives around that evening and how accelerating they were too. After winning a couple of the raffle prizes we followed Paul & Annette (our hosts) back to our hotel.

On they Saturday morning we made our way across Glasgow to the AVA centre for a rolling road shoot out, this time we took my Focus RS. Today was being sponsored by Performance Ford, a few of the Scottish lads had backed out of putting there RS's on the Rollers, so I was asked if I would like to put my Focus on, why not as I haven't done this before with this car. The Focus produced 210bhp at the wheels and 230 at the flywheel - pretty good I thought
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The girls had caught the train into Glasgow for a day of shopping, so when we had finished we headed back to the hotel to watch the cup final and have a few beers, but could you believe it we couldn't find anywhere to watch the FA Cup final so it was back to one of our rooms and crack open the whisky I had won the evening before.

Sunday morning we had a 3/4 hour drive to the Kames circuit in Ayrshire for their RS Show. The West of Scotland group have only been going for 3 years and this was their first event, similar to Cornwall but with a track. The track is narrow and tight. More of timed sessions against the clock, then several cars on the track at the same time, again we did have some passenger rides including Lindsey and Emma. Lindsey did have the fastest time out of the 3 of us. An Mk4 Escort with Cossie power was quickest car of the day. Mark won car of the day and I came last......... sorry 2nd.

We then said our good bye's and thanked Paul and Annette for making us so welcome all weekend after winning the raffle again plus picking up furthest traveled. We set off for the Lake District once again for a stop over for the Sunday evening and the long journey home.

Total mileage completed: 840 miles, on the way up I did calculate my mpg and the Focus was returning 36.7mpg averaging 70mph, excellent!

Andy Parmenter
Swindon RSOC Chairman