Mods feel free to move this if its in the wrong place!
As an avid BTCC fan there is hardly a year passes that I don’t make the annual trip to Knockhill for the weekend when the touring car circus rolls in to town. I think over the past five years I have only missed one due to not being in the country! The recent few years with the increased coverage on ITV4 has only fuelled my interest and after a few years of thinking about it I made the trip to Croft in June to watch the racing on the Sunday.
With the Croft round over I was looking forward to Knockhill and had full intentions of getting a weekend ticket again this year. Shortly before I bought my tickets I spotted a thread on the Mk5GolfGTI.co.uk forum offering two weekend passes with full hospitality package with the AMD Milltek Racing Team. The Cost - Highest bidder wins in an anonymous charity auction with proceeds going to Help The Heros Charity. As a Gti Edition 30 owner myself I had been reading with some interest the progress threads and blogs on the team since they announced early in the year they were going to run a golf so the prospect of spending the weekend with the team was an opportunity too good to pass on - Awesome I thought ill be having a bit of a bid on this.
Bids were to be sent to one of the site moderators by PM so I sent my bid off and waited eagerly. Watching the thread eagerly over the next couple of days I saw bids were coming in so desperate to find out if I was winning I PM’d SteveP the moderator to ask how the bidding stood. Unfortunately at that point I had been outbid by another member so thought “Aw Well it was worth a try” and resigned myself to not winning. Fortunately though the Scirrocco Forum had been given the same offer and to my benefit nobody bidded so they donated the tickets across. At the point the aution ended to my surprise I had a PM stating that I had won the second set of tickets and to send my address details so they could post the tickets!
To say at this point I was pleased was a major understatement – Bouncing off the walls in the house was closer to the truth! Excitedly I went upstairs’ and told my wife who was equally excited. After years of being forced to watch the racing Ive finally converted her and she now quite enjoys watching the BTCC!
After a long week the Saturday came and with it brought the sunshine to Knockhill. After the half hour drive from the house we arrived at the circuit and headed up the hill to park the car. At the top of the hill I thought id chance it by parking in the VIP and Invited Guests section and to my delight was waved in and directed to a space close to the hairpin. I thought to myself that’ll be handy for my (Pregnant) wife as she wouldn’t have far to walk back to the car. At this point I was unaware exactly how handy it would be!
We were slightly later arriving so when we got to the circuit the first practise session had already started so we watched the session from the hairpin and I took a few shots on my new Nikon Camera that I had bought the day before! After the session finished we headed up to the AMD Milltek Racing garage to meet the team.
On arrival we were welcomed in and told to make ourselves at home and Help ourselves to breakfast and coffee. The team were busy setting the car up for the days remaining practise and qualifying. The car was at this point on the scales with the tracking strings attached and was having a few minor tweaks to camber settings and suspension settings. Shaun then came across and introduced himself and we had a good chat about the car, the practise session and engine failure from Silverstone – Caused by a US spec pully shredding the alternator belt and the associated debris causing the cam belt to jump resulting in internal carnage!
We then had a good look round the car and I took a few pictures in the garage whilst My Son Callum who is 3 showed Shaun his collection of Matchbox Golf Gti mk5s that he had brought with him. Although only three he can tell you the make of 90% of cars on the road and is GTI daft!! No idea where he gets that from - honest!
Around about this time Ben from the team arrived back in the garage looking a bit knackered after running down to the chicane to retrieve the mirror housing that Shaun had taken off with the foam barrier on the apex to the chicane. A highly impressive gaffer tape repair then swiftly took place to reattach it to the car! The car was then refuelled ready for the next session. For this I thought they would have some kind of sophisticated fuelling rig – How wrong I was! The sophisticated fuelling rig consisted of what is best described as a watering can with a long flexible spout!!
We then headed down to the first corner to watch the next session and take some more pictures. After the session we headed back to the garage for a spot of lunch. The car arrived shortly after us and the team busily jacked it up and checked the suspension and alignment again to ready for qualifying. This then presented the team with another problem. Shaun had taken another wing mirror off during the session and they only had spares left for the other side. However at 2:00 pm on a Saturday afternoon nowhere was open and several local scrap yards were tried to no success to find a mirror glass. As a last resort Shaun then asked to borrow the one off my golf in the car park! I had been joking with Ben earlier in the week on the forum threads that I would be holding my keys tightly otherwise they would be off with my engine whilst I wasn’t looking - little did I know that I would actually be stood in the car park with an AMD mechanic pinching bits off my car for the race car! Lucky I blagged that VIP parking earlier in the day!
Qualifying was pretty interesting with a massive off from Andy Neate right in front of Steven the AMD teams official photographer resulting in a red flag for the session. The session was then restarted and afterwards we returned to the garage to retrieve my mirror and have a chat with Shaun and the team.
Back to the car then refitted the mirror and headed home after a great day looking forward to race day.
Sunday and the weather was still quite nice not quite as warm as the Saturday but sunny and reasonably warm. Arrived at the garage in time for coffee and breakfast and a bit chat before the first race. The car at this point was down on the deck ready for the race so I took a few more pics and had another wander round it. Joked with the guys that id parked a bit closer today so it would be easier to go and pinch bits off it!
We then went to the bottom of duffas dip to watch the race then returned to the garage armed with a few bags of donuts for sharing at lunch.
When we arrived back it was a hive of activity round the car the gearbox was in the middle of the floor with a clutch next to it. Shaun said the clutch was dragging a bit so needed a change as did the alternator. Impressivly the team had the clutch back in and the gearbox refitted along with the alternator in no time then back up for alignment checks. Then the car was out ready for the next race!
After race two it was more of the same checks to turn the car round for race three.
Race three was good with Shaun keeping with Smith in the 888 vectra and at one point nipping past at duffas. Got some good air shots from the inside of the track with my new D300s of the cars up on two wheels. Then after the race we headed back to say our goodbye’s. Callum’s face was a picture when he saw the garage was no longer there as it had been packed in the truck!
We had a fantastic weekend MASSIVE thanks to Shaun and the Team at AMD Milltek racing and also a MASSIVE thanks to the Mk5GolfGTI and Scirocco Central forums for sorting the tickets with the team.
Additionally I would just like to say thanks for the way that you guys interact with us the fans. Its totally unprecedented to have access to how your developing the car through various blogs and updates on the forums. Keep it up - The other teams should take note!
All the best
Scott, Joanne and Callum
PS - Link to pics here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlemonsterz/sets/72157624754921735/ More to come hopefully later tonight.
