Hillclimbing in France... Options

[KSCarrera]

Just returned from St Gouéno Masters hillclimb... If you'd told me two years ago that I would be competing in an event in Brittany, France, I'd never have believed you. But here we are, just back from one of the most amazing experiences of my life. If you've never been to, competed in or spectated at a French motorsport event, then you're missing out. In a previous life, I drag raced in France on a few occasions, and always came away amazed at how enthusiastic everyone is, spectators and officials alike. St Gouéno Masters is a Brit/Irish event run by a British team led by John Lloyd, and piggybacks on the back of a round of the French hillclimb championship. Essentially, as long as you held a British race licence, and your car and safety gears meets UK standards, then you're good to go.

We (wife Sarah and I) drove the 914 to Plymouth to catch the overnight ferry to Roscoff, joining a whole hoard of Brits heading out to the event in a variety of vehicles, including about a dozen Triumph TRs going out to support one of their own. There were five other Porsches in our group, including a friend in his monster GT3 Cup car, who went on to win his class.

Signing on and tech inspection were casual, jovial affairs, on Friday afternoon, followed by an evening's entertainment and food in the local village – all laid on by the organisers. There were also 'navettes' (shuttle buses) laid on to take you back to your chosen accommodation (again, organised on your behalf by the team) – to summon your shuttle, just post on a closed WhatsApp group and a few minutes later along came the minibus.

The startline was a two mile drive from the paddock, so each group was called to a 'pre-grill' where cars were lined in order and then led to the start by the course car. There followed a lengthy wait while the previous group finished running, and then it was our turn, cars being set off at 30 second intervals. The video gives you a good idea of what the course is like and, at 3.2 kilometres, is three times the length of many (most?) UK hillclimb courses. The road surface was superb (the event is run on closed public roads...), narrow in parts, twisty but with fast sections that saw me get into fourth gear for the first time ever on an event!

Being a newbie, it was pretty much impossible to memorise the course in its entirety – I did drive on a recce with a friend on Friday evening, which was useful as he's done the event three times before and is blessed with an amazing memory for braking points, lines through bends etc. Sadly I forgot most of his advice, although I did remember the flags and the third tree on the left on one long bend, markers as where to start applying the power.

https://youtu.be/FtQnDbpf5cQ

I won't go through each run as they were all much of a muchness, apart from the first one on Saturday, which was messy as I tried to find my way up the hill, and the first run Sunday when I was, er, hungover from the festivities the night before... :drunken:

I managed to knock eight seconds off my time by the end of the weekend, good enough to mean that I didn't finish last in class but over 20 seconds slower than the class winner... Oh well.

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The car behaved itself other than a sticky throttle which made it difficult to apply throttle in a more progressive way when exiting several of the long bends. The brakes are superb, considering they are stock other than a 19mm master cylinder and a set of RC6 pads all round. Yes, I could do with more power to be competitive (currently 185bhp) but overall the 914 acquitted itself reasonably well. It was the only one at the event and seemed to attract interest among the local spectators, many of whom were very knowledgeable. What I did enjoy was being able to drive the car far enough and in such conditions that I could get the tyres hot – the level of grip offered by the Toyo R888Rs is very impressive, and I was able to drive the car harder than I expected, enjoying the feedback as the tyres began to reach their limits of adhesion.

Sunday evening's wind down buffet was fairly riotous and I tried my best not to over indulge... :drunken:

Overall it was a fantastic event, and a great weekend break – it would have been even more enjoyable had we not got news as we were about to leave that Sarah's 90 year old mother fell and broke her hip, necessitating a trip to hospital and a lengthy op. :cry:

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