Curborough Twisty Sprint – Sunday 8 June 2025
Report by Tony Quinn
Pensioners Rule OK……. but only just
Quite a few of us arrived on Saturday afternoon. We were greeted by Sam Savage who had brought the amazing/unique/bizarre (choose your own adjective) Pobjoy aero engined Morgan for us to try out up and own the paddock area. Some driving impressions feature later.
The day dawned dry on Sunday and with an entry of just under 30 including two sidecar outfits and two solos. Two practice runs were reeled off pretty quickly so there was enough time for a mid-morning break. This allowed for a couple of folks to do some rapid gremlin fixing.
No incidents delayed the proceedings and two timed runs were possible before lunch – very handy as there were showers forecast for the afternoon. The third timed run was also to count for awards, but the rain came and nobody bettered their morning times.
The event ran like clockwork with excellent organisation by Comp Sec Lesley Reaney who recruited Ian as Clerk of the course. As usual Sue Darbyshire ran the office and Phil Bridge scrutineered. Very pleasingly there were sufficient volunteers to marshal around the course without having to press gang people. Thank you all.
Thanks too to Spicers, auctioneers whose sponsorship allowed us to peg the entry fee and give bottles of wine as prizes after the racing had finished.
Top awards in Racing, Touring Modified and Standard classes went to the oldies – Chas Reynolds, TQ and Graham Slater respectively with youngsters Fin Cameron, Alistair Rew and young-at-heart Steve Kay chasing them. Phil Yarnall, the sole 5-speeder entrant took the modern class.
Full results are elsewhere on the website.
A few random observations
New competitors included Roger Harrison with his Super Aero JTOR and Lucy Hawker sharing Safari with Colin Bromley.
We could have done with more newcomers, particularly younger folk.
Graham Slater returned to competition and was passengered by the person from whom he bought the Super Aero in 1963.
Shame that Adrian Murray-Leslie no-showed. Apparently the work required to change from twin to single carburettor was more than expected and time ran out for Adrian.
Phil Yarnell, the sole 5 speeder entrant enjoyed his first outing at Curborough and was accompanied by Nico Panigada who must be the tallest Morgan passenger in the world.
The shortest and lightest passenger in the world was young Thomas Bancroft. Providing instant improvement in power-to-weight ratio he was much sought after, sampling the fastest Morgan riding shotgun for Chas Reynolds and the slowest in Steve Kay’s 8hp F4.
A three-sided racing F type contest was reduced to two because Keith Cook was on holiday in France. Danny Hodgson was on fire, figuratively at least, with a time that Tony Pearson couldn’t get near.
A heavy shower turned the course into a skating rink for T3, but both Ian Hughes and club chairman Tim Reynolds turned in times that were only marginally slower than for T2. Most impressive.
Curborough comments
From Lucy Hawker – I have been to Curborough twice before with Colin, being enthusiastic passenger and dutiful spare part when it has thrown a sick note and various spanner and sockets are being thrown around (poor Safari does not have a good record at Curborough). This year however, Colin generously offered for me to dual drive, and as the club offered a reduced entry for first timers I took up the offer and just hoped like mad that it didn’t have its Curborough failure while I was driving.
The one slight niggle was that I had never actually driven Safari. And in fact the entirety of my crash box diving experience was a few laps in a field a year ago. To say I am green is probably an understatement. But hey ho, what’s the worst that could happen?
We arrived at Curborough on the Saturday afternoon and this gave me a bit of an opportunity to have a go in the car up and down the drive and a quick lesson. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed driving it and felt quietly hopeful that the following day would not feature the spectacle of me driving very slowly around the sprint track entirely in first gear.
Out to first practice on the Sunday and I passengered to Colin first, before a quick number change with some hastily cut pieces of tape, and off I went for my first go. It was great, I loved it. I got off the start-line, went the right way, did gear changes without threatening to break the vehicle and it was just so much fun. I was 10 seconds slower than Colin on that first run, and managed to improve every run after that, and got within about 7 seconds of Colin by the end.
Thank you to the MTWC for a fab event, and for providing an opportunity for a novice like me to have a go, in such a fun and supportive atmosphere
From Colin Bromley – During a very wet drive from Herefordshire to Curborough we came upon the F4 of Steve Kay, making steady progress, despite the torrential rain, passing him enabled him to follow us winding our way through the delights of Wolverhampton, as he does not believe in using such modernities as a satnav.
Saturday evening saw the Pobjoy being driven by almost everyone on the site, including me, it was quite the experience, utter madness, goodness knows how Sam drives it as he does, it’s quite a frightening machine. After that Lucy had a drive round the site in Safari, she had only moved it a once before, in first gear, but picked it up quickly.
Sunday came round, after a terrible night’s sleep in a Travelodge (we’d have been better off tenting, as we have done in previous years), arriving back at the track, all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed, nevertheless we proceeded round to the start.
These new Avon Roadriders feel radically different to the Metzelers we had fitted before, enabling greater cornering speed without understeer, even lifting the inside wheel rounding the molehill a couple of times. This worried me enough to seek advice from several more experienced drivers about two wheeled cornering.
I was consistent over the both practice and first timed runs, but dropped a second on the final run, I blame the 18 drops of rain that hit the windscreen while we were sitting on the start line, funny how such things get in my head, as I decided it might be slippery and so progressed more cautiously, obviously it was not slippery at all.
We have taken Safari to Curborough twice before, both times it broke, the first year the steering wheel snapped, and the second the timing slipped, along with an unrelated electrical fault, causing us to fail to complete either. So with that in mind after both of us having completed 4 runs, we decided not to go out for third timed runs in the rain.
A good day’s sport was had, we both enjoyed ourselves, as ever thanks to all involved in organizing and marshaling the event, it really is the club at it’s best… Lets hope more people enter next year, perhaps the addition of the award for slowest Morgan of the day will encourage some more standard machines out onto the track.
From Tony Pearson – Curborough was its usual good event. A few new faces and a relaxed day. Issues in the steering department for me but great to catch up with friends old and new, competitors and visitors alike. Can’t wait for next year.
From Roger Harrison – I thoroughly enjoyed myself despite the difficulties with starting. I will return for next year’s event, particularly as it will be a two day affair.
From Tom Giddens – We had an excellent day; as far as I could see, everyone else did also. We still have, shall we say, “unrealised potential”, but at least seem to be (finally) on the same page as the rest. Only regret (apart from not going a bit faster) is not having a go in the Pobjoy Morgan. Simply not enough bottle, for me to regret for ever more. I was once offered a Type 40 Bugatti to drive up Prescott in a lunchtime parade & chickened out, so not a first.
KJ ran perfectly apart from needing new plugs after first practice, so only the driver needs improvement, although the wet run after lunch did highlight the fact that v-screen together with visor is overkill in the rain. I was following the white line, but we still got a bit lost.
Looking forward to Shelsley, same gearing and number! (I don’t have too much choice on the former)
From Tim Reynolds – The day was really well organised. It just happened and that’s a testament to the team. Many hands and all that. So our thanks to Lesley, Sue, Phil, Ian the Clerk of the Course and all the marshals. I had a great day, though the JAP wasn’t happy on track I think maybe main jet needs to be a bit bigger, it wasn’t happy on ¾ to full throttle. But I don’t tend to do that on that road! The 180 mile round trip there and back was great!
From Dave Pitt – After a lot of support from Tony Quinn, Dick Fripp and Sam Savage and a few busy evenings tussling in the garage I got the Aero to the paddock with the rebuilt KTW installed. I hadn’t had it running before the trip up from Devon and was struggling with the starter motor. After the judicious wielding of the copper mallet by Tom Cowley it spluttered into life and I suffered from a very large grin.
On the day I managed the first two practice runs, the offside exhaust nut let go on both runs but I was delighted to have accomplished the mission of getting it running and around the course. Ruth Ross and Steve Lister had bought Clockwork Orange as insurance against the Aero not running and Ruth very kindly gave me the “Works Drive” and was passenger for the timed runs. Clockwork was brilliant fun to drive and I’d like to say again thank you to Steve and Ruth for bringing it along. The foot throttle and foot brake really were a departure from the Aero.
In the lunch break I got a pair of manifold nuts from Sam and the pile of spares and got the offside exhaust properly fitted. The Aero fired up and drove on the trailer for the return trip home to Devon.
From Alistair Rew – Impressions of driving the Pobjoy aero engine Morgan
I was drawn down the paddock by the cacophony of Sam’s machine revving up to then see Tom Cowley take it for a blast out onto the track. I thought lucky bugger – he’s braver than me!
The Pobjoy fills me with various feelings of awe and excitement combined with terror. There’s quite a bit going on with it to go wrong as well. So when a very enthusiastic Sam offered me a drive I didn’t initially know how to react … happy as I was being a bystander. But how could I turn down the opportunity.
It was much easier behind the wheel than I expected… although various noises coming from engine and transmission needed desensitising to.
Onto the track it picks up well -it needs some revs to get going on the tallish 1st gear – whilst at least one of the cylinders seemed to have a misfire there’s several more to still do a thoroughly good job of ‘propelling’ forward… up into 2nd gear… WOW what fun.
Ah… then comes braking… Sam warned me the brakes weren’t that good … made a bit harder when my foot doesn’t seem to follow the brake pedal without giving the throttle a good boot full at the same time.
So returning to the paddock was a bit gingerly… not wanting to disgrace myself… I thankfully brought it to a standstill safely. What a fabulous experience!
I love Sam’s wonderful attitude of welcoming all comers to have a go…” that’s what it’s here for”, he said. His enthusiasm is infectious …. Huge thanks to Sam – brings to mind Graeme Joseph’s fantastic cartoon.
From Graham Slater – We saw a new competitor in James Mason (usually called Steve) who passengered me in my standard class Super Aero. Getting in and out of the car was a challenge but he took it in his stride. Steve was once the owner of the car, RD1431, back in 1963 when he sold it to me (for £12 10s). It was great to see Steve enjoying the day and the picture of him shaking hands with the original sale receipt from 1963 below. The icing on the cake for Steve was winning the standard class on the day. I was amazed as I usually only win standard class when the only competitor. Steve was only able to compete because of the changes ACU have made to simplify rules so those over 70 can have a day licence and no need for a full medical. Many thanks to the ACU, and let’s hope more “mature” owners will join the fun of Sporting events ongoing.
Something different follows…..
A surprise visit was made by a BSA 3-wheeler owner. He was reluctant to bring his car saying “you don’t want mine here intruding on your one-make event”. I put him right and asked if he could bring it along and as he lived nearby, he did just that – see picture. Strangely the V twin BSA engine had covered inlet rocker boxes but only half covered exhaust boxes. The owner had no idea why – does anyone else have a view?
TQ – My MX2 Super Sports disgraced itself, or rather I did, when the ignition timing slipped not once but three times. The first two occasions were shortly after the start and with a short push was able to turn right back into the top of the paddock, but the last time it was part way down the single track road from the paddock to the start line. With much help and calming words, George Darbyshire identified the problem. Fourth time lucky. With the timing approximately re-set but later found to be several degrees retarded, the engine and driver behaved themselves for T1 and T2. It was a close run thing as Alistair Rew had brought his very quick LTWOW C type Super Aero with less than a second separating the two cars’ best times.
And finally, Steve Lister and Ruth Ross in the most beautiful Morgan ever – OM4000, the ex Horton, ex-Jackson Blackburne engined Brooklands Super Aero
