Catterline Cartie Challenge
Another excellent weekend of entertainment and excitement at this lovely village
in Scotland, near Stonehaven. Two teams from the area (Tetford and Belchford) made
the long, 400 mile, treck to this beautiful area of Scotland. As usual we were made
very welcome, even being invited to their excellent ceilidh. We had a great time
at their Gala, where we were entertained by the most amazing be-
This was the first opportunity to view the cart competition. What a range of carts, from the very rudimentary secondhand ladder (which outperformed it’s appearance considerably) to the well engineered and some very well decorated novelty carts.
Onto the day! The course was laid out in the morning by some very tired looking last night revelers. It is a different course each year but follows the lovely, quite scary road down to the harbour. After a slight delay, racing commenced. Great fun and a lovely atmosphere. The weather held out against predictions and everyone had a marvellous time. Richard Stockdale from Tetford had an unfortunate incident at one of the chicanes which didn’t do his chances of a prize any favours but kept his lovely looking cart running through the day. We sported our veteran cart, not changed structurally since 2004, and did very well, coming 5th in the constructors class (same as our team class). Will Gun from Nottinghamshire (famously crashing his “church” at Belchford, last year) entertained everyone with his carts, the church and the new Viking longboat.
Local carties won the day and all had a great time.
A lovely event in beautiful surroundings with a lot of very welcoming people and a great pub (The Kreel Inn). A must for any downhill racers calendar.
You can see some pictures by clicking on this link Catteline pictures. The Catterline website is www.catterline.org.
Pebmarsh Billy Cart Grand Prix
I went to this great event in the village of Pebmarsh, just outside Sudbury in Essex. A lovely village with a great bunch of people. The racing was close (I do mean racing, no time trials for them).
When I get time, I will write more about this brilliant event but you will be able to get a flavour of it by visiting their website www.cartrace.pebmarsh.com and having a look at my pictures and videos at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richardeblack/PebmarshBillyCartGrandPrix02#
A great bunch of people and a great event. Some of them are coming to our race in September so be sure to give them a good welcome.
Cairngorm Soapbox Extreme
This was spectacularly successful with at least five regular Belchford Downhill Challenge teams participating. Two have (Peter Pope and Stephen McFarlane) have told me how brilliant it was.
You can see pictures by clicking on the following links Action Heroes Gallery and Aaron Sneddon’s photos on Flikr . A full report and the results will be available on www.soapboxracing.co.uk . Well done Stephen and all the organisers of the event. Wish I had been there.
Borders Bogies Downhill Race
This took place on the 23rd of May along a very exciting looking course, finishing at the pub. It looks like it was really good. They are planning to run it again next year. I expect there wil be a full report on their website, shortly, at http://www.borderbogie.co.uk/ . Some video footage is available on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=border+bogies&aq=f
The Amazing Cadwell Park Gravity Festival 2009, Held on November 15th at Cadwell Park
A lovely, well organised, exciting and, most of all, a great fun day. Fast action with 3 carts head to head in rapid succession. No time to rest. The irrepressible Peter Pope snapped up first place with TES and Lee Wakefield a close second and third. Peter was his usual subdued self, modest in victory! Cadwell also saw the debut of the Belchford sidecar outfit, generating much interest and debate. We will definitely be improving on it for another outing next year.
Well done Applehead for a brilliant day. Get along to www.appleheadgravitysport.co.uk for more information.
Belchford Downhill Challenge 2010
The 9th Belchford Downhill Challenge will take place on Furlongs Lane, Belchford on September the 19th, 2010.
Planning is under way and the new rules will be available in the next week or so. We will open entries to previous entrants, and to those who have expressed an interest before December. Entries will be opened to everyone one month after that.
Please be aware that those mentioned above number more than 40, which is the most we will be able to run. In the event of oversubscription, we will probably only allow teams to enter one cart. Entries will be on a first come first served basis, so please get your entry in as soon as possible. We will notify most people by email, and will only post notices out to those who we don’t have an email address for.
The new rules are very similar to last year’s rules, so anyone who built to last year’s should be ok. One exception is the rule allowing carts to run without roll cage and seatbelt if there is no structure above hip height. This will only be allowed by prior agreement with the organisers. Without this prior agreement, we now require roll cage and seat belt. Please be sure to comply with specifications for clearance between roll cage and crash helmet and that for “dual circuit brakes”.
Keep your eyes on this site for more information.
The report of the 2009 event is available by following the link on the left or by clicking here.