Edinburgh University Motor Sport Club

Nuit Blanche 2012

finn — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:59:38 +0000

EUMSC’s annual navigational rally , the Nuit Blanche, will run on 4th February.
The rally will feature 99 miles of excellent road to test your navigating abilities and promises to be a great event.

The map required for the route is OS Landranger map 66.

The National-B Event is open to all SACC-affiliated clubs with the 12-car event open to EUMSC members only.

Scrutineering and rally start is at Humbie Village hall (MR:457627)

Scrutineering will start at 17.00 and finish at 18.30 with the rally starting at 19:00.

Could all interested parties please get in contact ASAP through the contact form on this site, letting us know if you are a driving or navigating and if you need to be paired with a driver/navigator.

Regulations can be viewed here.

Entry forms can be downloaded here.

Reunion Details

finn — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:40:05 +0000

We are aware that due to various technological mishaps that not everyone has been able to get the details regarding our Triennial Reunion happening in 2012. To help remedy this the details will now be updated as soon as we know them at the bottom of the newly created Lifers Page.

We appreciate the details are a little sparse just now but at least the dates are available for trying to organise travel/accommodation if needed. Hopefully, with deadlines and exams drawing to a close soon, we should be able to sort out some more details for you all soon.

In the meantime if your contact details have changed please update them through the contact form on this page. It will hopefully aid us in being much more efficient at contacting you all in the future.

The current plans for the reunion are as follows:

Thurs 23rd Feb – Reunion Karting – Xtreme Karting: Newbridge – £35 per person
Fri 24th Feb – Murray Cup Navigational Rally – OS Map 65 – £25 per crew
Sat 25th Feb – Reunion Dinner – Dining Room, Teviot Row House – £32 per person
Sun 26th Feb – Reunion Autotest and BBQ – Knockhill – £15 per person

SSKC

finn — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:36:27 +0000

Edinburgh University were the winners of last week’s inaugural Scottish Students Karting Championship (SSKC), which was held at the indoor circuit in Larbert, Stirlingshire.

The format was a two-hour endurance race with both Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt strong enough to field two teams. They duly shared the top four places between them after a close, race-long fight. Heirot-Watt claimed second and fourth, Edinburgh B third.

Qualification signalled how close a race we were in for; just 0.01 seconds separated the top four teams on a considerably fast course layout. Edinburgh locked out the front row, pole being snatched in 21.72 seconds by Nick Roberts of Edinburgh A ahead of Ross Hughes of Edinburgh B.

Heriot-Watt A and B were in close formation behind, with a SAC & Oatridge Agricultural College team and the two University of West Scotland teams a little further adrift. Dundee University were a late withdrawal after one of their drivers was seriously injured in the Formula Student competition.

All the karts got away cleanly at the start, although it was only a few laps before Edinburgh B’s Ross Hughes was receiving the black-and-white penalty flag. Some fierce racing had seen the Edinburgh man slightly overstep the mark.

As pit-stops and penalties began to force the frontrunners out of sync, Heriot-Watt A took the initiative. Stephen Walls briefly retook the lead for Edinburgh A before his pit-stop with a smart move around the outside of the hairpin, but Heriot-Watt’s Neil Halliwell soon had clear track again at the front.

He was doing his best to ensure it stayed that way too, as a red flag on lap 70 prompted a reaction of questionable legality, clearing several backmarkers; this was much to the consternation of Edinburgh’s Walls on the pit wall.

A handful of unnecessary penalties would, however, see Halliwell hand the initiative back to Edinburgh A. Indeed, when Ross Hughes returned to the track for Edinburgh B, their second place came under serious pressure. After an hour the front three were all within a lap of one another.

The competition at the front was unrelenting and the final fifteen minutes saw some tactical driving and occasional outright gamesmanship from both Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt. Edinburgh B’s Sally Skinner alternated well between rapid lap times and slowing the progress of Heriot-Watt A, whilst Heriot-Watt B received a penalty for shunting race leader Nick Roberts.

Heriot-Watt’s Halliwell emerged for a cameo in the final five minutes, for one more punt at victory. Edinburgh A were almost a lap ahead, so with a straight fight out of the question the Heriot-Watt driver attempted to get Roberts penalised for crashing into him.

However, both the Edinburgh team and the marshals were wise to this. The race was concluded at a comfortable pace and Edinburgh took the chequered flag in first.

EUMSC Captain Kirsten Dallas, driving on the Edinburgh B team, said: “We’re really pleased with our performance and really enjoyed this whole event. It’ll be good to compete again in the future, hopefully with even more teams from even more places.”

Training Rally

finn — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:46:11 +0000

The Training Rally, Edinburgh University Motor Sport Club’s first rally of the year went ahead at the end of October, with a number of fresher’s having graduated from Ewan Leeming’s superb Rally School the day before, this was the first opportunity to make use of their newly learned skills. As we gathered in one of the dimly lit car parks of Easter Bush anticipation and expectations were running high.

With all cars passing scrutineering without any problems, the Rally was on. This led to the inevitable smack talk between some of the more regular member’s of the club. Marcus “Dom Toretto” Murray, drawing on a wealth of knowledge from the Fast and the Furious movie series, reminded us all to “double clutch” and not to “granny shift”. Gary Brown took the bait and decided to challenge Murray’s hype, mentioning that his Nissan Micra in fact had more power than Murray’s Skoda Fabia. The extra 4 horse power clearly intimidating Murray remarking “my jeans are not baggy enough for this” and he went off to sit in his car. Brown having won the mind games (by having bigger jeans).

With Katie Stimpson looking slightly frantic trying to organise everything, we were all set for some action. Some last minute additions (Kirsten Dallas only knew she was taking part 30 minutes before the start) meant that seven cars were taking part. With cars waiting at the start line for Ewan Leeming to hand them their first set off clues, there was just enough time for some gesticulating between cars, only increasing the rivalry between Brown and Murray.

The 1st clues were handed out. We were off. The roar of normally aspirated straight 4 engines echoing in the pitch black night as we left the start line. We soon hit the country roads making things interesting (for the drivers at least). Our eventual destination being Fordel services just outside Dalkeith. After the 1st stage Nick Roberts and Robert Edward Starr were the only pair to run the stage without dropping any time.

The 2nd stage caught out a few of the teams with some sneaky clues. One missed turn for Gary Brown and Fearghas Smith meant they ended up on the next stage and were completely thrown when they found a code board but had no idea where they were. Eventually they found their way back to the correct stage and to the check point but were now 20 minutes behind schedule. Stage 3 also had some tricky clues with Ross Hughes and Starr both missing boards. Stupidly Murray and Hughes turned up early to the check point gaining them an inexcusable penalty.

At the end of stage 3 there was an unexpected break. On his way to the check point he was supposed to be marshalling, Bruce Holborn got a bit too close to a wall. Such was the quality of the masonry Bruce’s Mum’s Fiesta came off second best, due to this Holborn spent the rest of the evening chatting to Lothian and Border’s finest. By all accounts Holborn is fine, probably best not to mention the car. The worst part of this being Holborn had plenty of time in order to get to the check point and had no need to either rush or take the route he did.

The break did give everyone a chance to discuss the events so far and try and establish a leader board. The team of Jamie Seth and Kirsten Dallas were singled out as the team to beat, with only 8 minutes dropped. 2nd, 3rd and 4th places were separated by only 5 minutes, so it was very close at the top. The 4th stage got underway once marshals had been moved about to cover for Holborn. Everyone managed to spot every code board on the 4th stage; some just did it quicker than others. The 5th stage saw everyone, except Sarah Bates and Eilidh Urquhart, clear all the boards again. Brown and Smith utilising Dallas as a second opinion by staying close behind Seth’s Corsa, and were rewarded when Seth took what Brown/Smith thought was a wrong turn but instead alerted them to a code board, keeping them on the right course.
The record of all boards cleared in the previous 2 stages was not continued into the 6th and final stage, with a total of 10 boards being dropped. Half of all boards dropped on the night were dropped on this stage. Unfortunately for the chasing pack Seth and Dallas were one of only 2 teams to clear the stage without dropping a board.

With everyone finished safely (except Holborn), we began discussing our own experiences. A lot of the adventures seen to involve ABS and some back end’s trying to get away from people but such is the skill of EUMSC drivers there were no more incidents. A small bridge also creating some memorable moments thanks to its very abrupt crest. The thought then turned to the results; which were promptly announced.

Jamie Seth and Captain Kirsten Dallas took 1st place, with only 14 minutes dropped overall. 2nd place was taken by the unassuming Jessica Garratt and Euan Brodie, who were only 6 minutes off the winner’s time, a sterling performance for Garratt’s navigating debut. There was more of gap after this to the teams that missed boards. 3rd place was taken by Brown and Smith, with 39 minutes dropped having only missed 1 board. An honourable mention goes to Bates and Urquhart, in their first event; Urquhart must only be about 10 years old! Only 3 drivers and 1 navigator had ever done a navigational rally before, which makes the performances even more impressive.

A brilliant time was had by all that took part and there certainly appears to be some fresher’s bitten by the rally bug. The event was a great success with a massive credit to Katie Stimpson and all the helpers for making her first event so successful.

The EUMSC rallying will take a break now for winter and exams; it will start up again next semester. February will see both the Murray cup and Nuit Blanche taking place, where hopefully some of the fresher’s will put in a challenge to take the wooden spoon from current holders Gary Brown and Jamie Thomson.

Full Results: Download

RESULTS: Freshers Karting

finn — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:11:11 +0000

Skinner Slides to Fresher’s Karting Victory

Last Tuesday saw the opening round of the Edinburgh University Motor Sport Club’s karting championship commence in furious fashion. With 40 drivers present, two-thirds of them in their rookie season, it promised to be an action-packed evening.

The format for the evening consisted of 5 heats for each driver, where points were accumulated in an attempt to qualify for the final. The opening few victories were shared amongst the veterans; Steven Campbell, Nick Roberts, club captain Kirsten Dallas and serial second-place man Scott Douglas. The newcomers were still getting to grips with the circuit, but their times were competitive. In heat 6 Rosalind Gisbey picked up a 3rd place finish, and then in heat 9 the first rookie win of the night was recorded as Patrick NG managed to hold off Matt Holland.

This filled all the Freshers with confidence and in the very next heat they took all three podium positions, with Sally Skinner coming in third, Craig Horsburgh second, and Ben Doyle getting his first heat win. The standard of racing just got better as the night went on and this led to some slightly optimistic manoeuvres being thrown around in the heat of battle. The Hughes brothers, Ross and double-champion Calum, enjoyed their usual brusing clash, resulting in Ross getting a black flag. Afterwards he gave his analysis of the incident; “Here’s what happened, right. He started it and I finished it!”

One heat in particular, involving lots of experienced drivers, became hugely scrappy. Captain Dallas was, for once, on the receiving end – finding herself buried in the barriers three times. Gary Brown and Adam Corlett were having their own private tussle for second. Brown deservedly received a warning from the marshals for shunting Corlett out of the way although Corlett, not satisfied, took his own retribution by viciously tailgating Brown’s kart all the way to the end of the race. Brown refused to succumb and took second-place, with Scott Douglas clear in first.

With the heats wrapped up Scott Douglas qualified top of the table, joint on points with Nick Roberts but just pipping him with a faster fastest lap of 29.065. Adam Corlett qualified third after a solid night’s racing. However it wasn’t a night for the veterans, it was all about the freshers, of which the top 16 made up the two finals. In the ‘B’ final all the drivers were very evenly matched, resulting in very few overtakes, however this didn’t detract from the quality of racing. Kai Weng dropped from 2nd to 4th leaving the podium positions to James Beaven, James Mollard and the winner, after withstanding late pressure from Mollard, was Callum Macfarlane.

The quality of the racing in the ‘A’ final was such that you would not have thought all the veterans had been sidelined. There were some quality overtakes, and far less argy-bargy than was seen in the heats. After 10 laps of racing Sally Skinner claimed the top prize from pole, with the brilliantly consistent Patrick NG behind in second and a battling Craig Horsburgh in third.

So Sally Skinner was crowned Fresher’s Karting Champion. With a string of rapid performances and a fastest lap of 29.947 she may well be worrying the established order this season. With five more rounds to go, the championship next heads to Falkirk later this month.

Freshers Karting

finn — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:35:31 +0000

The first round of our esteemed karting championship has been booked! For the first time in the history of the championship, we have a new first venue. EUMSC will be tearing round the new(ish) Xtreme track at Newbridge, near the Airport on Tuesday 20th September from 7-10pm. This is looking to be our biggest karting event ever so be sure to keep that evening free. We have managed to get an awesome price for the event due to Nick’s sweet talking last week so it will be £35 per person for Xtreme’s full Grand Prix event, which includes 5 action packed heats, winning points to qualify for the super exciting Finals and trophy presentations for the top 3 drivers in the A-Final. We are also offering a £10 rebate from the Sports Union, offering exceptional value for a nights racing! Nick Roberts will be organising this event so email him (click here to find Nick’s address) saying you’re coming and whether you can drive to the event or not. We will be meeting at the restaurant right across the road from Pollock (used to be The Crags Pub last year) from 5.30pm that afternoon.

In order to compete in EUMSC events, you need to be a member of the Club which is only £5 for new members / £15 for returning members which is one of the best value memberships in the whole Sports Union, offering discounts on all EUMSC events throughout the year! This means that for new members after the rebate, Fresher’s Karting will only cost you a measly £30 and will entitle you to lots more motor sport savings throughout the year.