Crail - Fast Ford Day Photos and Pics Gallery

Sunday, 30th of March 2003

Today was my first return to Crail since the start of the season. The day started eventfully as like several others I forgot about the change in clocks and slept in. When I did finally get my skinny ass out of bed I opened the curtains to find bright sunshine lighting up the morning sky. As any Crail regular will tell you, this is almost unheard of!

Soon I was on my way and being Mothers Day the roads were completely empty. There was not even a police car to be seen which is very unusual for a Crail Sunday. Admittedly there was a small presence at Crail itself, but not the usual ten traffics, 4 motorbikes and a meat wagon... Not forgetting the white gatso vans that so often sit right at the edge of the 50mph zones.

The 1st thing that struck me was that everyone was happy and smiling (even Wullie) and even though it was meant to be a Performance Ford day, there were plenty of other marques to gaze over. The majority of cars running the quarter were of the blue oval persuasion, but there were still plenty of Scoobies, BMWs, Pugs and even novas prepared to give them a run for their money. It was good to see that the organisers had listened to the flack they had been given, both personally and through various websites, after the farce at the start of the year. A long tyre wall had been built to try and cut out queue jumping, but unfortunately the motorbikes were blatently oblivious to it. I am told that this will be stopped once and for all as soon as a new security team is in place. Although the tyre wall improved matters no end, it still caused queuing problems due to the fact the lane was only one car wide. If it can be widened to two, it will stop a bottle neck forming at the end of the queue. It was also good to see the numbers of cars being limited further, but in my opinion it is still too high. I suppose there is a fine line between cutting numbers and increasing the �15 charge for each car, but would people be willing to pay more for shorter waiting times? Maybe the solution would be to limit the number of runs each car can have during a busy day? The main point though is that cruisers, the people who make crail successful, are finally being listened to. As well as sorting problems with the 1/4 it was also good to see that many of the potholes had been partly filled in with gravel. Although this is a good start, it would be great to see crail granted extended permission for running track days and given permission to resurface the track and surrounding roads to a top class standard.

On the strip itself the highlight was the Fords fighting it out to find the fastest front, rear and all wheel drive cars. At stake was the right to represent Scotland against England later on this year. The quickest rear wheel drive was actually a converted Escort RS running a cossie engine which was able to run 13.3s. The highlight though was an Escort cossie with an advanced NOS system that managed a run in the 10s!

Away from the strip the show and shine was dominated by Fords. The highlights for many were a very tidy white Focus and a black Ka that had some very custom touches. There were also the usual highly specced saxos, corsa etc and it was good to see the American customs making an appearance.

Over on the drifting ring there was the usual antics, but the best display was probably from the two Scobbys who were competing to out drift each other. It was also great to see a little Fiat Scienco putting many of the larger cars to shame.

After the problems at the start of the season I am glad I made the trip up to see Crail the way it can be. The weather was great, everyone was extremely friendly, the quality of cars was stunning, there were no major problems with the strip and I did not hear of any trouble anywhere. Hopefully everyone can continue to work together to make Crail what it can be rather than a place for drunk people to bring and destroy stolen cars.

At the end of the day I was speaking to Jason (most of u will know him as that Aussie Bloke) and he was telling me what ideas he had for the future. One of the best was that he would like to see every car scrutineered before being allowed on the strip or the drifting ring. Not only is this in the interests of safety but would cut out the cars that cause all the problems on the strip and ring. Unfortunately Jason is having to head back down under soon, but to thank cruisers for their support over the last year, he is organising one last 1/4mile and evening cruise. The date set is SATURDAY 12th April and is reputed to feature monster trucks, donut competitions and various other entertainment. Visit http://www.crailraceway.co.uk for more info.

Words: Ferg
Photos: Ferg

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