Ben Bonfield Wiscombe Park Hillclimb 5 clubs Sunday 2022 Jedi Racing Cars class win

Back in early 2020 I was very kindly offered a chance to drive John Bunting’s Jedi. Unfortunately the small issue of a global pandemic happened and it kept John in Nigeria where he lives. The offer still stood for 2020 but I felt it better that John be here and we double drive the car so I could feedback face to face with him rather than through email. Early this year John offered again and I was honoured to be offered the chance to drive the car. John has the only factory modified radial tyre Jedi so there were changes to the pick up points being moved, special wishbones, dampers, front uprights and new wheels to take the Pirelli rubber. The car also spent a day up with Alan Mugglestone tweaking the setup to get it to all work. John’s car is also shorter than our car with the engine bay being 4 inches than the standard cars.
Friday arrived and it was the first time I’d actually sat in John’s car. The familiarity of the position of everything made it an immediately comfortable place to be and positively I fitted.
Saturday was very much a day of learning, but each run brought more understanding of the suspension, slick tyres and behaviour of the engine. The car felt like it was on rails and incredibly direct and pointy there was no point at which the car felt nervous or on the edge even when leaned on it held on. John’s gear change goes the opposite way to ours and after the first practice I’d reprogrammed to push the stick for up and lift and change rather than the flat shift we have. The zx10r engine took some understanding but we worked around the issues we found and gained good information ready for Sunday.
Sunday started wet and stayed slippery. John has a set of Pirelli wets and they are just bonkers, so much grip once moving. Practice and we were quickest. More time was found on the first and second timed run but with everyone else improving also we ended up slipping to 3rd overall in the standings 0.7 away from FTD and the class win. The last run was 0.06 back from my best in worse conditions so there was definitely more in there. John had a great Sunday lopping 6 seconds out of his early runs.
Congratulations to Andrew Forsyth for FTD both days.
Many great things learned from the weekend and great feedback from John and to John. There are directions which we know will improve the performance of the car on the engine side and driving style.
Thank you to the very hard working team up at Wiscombe Park for the venue it was spot on. Thank you to the five clubs for putting on a great event on the Saturday and the challenging conditions on the Sunday. Thanks as always to the marshalling team you guys are fantastic as always and dealt with everything thrown at you superbly. Apologies to all those at the start line on Sunday who heard me turn the air blue after getting stung by a Hornet. Thanks to Doc for the treatment.
Huge thanks to John for allowing me the opportunity to share his car it was a pleasure to spend the weekend with you. It’s one I won’t forget.
Frazer Corbyn
Photo credit: Johnathan Colman Wookshot Media