Watergate Bay Sprint - Cornish Motorsport! by Jamie Gilbert

As some of you might have known, I did a quick 8-day trip to the UK, as a bonus there was a local Motorsport event on, I was made aware of this event by the Event Secretary, who had worked with me in the past in Cornwall and knew I was into motorsport… Nestled on the stunning and highly popular North Cornwall coast between Newquay and Padstow, after making history in 2018 as a Hillclimb, the two-day closed road speed event became a Sprint in 2021 and that format continues to this day. Watergate Bay Sprint provides competitors with a unique closed-road challenge and spectators with superb viewing. The course looked interesting although very short, it’s run as a “point to point”, however, they call it a sprint, from a spectator point of view you can view most of the course, so that’s a Bonus, as you don’t have to pick a spot, you also get to see the cars as they run past you on the way to the start line as well.

There was an good mix of cars, including some ex-rally cars, I loved the Audi Quattro rally cars when I was growing up, and it was great to see them running around, there was also a MG Metro 6R4 rally car, something that perhaps most of you would not have been aware of unless you were a keen rally watcher.

The Austin Rover MG Metro was a shocker of a car that people drove in the UK, my uncle had one.. But as Rally Cars they were off the charts. Created for the short-lived Group B rally category, the 4WD mid-engined MG Metro 6R4 (standing for 6-cylinder, Rally, 4-wheel-drive) was a world away from the road car to which it only bears a superficial cosmetic resemblance. The competition car effectively only shared the name of the production Metro as it featured a mid-mounted engine with four-wheel drive transmission enclosed within a semi-monocoque seam-welded tubular chassis.

Each Car has a “Beam Breaker”, which was interesting as we just leave it up to whatever breaks the beams on the cars, I guess this is a more consistent way? It was also good to see the Cornish Flag flying on the windows of some of the cars (see pictures) it was often a talking point as I had/have it on my Clubsport and at Targa West you would get the odd person, who knew it was a Cornish Flag, say wow, I’m from Cornwall, others would be confused thinking that it was a Scottish flag, and then have no idea where Cornwall was – LOL.

And then as if it could not get any better, I came across a HSV Monaro that was on display, it had run at the event in the past, had a good chat with the guys about it and shared some stories and pictures from Australia and HSV. The Vauxhall badges had been removed and replaced with HSV, which was something a lot of people did with their cars here in the UK, much in the same way in America the Chev badges on the SS would be removed and replaced with Holden, it’s funny as in Australia, we have clowns that replace the Holden Badge with a Chev..

Overall it was an enjoyable event, and was great to see Motorsport is alive and kicking in Cornwall, it was well supported by the locals with many family's in attendance along with the expected motorheads.