Northern Saloon & Sports Cars

Having had the ETS Metro again conk out (technical term!) at the last race meeting, the guys at ETS hoped they had traced the problem to a broken wire in the loom. The little car had proven itself quick enough to again improve my best lap time and we just hoped that this reoccuring problem was now fettled.

Qualifying was on a damp track that seemed loathe to dry out and we found ourselves 11th despite a reluctance for the engine to pull more than 7500rpm. Mossy had found a flyer on his last lap to sit in 5th, Andy Robinson was 7th, Simon Baker 9th and Darren Flounders 13th so we were all on the same side of the grid, one behind the other.

At the start I got a reasonable launch pulling ahead of Simon and Andy with Darren slipping down the inside. The K series engine was now reving cleanly and I tagged on to Darren with a view to him pulling me up to Paul Moss. With in two laps we were within 3 seconds and closing. I had Simon right on my tail and as a 4 car train we continued to circulate. On lap 6 we caught up some back markers but with a distinct lack of blue flags I got held up and dropped back a couple of seconds from Darren. Fortunately, Simon was similarly baulked. Next lap Darren pounced in to Sunny and took the class lead.

On lap 10 a certain Porsche dropped some antifreese at Tower, the resulting moment and uncertanty whether it was oil or water around Esses and Barcroft saw me lose 5 seconds and have to drive VERY defensively to the flag.

One of the best races I have had for a long time with my fastest ever lap at 1 minute 39.743 thanks to being able to slip stream Darren. I'm going to have think about gear ratios over the Winter as I was arriving at Tower almost on the rev limiter in 5th.

Next outing is the busy DDMC double header, Championship Finale and bean feast. I can't wait.

Terry