Northern Saloon & Sports Cars

Following the shunt at Cadwell Park, the ETS Metro or Rover 100 if you want to be posh! has had a lot of loving care, new body panels and a paint job. There had been a lot of overnight rain and, although we were to be third qualifying, the track was still damp and slippy when the NSSCC classes B, C & D went out.

I was quite pleased with just how much grip the little car has in these conditions particularly as I left in a dry set up and merely adjusted the tyre pressures. To qualify 12th out 26 was a good result and come the race I was to line up directly behind the Porsche 944T of David Botterill.A few cars spun and Gavin Lee ended up in the gravel trap at Clervaux. Coming down the Start straight there were yellow flags out. That did not stop 1 competitor from driving straight past me, but more of that later.

By the time we assembled on the grid the sun was beaming down and the track bone dry. I got a good start and followed David down to Clervaux working on the basis that, if anything spun, Botty could knock it out of the way!! We had a clear run out through the Chicane and down to Tower by which time the race tends to settle down.

As expected a few of the poorly qualifying larger engined cars had passed me and my main competitor, Darren Flounders, was a few seconds up the road. Eventually, David Hoyle (Renault Spider) and Andrew Varey (Peugeot 206) cruised up behind me and we proceeded to have a small battle that was resolved when the yellows came out at Clervaux, I slowed slightly and they both passed me!!! Of course, no-one spotted them and, in any case, I eventually got Andrew back just before he retired from the race. From then in it was a case of keeping my head down and getting to the finish. The car is running so much better. It is noticable that the gear changes are coming just that little bit sooner out of corners and that I was still on the lead lap at the end of the race. My best time was a further .2 second quicker than I've gone before so the excuses are going to be harder to find in future.

The next event falls in 2 weeks, at Croft, for the 1st double header of the year. This is DDMC's own event and features the NSSCC, Karts, Legends, FF1600 and the Uniroyal Fun Cup.