dbRacing - Thruxton Race Report March 24th 2002

Thruxton Race Report March 24th 2002

Practice

After an early morning start we arrived at the circuit which was cool, but clear and dry. After the recent test at Snetterton and Croft I was really looking forward to getting on the circuit. Prior to the meeting I had decided to change my wheels from 15" to 16" as I thought the larger diameter would suit the circuit better. The season therefore got off to an expensive start as I needed a new set of 4 tyres in addition to the two complete sets of fuchs wheels I had picked up the previous day.

I had not had the opportunity to test at Thruxton, so I was the first car into the collecting area ready to go out on circuit. The noise measurement tester arrived and I went to start the engine and the electrics just died. David Sunderland at Strasse had warned me that the contacts on the battery cut off switch were becoming a little bit "iffy" and though a new switch was ordered it had not arrived yet. During scrutineering the cut-off switch was tested and obviously this had not improved matters. I was now worried that I would not get to practice, but a quick fiddle with the switch allowed the current to flow and the noise test was carried out.

Tony Brown was always going to be the bookies favourite for the Thruxton meeting and on the second lap I slowed to let him and a couple of other cars pass me. The car seemed to be handling well and Church, always a bit of a devil corner to get right suddenly seemed very easy. My best lap last year was a 1:34.6. As the practice session continues the times dropped well below last years times. The problem was that I kept coming up on other cars and I ended up following Ian White for a good part of the session. This I decided was costing me time so I dropped back to get a clear lap. Unfortunately, as I crossed the line to start my hot lap the chequered flag came out and the session was over. I finished the session with a time of 1:30.9 in 5th place. Not a bad grid position and 4 seconds faster than 2001, but if I had been just 0.2 second faster I would have been in second place. After the session was over I found out that I had been in second place for much of the session, so I looked forward to the race and the challenge of getting onto the podium.

Race

I did a practice start on the green flag lap. It seemed to go reasonably well, but there was a little too much wheelspin so I knew I would need to start the race with fewer revs. The lights were held on red for a long time and it was difficult to keep the revs just right as the turbo cut in and out. I dropped the clutch as the lights turned green and launched forward. I seemed to make good progress, but was baulked a little by Steve Jaques as we rounded Allard and suddenly 911s were all over me. I managed to keep Mike Clapham behind me as we eneterd the Esses, but by now I was down to 10th place behind a couple of the class two cars. I followed these cars for almost one complete lap, but they were racing in very close formation as Steven Smyth tried to find a way past fellow teammate David Rothwell in the Flintshire Transport cars. At Village they dropped off the rumble strip and some stones came flying towards the car. Some of them were sizeable and there was a loud bang as the drivers door glass shattered. Glass was sliding about everywhere on the interior of the car and new glass was still falling in so I moved off line and elbowed the remains of the window glass out of the car.

Over the next 3 laps I managed to pick off both Flintshire cars and was soon up to 8th. By this time however the leading cars were well away and Ian White was 70 yards in front of me. Within 2 laps I had caught him and I passed him on the exit of Club when he missed a gear. Ian stayed close for a couple of corners but now the next man in my sights was Colin Broster about 100 yards ahead. After another few laps I closed on Colin and we diced for one lap before I tried to overtake him on the entry to Church. I was not carrying enough speed and had to tuck in behind him and lost the opportunity. The story on the next lap, the 9th and penultimate was not the same. I lined the car up as we entered Church and overtook him on the exit. In fact his car moved sideways so quickly on the exit that I thought he was off for a trip into the scenery ! Fortunately this was not so, and he took up position behind me. As I rounded Church for the final time I could see smoke in the distance at the Club chicane. I kept my momentum up in the hope that I would get past the incident before the drivers recovered. It was close, but not close enough. I crossed the line with just two seconds separating Steve Jaques, Rod Carman and myself.

All in all a satisfying result, and hopefully a taster of things to come