dbRacing - Castle Combe Race Report May 26th 2003

Castle Combe Race Report May 26th 2003

Practice

Following the Open practice I had made yet more changes to the dampers. The car did feel better with less mid corner understeer but it still did not feel right. Similar to the Open practice I was quick at first, but soon found that as other drivers pushed and improved their lap times there seemed to be little that I could do. Comparing against other cars it seemed that the tightness of the new engine was partly attributable to the slow lap times as I clearly was losing out on the fast run up to Quarry corner. Even though I had improved by two seconds this was still nowhere near enough and I would start the race in 18th place, just like the NSSCC race the previous day. Even in 18th place I was still ahead of fellow class 2 competitors Colin Ingram in the other 924 GT and Alvaro Crego in the 944S2.

Race

The grid at Castle Combe is tight meaning that a good start can be rewarded with many places. Ian Oliver was alongside in his 911 and I knew he would get away quickly. In front were the two Tom's, McHugh & Segrue. Everyone else seemed to appreciate this and quite a few jumped the start. When the lights changed I seemed to get a better start than the two Tom's but on the run up to Avon Rise and Quarry they clearly had the legs on me and pulled away. After the events of the last couple of club races it was a pleasant surprise for everyone to get round Quarry without incident, but Alvaro Crego had got past me right at the start and so he was to be my first target. At the end of the first lap Alvaro was in front of me with Colin Ingram just behind and for a about 3 laps we circulated together in very close proximity. On a couple of occasions Colin tried to go down the inside under braking but I just stuck to my line and there was no problem. Alvaro seemed to be aware that I was quicker than him and started driving defensively.

After a couple of attempts I decided that my best chance lay in passing him through Camp. Yes, the corner where all the pit crews can see your mistakes. On the fourth lap I braked early but steadily for Camp and carried more speed through onto the exit. This gave me a chance to get the power down early and as I did so, just avoiding the adverse camber, I swung to the right and drew level with Alvaro. I knew I would just have to keep my foot in whatever happened if I was to get past at Folly the kink after the finish line. Nice name for a corner that. The word folly flashed through my mind as we went through side by side in excess of 100 mph. The camber change just after the kink throws the car to the left hand side of the track and as my car moved left I expected to be bashing wing mirrors at the very least as Alvaro had not left very much room. In order to keep the position I knew I would need to maintain the momentum all the way to Quarry. Now I normally have quite a bit of mechanical sympathy and had tried to be as kind as possible to the engine while it was still so new. On this lap however I did not select 5th gear and simply held 4th all the way. The engine was screaming at the top of the rev range, but it made the difference and I kept the place.

My move encouraged Colin Ingram and during the next lap I was able to pull out a couple of seconds, but then Colin suffered from the 924GT's weakness for high temperature and head gaskets and started to drop back. This allowed Alvaro to come back at me and the difference between us ebbed and flowed around the two second mark for the rest of the race. I finished 15th overall, 6th in class.

The jumped start had consequences for some of the other drivers. It had not gone unnoticed by the officials and though there had been a tight battle at the front of the race Colin Broster took his first race win after Tony Brown was given a 10 second penalty for jumping the start and Mike Salmon who had been with them had to take a stop-go penalty for corner cutting as well as a 10 second penalty for jumping the start.