dbRacing - Rockingham Race Report July 20/21st 2002

Rockingham Race Report, July 20th/21st 2002

Practice

The damage after Snetterton proved to be more extensive then first thought, two new pistons being required in addition to the "consumable" head gasket. I had visited Rockingham on Thursday for a test session. The main discovery here was the international long circuit is certainly long, but not very satisfying as it consists of 3 hairpins with a series of tight and fiddly but undemanding corners in the middle plus approximately one third of the banked oval including a nicely challenging kink/chicane at turn one..

Lap times from the test session showed that the target times were just over two minutes, I had been in the 2:03's with others including Tony Brown in the 2:02's. With a 20 minute practice session that meant that we would only get 8 or 9 laps to qualify so getting a good lap in early would be important, as would be avoiding the traffic. We lined up in the collecting area, and I had four cars in front of me who had not taken part in the test session. That was not to be a problem as I passed them all by the second corner ! The first couple of times round the banked part of the circuit were taken a little tentatively until the tyres got up to temperature. As you exit the banking and approach the turn down the bank into the CART pit exit track speeds were around the 125-130mph. The thought of that huge concrete wall if you get it wrong is never far from the surface, as we never really get a chance to practice oval driving techniques and if you get the entrance to the kink wrong there is also a nice wall at the bottom which Richard Harrison discovered to his cost last year. Normally Gill does an excellent job with taking times and holding the pitboard out for me, but the pitboard was useless at this circuit as I had absolutely no intention of taking my eyes off the circuit at the point where you are entering the braking area at those high speeds.

I quite quickly felt as though I had got the lap times down to the levels I was achieving on Thursday, but the came across Patrick Pearce. He was concentrating on his own lap time and was unwilling to give way so he held me up for a lap. I dropped back and Colin Broster caught and overtook me. He had sourced another engine after Snetterton and it seemed to be a good one, so I dropped back a little more and decided to go for a quick lap. I soon caught Colin up and ended up overtaking him round the outside at turn two but got baulked by Patrick Pearce again so I decided the best thing would be to drop back again and have another go... if there was enough time remaining. On my final lap I carried lots of speed through the kink and got good drive out of the corners (wheelspin had been a problem on all the hairpins) and felt like I had done a good lap. When we drove into parc ferme I was requested to take the car to be weighed... surely a good sign, which was quickly confirmed by looking at the huge Indianapolis style scoreboard which confirmed that car number 8 was in 4th place of the grid. I had done what I needed to, got into the 2:02's and, subject to getting a good start, would be in a position to challenge for a podium position.

Race

The grid at Rockingham is 2 x 2 style with each row being offset from the row in front allowing the first four cars an unhindered run down the track. I did a practice start on the green flag lap and found that the level of grip was good and so a few extra revs could be used when the lights turned green. When the lights changed I shot forward, and while most of the cars decided to "go low" on the first corner I stayed high. This proved to be a good choice as the congregation of cars at the bottom of the circuit got involved in a bit of a tussle which resulted in damage to the side of Mike Claphams car and the elimination of Tony Brown with pretty severe front end damage.

As we approached the turn into the infield I found myself in third place, behind Burke and Carman. I pushed as hard as I dare on cold tyres and pulled away a little from the chasing pack as we crossed the line at the end of lap one. On the entrance to turn two (Deene) for the second lap Graham burke outbraked himself and spun, resulting in me having to take some quick avoiding action. I was past him and up into second place, but a fast starting Patrick Pearce took advantage and ahead of me. This lasted for just one corner as I immediately responded and kept the inside line for turn 4 to retake second place. I pushed hard and extended my lead over Patrick who was also busy defending from a recovering Graham Burke. Over the next 3 laps I closed in on Carman, reducing his lead to less than one second from three and visibly catching him.

Rod had been consistently locking his nearside front at the entrance to Deene and at the sixth time into Deene he repeated this, but it looked more severe as it looked like he would spin, blocking the track. I decided this was probably going to be my best opportunity to take the lead and took a sharp entry into the corner to take the advantage. As I rounded the second part of the corner, 5 yards earlier than normal and hence carrying 5 yards extra speed I felt the car break away and, acting instinctively after so many years in a 911 planted my right foot firmly on the load pedal and spun round. Worse than that I stalled and rejoined in 6th place behind Steve Jaques. I pursued him for a lap but was unable to take advantage of the normal passing places due to the better traction of the 911's and so I knew I would have to pass within the tight infield circuit. On the exit of turn 5 I deliberately ran wide and started to pass him on the inside of the approach to turn 6. I felt as though I was alongside, but Steve was not aware that I was there and he turned in on me. The resulting contact launched us both into a spin, and we resumed racing in the same position, but 15 seconds behind the rest of the field. Things were going from bad to worse, but I still caught and passed Steve, suffering from severe oversteer on left hand bends, extending about 30 yards on him before I lost all my gears due to linkage failure with just over one lap to go ending my hopes of snatching 5th or better..

Subsequent inspection of the cars showed that in all fairness my move against Jaques was probably best described as ambitious, and that the contact with him had bent the front suspension to the point where I had about 7 degrees of negative camber on the front. The oversteer was easily understood. We also received lap times for each lap from MST. This showed that I was the quickest man on circuit on lap 5 with a time of 2:01.58 seconds, almost 1 1/2 seconds quicker than practice. Though this was my last quick lapof the race it was less than 2/10 second slower than Carmans fastest lap of the race and new lap record.

On balance there are lots of things to be positive about at Rockingham. Although for the second year in a row I failed to finish there, I proved that the car is getting very close to the front and I am hungry for another podium and pot for the trophy cabinet before the season is over.