dbRacing - Pembrey Race Report August 23/24th 2003

Pembrey Race Report August 23nd / 24th 2003

Practice

The fuel misfire which had afflicted the car since Cadwell Park was proving elusive to track down to say the least. We collected the car from Strasse and took it for a pre-race rolling road check before setting of for deepest South Wales. What was supposed to be a quick run up turned out to be an all afternoon job, with no resolution in sight. The problem would only show up on the racetrack or rolling road and I had to make a decision to travel to the race or not. After a return to Strasse and armed with some more spares we decided to go to Pembrey and see what we could sort out. I had already decided to dedicate the weekend to simply a test session with a hope of finally solving the problem

The whole of the pre-race testing was spent making fuelling adjustments, and cutting a long story very very short I managed to get the car in some sort of running condition in time for qualifying on the Saturday. It was clear that although the car was running and revving much better than it had on the rolling road the problem was still not properly sorted as I found myself significantly losing out on the straights. Much to my surprise I was not last and outqualified Alvaro Crego in his 944S2 and Mark Rodgers who had only completed two laps before pulling off. My time of 1:10.5 was almost 3 seconds slower than my time in 2001.

Back to the paddock to make some more changes before the race...... some to do with the fuelling, some to do with suspension as the heavens opened for a torrential summer shower. I got soaked to the skin making suspension changes and bravely decided to go out on dry tyres as I expected the track would dry as the race progressed.

Race 1

I looked at the cars in front of me and felt like it was 1994 again & I was in my standard 2.0 924. The lights changed and though I had a good start it was soon clear that I was suffering from a major power problem as the cars of Mark Rodgers and Alvaro shot past me. Initially I thought the car was handling quite well and while the track was wet managed to stay with most of the pack, though I was losing out in the straight line speed department.

I managed to retake three places in the early stages of the race passing Crego, Rodgers and Oliver, but the track was not drying as rapidly as I had anticipated. Perhaps this was fortunate as I found that as the track dried the initial understeer I was experiencing was not eliminated while the other competitors succeeded in putting in quicker laps. This was particularly the case for newcomer Mark Rodgers who had dropped back quite a way in the wet, but with the drying track was catching me at a rate of about 2 seconds a lap in the closing stages and managed to pass me on the final lap. He crossed the line just one second ahead of me while Ian Oliver was only two seconds behind me.

My aim for the first race of the double header was to get a decent place on the grid for race two. The poor choices I had made with the suspension settings had cost me that opportunity and so I would again start the race in 17th position.

There had been a good race at the front of the field though. Colin Broster took his first ever overall win in the Championship (not counting Castle Combe where he won due to a time penalty on Brown) from John Williams in second place in his class three 2.4E in which he also scored the fastest lap of the race. Well done to both of them !

Race 2

After some more tweaking I had managed to extract some more top end power from the car at the expense of off boost drivability. This shouldn't be too much of a problem except at the hairpin I hoped.

Taking up my now regular 17th place on the grid the lights turned green and we all set off for the hairpin. Almost everybody made a move for the inside and it was getting very congested so I decided to take the unusual step of going round the outside. There was a spinner on the exit (I think it was Mark Campbell) which gave me a great opportunity to make up some places. This had worked wonderfully as at the end of the first lap I was up to about 10th place. It was clear that I would be unable to retain such a high position as I was still not completely competitive in straight line speed and I simply could not commit to be flat out at the kink before Honda Curve. Coombs got a run at me along the straight and dived down the inside under braking at the hairpin. I did nothing to defend the position as with this being a 30 minute race there would be no way I could defend for that amount of time. Later that lap Tom Segrue went down the inside at Honda Curve having carried more speed through from the kink, again I offered no defence.

There was now a gaggle of cars all battling for position and my next target was Chris Berry in his 3.2 carrera. I knew from the previous year that I could be quicker than the 911s through Brooklands Hairpin and this was my first overtaking place of choice. Even so, it appeared that I was carrying more speed through Honda so I took a deep breath and held onto his tail using my extra speed to get a better run down the pit straight. It was going to be a question of who would blink first as we got into the braking zone. I had the inside line and made the pass. Quite quickly I had left Chris and joined a 4 way battle with Steve Winter in Craig Rapp's car (Craig had gone home after some disparaging remarks from officials in testing), Mark Campbell, Paul Coombs and Colin Ingram. This battle was to last for the remainder of the race. Mark Campbells pace seemed to be variable, and I seemed to have the legs on Colin Ingram except on the run from the kink to Honda where he was flat and I was not. This opened up a gap of around 20 yards which according to my calculator is worth 0.5 seconds a lap. As the race progressed Winter gained a little pace and he and Coombs had their own little battle just a few yards down the road. That left Colin Mark & myself battling for 12th place. With about 6 laps to go Mark had spun off and was now behind and catching us up. I was crawling all over Colin and tried to get on the inside of him at Brooklands. I almost succeeded and we raced towards the kink together side by side, except that he had about 2 feet of car in front of me. There is really only one line at the Woodlands kink and I had to give a little lift to avoid contact. I really don't know how close we got, but having been lifting for the kink all the race I didn't fancy having my first attempt through there with Colin on the outside. Opportunity missed, and he had 30 yards on me !

I caught Colin up again, at around the same time that Mark caught me. I had seen that the tyres on Colins car were overheating as his driving was becoming wilder and wilder as the back end broke away under acceleration from the hairpins. I suspected that given enough time his tyres would finally be pushed past their limits and he would spin. I decided to have another go at Brooklands. I got level with Colin this time, but Campbell had tried to do the same to me and the superior power of his RS meant that we were 3 abreast going into Brooklands. Fortunately we were all sensible, raced close and hard without making contact and we all managed to get through. Yet again though Colin had gained 30 yards on me and I doubted I could catch him up sufficiently in the final lap to force the mistake, so I decided to use Mark instead. He was attempting to pass me down the straight. Now I could probably have defended the position, but that would have given me nothing points wise and slowed us both down so I let him through. He was immediately on the tail of Colin who used the accelerator too much at Spitfires and spun. Thank you very much !

From there it was simply a matter of chasing Mark for the remainder of the lap and we crossed the line within 2 seconds of each other, while Winter & Coombs were just another 2 seconds in front. That was quite a rewarding end to the weekend for me, though Janet Ingram appeared to be not too pleased with hubby while we were in parc ferme. I'm sure he was quickly forgiven though. They're such a nice couple I'm sure they don't regret allowing me to use the metering head off their 924GT either !

Most interestingly for me, even with an off colour car I had got my lap time down to the mid 1:08's, only a couple of tenths from the fastest laps of the 944S2's. Richard Lambert and Dave Rothwell were another second faster though. The next race was to be Brands Hatch, surely the car could be fixed by then.......