Silverstone Race Report, August 17th/18th 2002
Practice / Saturday
The return to a race circuit after a break of almost a month left me feeling like it was a new season about to start. The car looked very pretty with one complete side repainted following the accident damage at Rockingham last time out, it almost seemed a shame to spoil the classy silver / red colour scheme by putting decals and numbers on.
Testing took place in the heat of one of the warmest days I had experienced in the UK so far this year with air temperatures around 28-30 degrees and the inlet manifold still showing 45 degrees after having had one hour to cool down. The test was split into three long sessions. For the first session I simply acclimatised myself to the track but there were disturbing noises and vibration coming from the front of the car which appealed to my sense of mechanical sympathy and so I did not really push too hard and having taken to the track part way through the session, I finished early to take a look at the source of the noise and vibration. I adjusted one of the front wheel bearings and took to the track for the second session but within 5 laps I returned to the garage as some of the noise was still present. A quick inspection under the bonnet showed that the engine was moving around and causing the intercooler to foul on the suspension strut. This was usually a sign of weakening / broken engine mountings so I installed a little rubber shock absorber on the front strut to minimise the noise and potential for damage.
The car ran much better for the third session. My previous best was 1:09.5 seconds in the NSSCC race last year and I quickly was recording times in the 1:09s and after getting the Brooklands / Luffield 1 combination right on one lap managed to post a time of 1:08.69 seconds, with perhaps a little more to come. I left the circuit on Friday evening looking forward to qualifying and determined not to miss my chance of another top 4 position on the grid.
Saturday was warm, but not as warm as Friday which I was grateful for. We had been allocated the pit garages and also given permission to start from the pit lane. Carman, Brown, White and Burke all left their garages early to be at the front of the field. I took a position about two thirds of the way down the field but drove quickly on the first lap getting heat into the tyres and passed about 6 cars by the time I arrived at Brooklands for the first time. Colin Ingram in his 924 GT was the next person I overtook and Richard Harrison in his viper green 2.4E was my next target some 60 yards ahead. I made up the ground and passed him on the exit of Copse on the fourth lap. I wanted to be sure of getting a good lap early on and then just nibble away at the tenths until I matched or beat my time on Friday. Luffield seemed to have a little less grip than the day before as I came round to finish my 5th lap I posted a time of 1:09.7 a good base to improve from.
On the 6th lap I carried more speed through Copse and felt that my lap time was better than the previous lap, perhaps by three or four tenths. As I came round Luffield two, the back end came round a little, as normal, and I just applied a little less lock and kept the power applied. Just as I approached the exit kerb suddenly the rear end of the car moved to the right pitching me off the track. In an instant I was in the kitty litter. At first I braked, and the with the wall approaching released the brakes in an attempt to steer the car away. I knew I was in trouble when I saw about 5 marshals duck as I approached and then made contact with the concrete wall at an angle of about 40 degrees. I restarted the engine, but I was going nowhere. Apart from the body damage the impact had shattered a front wheel leaving what could be termed a tyre sealing problem...... about 10 inches round the rim. For me the practice session was over, and I had a worrying time waiting for everyone else to go by and threatening to do the same thing as me, which a couple of times looked very possible. I also had to wait to see what my grid position would be.
After taking the car back to the pits on a pick up truck, we dropped the car on a jack and set about inspecting the damage. It was pretty bad, both the wing and front PU were heavily damaged, but fortunately I had picked up all the body parts from trackside and they could be repaired. Less promising was the V shaped bottom arm, bent track rod, and front inner wing area that had been completely crushed. Everything else looked OK and so we set about trying to straighten the body with a Portapower loaned by Peter of ABG Motorsport and operated by fellow competitor Steven Smyth and me. After a couple of hours work with the Portapower and wizard wielding of hammers large and small, the inner wing was almost back in shape. This was looking promising and so the next step was to source the necessary parts to get the car back together.
Colin Ingram set off for home to try and find a spare bottom arm for me, along with a new drop link for the anti roll bar. I tried calling round various Porsche specialists looking for a replacement wheel. Eventually Neil Bainbridge at BS Motorsport came up trumps and said that he had a wheel I could have. I left the circuit for his premises with a shopping list of other parts I might need and the front tyre to be fitted to the new wheel. By the time I had arrived at Neils' and we got the new rim all the tyre fitting centres were closed. My next trip was to Halfords in Aylesbury to get fibreglass sheeting, resin, pop riveter and grinding tools so that Steve Smyth could continue with the bodywork. When I arrived back at the circuit Colin had made the return trip with the bottom arm and Steve Smyths' assistant Alf began reassembly of the suspension. Ex Classic racer Dick van Wyngaarden had also had an enjoyable afternoon removing almost 3/4 of a bucketful of stones from the various crevices of the car !
The high numbered pit garages at Silverstone had had all their utilities removed and so there was no lighting to work by once it became dark except for the headlights of my car. It was in these circumstances that we finished the bodywork for the evening, with Colin Broster and David Rothwell bringing much appreciated offerings from their barbecue to keep us going. I left the circuit at 9:30, knowing that he bodywork was fixed and that in the morning the simple tasks of mounting the tyre on the wheel and setting the wheel alignment was all I needed to do. Steve was given the nickname of Picasso for his skill and dexterity with a paintbrush, resin and fibreglass matting.
Race / Sunday
The race was scheduled for about 2:30 and I arrived with about 5 hours to do the necessary wheel alignment setup. Initial adjustment of the tracking with the wheels off the ground showed the wheels to be tracking out somewhat. This was soon remedied and the toe-in was set by eye before the wheel was lowered to the ground. I cleaned out the brake caliper, fitted the new wheel. Stuart Hellon, one of the 924S drivers came to help and we noticed that there did seem to be some excess camber on the nearside wheel. I took off all I could and lowered the car to the ground. This showed 6 degrees negative camber, and it wasn't going to get any less. Something else must be bent we thought. It was then that we noticed the shock absorber insert nut loose in it's mounting in the suspension mount. We quickly removed the strut and found that the top of the strut was in fact twisted, bent and almost sheared off. The car was not going out in that condition, so was it race over ? Well, not quite. Harvey Racing run a few 924's in the Lodge Sports Championship and I asked Neil Harvey if they had any struts on their van. Unfortunately all the 924 parts were with Martin Harvey for the race at Brands Hatch but he did tell me that parts from a MK 1 VW Golf did fit. I knew that there was a Scirocco in the paddock and I found him and then 3 people with Golfs, unfortunately none of them had a spare strut.
Things were getting desperate now and I was looking for Colin Ingrams number to see if he had any spare struts when he called me to say he was setting off from home and were there any parts I needed! The good news was that he had some, but they were all locked away in someone else's premises and they were away on holiday. I then made phone calls to some Porsche specialists (this at 11:00 on a Sunday morning) but they were either too far away or not working. Then Chris Sargeant handed me his phone. Apparently one of his contacts, a guy called Gaz, did have a set of standard 924 turbo struts on the shelf. I left the circuit for Hinckley about 40 miles away at 11:50 and we arranged to meet in a pub car park a little over an hour later. I found a local Kwik Fit garage and dropped the wheel and tyre off to be fitted. I don't think they had ever seen a wheel in such poor condition, but they were willing to help swap the tyre over and set about it immediately. I left them to it as I went to meet Gaz at another meeting place closer to his premises. He turned up with his van and a pair of struts and hub assemblies from a low mileage road car. Money changed hands and I set off for the return journey to Silverstone, calling for the wheel at Kwik Fit on the way back. The timing was perfect as the wheel had just been balanced and I continued on my journey.
At about 13:45 I was about 10 minutes from Silverstone when I received a phone call saying that race 10,( we were race 11,) was on the grid. This was going to be real touch and go.
I arrived at the pit garage and lifted one of the struts from the car and ran with it inside the garage and started to dismantle it. There were a hoard of people around the car when a voice said we'll do that David, you get changed. The voice was that of Barrie Maskells mechanic, Bruce, and with the assistance of Steve Dartnell who was helping Chris Sargeant for the day, Dick Van Wyngaarden who had spent the last two hours cleaning the rear calipers out, refitting the ignition module and other necessary jobs, the visiting ex Classic Champion John Williams and I'm sure it seemed like about another 5 people, I got dressed and put my helmet on while they changed the spring and fitted the strut. John Farren came into the garage with a scrutineer who waited until the car was on the ground and gave me the approval to race. I got the instruction "go now or you'll miss it" and left the pit garage closely followed by the safety car for the formation lap. 80 seconds later I was on the grid waiting for the green flag lap - I had got a race !
As I drove round on the green flag lap I noticed the acrid smell of burning rubber and black smoke started to enter the car. I decided that there was little point returning to the pits after all the effort that had been put in and took up my position on the grid. Just before the lights turned red I decided to make sure the car was in first gear and slipped it into neutral and then into first. The lights turned green and I dropped the clutch. The car rolled forward but there was no power, or was it something else..... As all the other cars streaked past me I realised that I had mistakenly selected 3rd gear so I changed down into second , dumped the clutch and leapt forward at the back of the field. I suppose that if there was ever to be a time to make that mistake, now would be the time.
We approached Copse and Richard Harrison slipped past me on the inside and so I rounded the first corner down in 17th place. Although I had only done one lap I knew that the car was underdamped which could cause braking problems and that the turn in would not be consistent to the left and right. I really did not want to end up off the circuit again. None the less I decided that whilst I would not be able to achieve the times of Friday I may as well have a race and see how far up the field I could get. This was quite good fun as I passed Hellon, Gregory and Ingram by taking a better line through the second corner near Becketts. I then chased down the next car of Richard Harrison and passed him on the exit of Copse on the third lap. This wasn't too bad, despite the less than ideal handling I was still carrying more speed through Copse than some of the the 911's. The next two targets were the battling Rothwell and Smyth. After closing them down over two laps the passing manoeuvre was made easy when Rothwell span on the exit of Copse. I chose to pass on the left which proved to be a good choice as Rothwell continued his spin to the inside. Towards the end of the lap I rounded Luffield and passed Smyth on the run up to Woodcote. I could still see the cars of Burtt, Rob Williams and Ian White in front of me, but after chasing for a couple of laps I realised I was not gaining ground and that the sensible solution was to ease off a little and bring the car home in one piece. This I did and scored championship points by finishing in 10th place.
After the completion of the race almost every competitor and team member came up to me and expressed their surprise that I had managed to get out for the race. There are so many people that I have to thank for that and I hope that I have remembered to mention all of them in this race report. I know that I have called quite a few favours in and now owe a few out. That, I suppose, is part of the pleasure of taking part in a good championship.
The car is back in the hands of Strasse, who I'm sure will have the car back to its usual glory in time for the next Porsche Classic round at Pembrey. In the meantime I have a NSSCC race next weekend and the RS is in for a treat - I called the NSSCC Championship organiser on my way home and he confirmed that running the RS would not be a problem. The question is can I still drive it after getting used to the 924 GT for almost two years ? We will have to see, but other than changing wheels, checking the ride heights and putting decals on the car she should be ready to go.
Here are a couple of photos showing some of the damaged components. I hope to have some more pictures of the GT to show here in her damaged state soon for people who like that sort of stuff!. Click on the image for a full size version.
