NSSCC Race Report Oulton Park 3rd July 2004
Car - 944 Turbo
Practice
Testing the previous day had gone well, with no mechanical issues, save for a loss of braking ability. This was quickly diagnosed as being a set of brake pads which were worn down to the metal. Unbelievable ! A set of pads worn through in two races and one days testing.
This caused me a problem as I did not have any spare sets, but worse was to come as I discovered that Strasse didn't have any and Questmead were already closed for the weekend. A few phone calls were made to try and source some pads, eventually leading to a friend of a friend knowing the cleaner at Questmead who called the owners & got agreement to remove some pads from stock for me. A quick drive to Rochdale and I had some new pads on Friday evening. I never met the cleaner, or the friend of a friend, but thanks to both of them.
Practice was dry, despite the grey skies, and I lined up first in the collecting area. Taking to the circuit first I pushed from the first lap and after just half a lap I could not see anyone behind me. This didn't work out so well however as after just three laps I was already catching the cars who were last on track and for the next 4 or 5 laps all I was doing was overtaking cars, sometimes the speed differential was frightening being a combination of drivers new to the circuit and less powerful cars against people who were testing the previous day. In the later laps things did improve and I managed to get one decent lap, good enough for third and ahead of Ray Pollack and Andrew Morrison who curiously had been surprisingly slow testing the previous day.
Race
The pace car led us round at a somewhat pedestrian pace on the formation lap to the grid. Sat in third I had a good view in front, with a wide gap between Steven Ferguson and Tony Caig. That gap looked very inviting to me as the flag dropped for the green flag lap.
Fergie led us around on the green flag lap little faster than the pace car had. Recalling how Andrew Morrison started the last round at Croft there seems to be a distinct difference between the approach of pole man between the NSSCC and Porsche races.
The red lights were extinguished and we all moved forward. I was intent on getting a good start which really means not using too much throttle and spinning the wheels. I accelerated in first, changed into second and gave it half throttle at first before pushing the pedal down harder. As the speed began to build and I closed on Fergie and Caig the car suddenly swerved to the left . I applied full opposite lock but in the fraction of second that had passed the yaw angle was already 45 degrees and I was heading for the barriers at about 60mph. The opposite lock had no effect so 1/4 second later I hit the armco almost full on, with the offside taking more of the impact in such a way that I bounced off the armco, rotated around another 135 degrees before the right hand rear quarter panel hit the armco too.
That was it, the shortest race of my life lasting about 4 seconds in total. The race was red flagged as the marshals first tried to recover me, ( flat tyre, broken front towing eye) and then the JCB came out to put the armco back in place.
Strasse were giving their new custom van "The Mystery Machine" its first outing. Good job too as it was needed to transport various spares, wheels and the still intact bonnet back to the workshop along with the bent car. The engine will be out on Monday, with a trip to the bodyshop for a jig and pull scheduled for later this week.....I hope. See you at Knockhill ????????
