dbRacing - Castle Combe Race Report 16th September 2001

Race Report - 16th September 2001

The Circuit

Castle Combe is located near Chippenham in Wiltshire. This is another long trek going from the north east to the south west of England.

Castle Combe is a very fast circuit, and probably records the highest instantaneous speed of all the UK circuits thanks to a fast exit from Camp Corner and the long undulating rise towards Quarry. The view of the circuit varies with the season due to the infield area still being dedicated to agriculture with usually a crop of wheat being grown. This meeting took place after harvest permitting good views of most of the circuit for spectators.The rest of the circuit consists of three straights linked by a fast kink and a 90 degree bend. At least the circuit used to look like that. Two chicanes, the esses and bobbies were inserted a couple of years ago on safety grounds. These are characterised by their slow in fast out nature which really does not fit in with the character of the original circuit.

Practice

I considered myself very fortunate to be at the race at all. Having being in the US on the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon (due to fly out that evening) I had been trying to get a flight home all week. I had just about resigned myself to missing the race, when I got a call Friday lunchtime about a flight that evening from Philadelphia. By the time I got to the airport, that flight had been cancelled, but after being in a check in queue for 4 hours I managed to get re-routed to London via Madrid. It's the strangest feeling in the world, being in Spain and not going to the beach !

Special thanks are due to Gill and my father, who between them collected the car from Strasse, organised the rolling road to check the fuelling of the car (see the Pembrey report) and then delivered the car to the circuit for me for 7:00 Saturday evening, arriving 30 minutes after I did.

I lined up in the collecting area behind the other class one cars, intending to stay with them during the session. However as I exited onto the track I casually slipped into 4th gear into second, and as they sped away I was left to get the right gear and catch them. This actually worked quite well, as following the Porsche Open practice (see seperate report) I was immediately up to speed and got in contact with them after two laps.

Practice progressed well, as with each lap my time improved by a few tenths finally leaving me with a time of 1:20.8. This was 1 1/2 seconds faster than my last visit here in the RS, but just another couple of tenths would have seen my qualification position improve to 7th rather than the 9th I achieved.

Race

The grid at castle Combe is very compact. It is skewed to the right hand side, with little more than a cars length between the rows of the 2 x 2 grid. My grid position placed me on the preferred inside of the track, which is usually better, unless you are forced onto the grass. I lined up on the fifth row of the grid, with Colin Ingram two rows behind. I knew that if I made a mess of the start, so would he! As the lights went green I got the revs just rights and rocketed away, without losing any ground to any on the 911s. I think I'm getting the hang of this. We sped up to Quarry and Graham Burke took to the grass, bravely keeping his foot in he returned to the circuit and managed to keep the car straight. Everyone was well behaved as we rounded Quarry, though there was a familiar sight in my rear view mirror. Colin Broster, who had qualified in 15th had made a good start and taken 5 places at the start. The first chicane saw a number of people trying to make 3 cars go where there is only room for two (or one), but eventually everyone behaved and the train was formed.

Steve Jaques exited Bobbies a little enthusiastically, and spun , he did it very neatly, completing his manoeuvre by very neatly parking his car just behind the marshals post. Not quite supermarket standard, but if there were white lines there I'm sure he was within them! The "train" then rounded camp for the first time and I was concentrating on pulling away from Broster, but also catching the pack who were just 10 yards ahead. On the entrance/ exit of the esses I carried more speed through than Richard Lambert, and pulled along side as we approached Old Paddock bend. I took a slightly wider line and overtook on the outside, into 7th place, right on the limit of grip of the tyres. I pulled away as we rounded Tower but he was clearly determined to regain his position. As we exited Camp he was right on my tail and on the long run up to Quarry he simply drove past me. Hmmm. I tried to stay with Richard, but he was intent on taking some more places and for the next 5 laps we all kept station, though Broster was receding into the distance. The effects of jet lag now came into play, as I lost concentration in a couple of corners and became more cautious in my braking. Then rain started appearing on the windscreen. This fortunately did not turn into a shower, but the effects of the sun on the windscreen through the raindrops caused me to make a complete mess of the Esses on the final lap. Broster closed, but I made sure that I did enough to keep the place and finished in 8th place, improving my time by a further 7 tenths during the race.