dbRacing - NSSCC Race Report 9th June 2002

NSSCC Race Report - 9th June 2002

Practice

The fourth round of the NSSCC took place at Cadwell Park on the day following the classic round at Oulton Park. It was a bright and early start from Teesside, but by the time we arrived in Lincolnshire the weather was decidedly chilly. I took the car off the trailer and went to pre-event scruitineering. Normally this is a straightforward affair but there were 4 problems found with the car. Three of them were easy fixes (fog light not working, cover the hole for the petrol tank, disconnect one wire so the cut off worked correctly) but the most critical was a real safety problem. As part of the scruitineering, which is primarily there for safety purposes, my drivers seat seemed to have some play in it. This is something I have seen before and the "play" is normally purely the result of having the seat fixed on runners, rather than being permanently bolted in. This was not the case today though. The floor had cracked by the rear right hand side mounting allowing the floor to flex. It was obvious that I would have to get this fixed before I would be allowed onto the circuit because if I was involved in an incident it was possible that the seat would break away completely from the rest of the car and not afford the protection that it should. After a quick run round the paddock George Tweddles mechanic/friend/helper Martin Cairns came to the rescue as he had welding gear in the van. After just 15 minutes careful brazing the floor of the car was repaired and I was able to return to be re-scruitineered and passed for the meeting.

A special thanks then to Martin, I couldn't have raced that day if you hadn't fixed the car for me, and to the scrutineer who had spotted the problem.

The practice session was very short, partly by design, and partly because a shortage of marshalls meant that volunteer marshalls were needed to be able to open the full circuit. This meant that both our co-ordinator Phil Lee and his son Gavin, both experienced marshalls, were going trackside for the day. Most of the other competitors had been testing the day before and I initially planned to do 3 steady laps to qualify as I had not been to Cadwell for a couple of years. That all changed when I left the paddock though. The car just loved the cold damp air and with it being so responsive in the 6 laps still managed to beat my best ever time in the RS by over half a second. The session itself was remarkably quiet for such a large field and narrow circuit. The mountain was interesting as the rear broke traction in two occasions for each lap compared to just once in the more rear end heavy 911. In the end I managed to qualify a respectable 9th on the grid and looked forward to a busy race with David Cox just behind me and Mick Starkey, Dave Pearson and George Tweddle just in front.

Race

We were scheduled to be race 4 in the calendar, but Cadwell Parks reputation for being a Mini-Spa was illustrated when the weather changed while we were in the collecting area as the heavens opened. Race 3 moved off from the grid, but there was an incident before even the first corner was reached and the clerk of the Course sensibly decided to allow the slick tyred single seaters return to the paddock for a tyre change and called us to take their place.

We had an additional green flag lap, and as I almost lost the car as we went up the mountain for the second time. I went up in second instead of third in an attempt find out how much grip was available and had to react very quickly as the car broke traction, stepped out sideways and almost spun. I knew there and then not to try that again !

The 2 X 2 grid was unbelievably narrow, and I felt as though I was in a car park, rather than the start of a motor race as the lights turned green. I kept the revs down and got away well, ready to take one or two places in the run up to the first corner. This was not to be. The cars immediately in front of me in pole and 5th position were the two 500hp Escort Cosworths. They had been a less circumspect than me with the right foot and hardly moved forwards, they just sat there spinning their wheels. I tried to make places up on the grass, but the barriers were looming and I just had to accept everyone streaking past me on the right hand side. I think I was down to about 15th place by the first corner. I found that I was quicker than many of the cars over the whole circuit, except for Barn corner, where the gearing of my car was just not right for Barn or the Hairpin before which compromised me on the main straight and the run up to Coppice. Making places up was going to be dependant on constant pressure, not making mistakes and letting other people fall off.

All of these things happened, I passed John Walker in his Mitsubishi Lancer E5 on the exit of Charlies and then set about the Renault sport spyder of Graham Saul. One of the Cosworths came steaming up behind me on the approach to Coppice so I allowed him through intending to follow him past Saul. In the event the Cosworth took too tight an inside line at Charlies and ended up pushing the Renault off circuit T-Bone style... great another place. The next car was the 968 of Wayne Jackson who was close to David Cox. I closed on them both but lost out each lap in the wooded area. Then Jackson went off circuit leaving me to pursue David Cox, but Wayne had rejoined and was close behind me. We entered the woods again for about the 5th time and as I went to go for third gear the same thing happened that had happened the previous day at Oulton park, it would not go into third and Wayne was past me and long gone. Yet again I had to make trackspace up on David Cox and succeeded in doing so, but then a spinning Steven Fergusson intervened and I had to pursue him for two laps before forcing him into an error at Park corner and getting past him so I could resume my pursuit of Mr Cox. Again I closed on him ( I'm pretty good at that) but was frustrated each time as he extended yards on me in the Woods each lap. With about 4 minutes to go the Cosworth again came charging through the field and passed me along Park straight. He also passed Coxy on the entrance to Park corner, but David was aware of my position and just managed to close the door. This was a good clean battle in greasy conditions and I was thoroughly enjoying myself and was just about ready to make another move past David when the red flags came out. Tony Caig had spun off at Chris Curve and rolled onto the cars roof. Tony was fine, and there seemed to be little damage to the car, but the race was over and I finished 9th on track, second in class.

After the race I offered my congratulations to David Cox. We have been racing together in the NSSCC series for a few years now and although we have been close before this is the first time he has managed to beat me, so well done David, just don't make a habit of it.