dbRacing - NSSCC Race Report 22/23rd June 2002

NSSCC Race Report - 22nd/23rd June 2002

Practice

Well at long last a return to Croft for only the second race there this year. The meeting was organised by the BRSCC and featured the Formula Palmer Audi single seaters together with a double header round of the Lodge Sports 924 championship.

Practice took place on Saturday afternoon, which was quite a leisurely affair as we didn't even have to sign on until after 12 o'clock. We took to the track and within half a lap I was passing other people and chasing Tony Caig in his very rapid XR2. After a couple of laps to warm the tyres up I decided to pick the pace up and go for the time I had achieved earlier in pre-season testing. On the fourth lap it became obvious that my lap times were being compromised by the line I was taking through the chicane. Tyres are placed there to prevent excessive corner cutting, but I thought there was an opportunity to move a little more to the left and get a better exit for the old pit straight. As I went through the chicane there was a sharp knock as I rode the kerbs and the car was launched onto two wheels, but it landed well and I kept the power on running the car on to the very edge of the track. The following corners were taken well and I carried lots of speed through Jim Clark Esses and Barcroft. After negotiating Sunny I entered the complex and after a hard left turn I engaged second to go round the second part of the complex and accelerated hard towards the hairpin. As soon as I touched the brakes there was a severe vibration and knocking from the front end of the car and it refused to turn in. Worse than that it wanted to turn left and right at the same time, this was clearly a terminal failure and I managed to persuade the car to steer off the circuit at the exit of the hairpin. A quick glance round the car showed that the offside front wheel to be at a very unusual angle, pointing outwards while the nearside front was pointing straight ahead. Worse than that, the offside wheel had dislocated itself and smashed into the wing causing damage, while on the other my attempt to take a better racing line had resulted in contact with the tyres causing damage to the front valance and other wing.

The recovery process was difficult because the suspension failure had caused the front of the car to drop, making it impossible to pull the car onto a pick up lift. An attempt to lift the car by placing a sling under the roll cage proved interesting as it was impossible to get the car balanced to lift it onto a flat bed. Eventually the combination of both vehicles , managed to get the car back to the pits where the failure was quickly traced to the offside ball joint. After a couple of phone calls a quick trip to the 924 Championship paddock yielded a new ball joint which was quickly fitted to the car. I then had to check the wheel alignment, but the nearside was showing over 6 degrees of camber. There was obviously other damage but after checking things over I simply got the wheels pointing in something like the right direction and the car was ready to race.

Qualification, oh yes I nearly forgot that, I ended up quite a respectable 7th on the grid considering I had only 4 timed laps.

Race

The green flag lap was spent trying to get a feel for the car to make sure it was handling fine. All seemed in order, though it was perhaps a little understeery....

The lights turned quickly from red to green and I launched the car forward, getting ahead of Alastair Dyson in his Porsche 968 who had qualified 8th and making up a place on Dave Pearson. Perhaps my starting technique on the GT was not so bad after all ! On the entrance to Clervaux Pearson with his larger brakes and lighter XR2 outbraked me and took the corner just ahead of me. For the next couple of laps the leading group of 7 cars broke away from the rest of the pack and I would have been able to get past George Tweddle in his Escort except that the car was understeering and costing me time. On lap 3 I locked up braking for the right hander in the complex and decided to go straight on and pick the car up on the other side of the grass. This allowed Dyson to get past me and Simon Blankley in his Pug 205 to close. For the next couple of laps the three of us came closer together and Simon almost made a move on me at Tower. I pulled away by the time we came to the complex but Dyson, who had been getting a little leery on some of the previous corners, lost the back end and Simon and I sped through as he completed his spin. I managed to keep Simon behind me for another lap, but the understeer problem was becoming worse and although I defended the entry into Clervaux well Simon managed to squeeze through under braking on the inside.

After that all I needed to do was keep the car on the track as there was no-one nearby and so I finished 8th overall, 4th in class.

That was not the end of the day though. The final race of the day was the A & E race for the NSSCC. They were the last race of the day and they were pulled from the collection area due to the evening curfew time. This meant that the BCD race might not be classed as a Championship round and so the next 30 minutes was spent with other drivers, our championship coordinator and BRSCC representatives discussing the causes and implications of the cancelled race. I'm sure further discussions with the BRSCC will follow.