Following the mixed successes of the track day on the Tuesday, the following Sunday May 10th saw the return of our race car to racing duties at Cadwell Park. If the challenge of Cadwell wasn’t enough in its own right, with myself (Mike) at the wheel, the challenge was also to try to match Al’s excellent speed around the circuit, not only from last year’s event but also from Tuesday.
Upon arrival, it was clear that the weather had improved vastly from what greeted us earlier in the week and it looked set to stay dry all day, which it duly did. We were straight through safety scrutineeering and quickly into practice. I had left the car set-up with the same settings that Al finished with on Tuesday, and as it turned out, with have very differing driving styles. All last year we had suffered with turn-in understeer but that had been ironed-out very effectively with the winter updates. It appeared that Al likes the car to move about at the back more than I do as I found myself dealing with turn-in oversteer at virtually every bend. I tried to quickly get used to the setup but struggled to get enough clear space on track to put in a quick time. The session seemed to end very quickly and when the qualifying times were announced I was disappointed not to have posted a faster time. I was 9th and 7th on the grid overall for the first and second races respectively.
Having turned off the circuit at the end of practice, I was immediately ushered into the scrutineering bay for discussions on the new adornment at the front of the car. It was deemed we were eligible to race with it for this weekend and so after a period of slight apprehension, onwards we went.
Scrutiny of the on-board video showed that I needed to slow down the rate that I applied lock as I was unsettling the back of the car at corner entry, so I took that on-board but also tweaked the dampers to a slightly softer setting both front and rear. Hopefully that would help my confidence in the car.
It was a long wait of over five hours between the end of practice and the first race, but only a scheduled gap of just under an hour between the two races. Not ideal. Still, having checked the car fully and fixed the alternator plug that had become dislodged in practice, it was to the grid that I went. When the lights went out, I made quite a good start and made up a place almost straight away. I was being hassled through Charlies 1 and 2 by a faster-moving car behind but I covered my line coming into Park Corner. The car was lacking grip as the tyres were still coming up to temperature (the difference between cold and hot tyres is quite big on these Yokos) which was limiting my mid-corner speed. I managed to hold off the attack and on the next lap started pulling away quite easily now the tyres had some heat in them. The car felt much better suited to my driving and the improvement in my confidence was marked. After only a few laps I checked the lap timer and I was running nearly two seconds quicker than in qualifying but still some way off Al’s lap times. D’oh!
I had a great race with Chris Scopes for the majority of the first race and thought I could get through a couple of times when he ran wide through the Gooseneck, but I just couldn’t make it past. On the last lap, I got a great exit from Charlies 2 and was perfectly place din the slip stream to pass him. However he covered his line well and fairly into Park Corner and so I failed to get past him. However, I thought I had a great chance of gaining a trophy as I spotted that Andrew Ward had gone onto the grass at the exit of Mansfield. Suddenly a recovering Andrew, Chris and myself were line astern coming into the Mountain for the last time, but over-taking in that part of the circuit is tricky at best. As it happened, that’s the order we finished (behind Stephen Bell who took class honours). So a fourth in class finish (6th overall) and only a couple of seconds off second place after a 20 minute race. I was very pleased indeed. The car had been brilliant throughout as well.
After a necessarily hurried re-fuelling stop and check over, we were back to the grid for the second of our 20 minute races. This time I was two places further forward on the grid and with more confidence in the car. The start was momentarily delayed as Andy Hiley’s car was pushed off the grid after it stalled and failed to start again. I got a fantastic start and was right in the middle of the tightly bunched pack through the first lap. Coming through the mountain section I could see a fast moving Hiley gaining behind me (as it turned out Suz and Des had been able to bump-start his car in the pit lane). I pulled out of Barn and Andy was still some distance behind me. I carried on accelerating down the straight and saw he was catching me. He moved towards the inside of the track but I reached the turn-in point at Coppice first. As I turned in however, Andy moved inside of me. Not wanting to collide with him at over 100mph, all I could do was run wide and I ended up spinning off onto the grass, watching as almost the entire field drove past. I was furious as I was in a great position beforehand but now my race was in tatters.
All I could do was try to gain back as much time and places as possible. The car still felt good after the spin and so I was pretty sure no damage had been done. I overtook one car on the next lap and kept on pushing. I very quickly caught up with Rob Sinclair and Nigel Brown just in front of him. As we raced up through the mountain section, Rob attempted an ambitious overtake going into the Hairpin, but couldn’t avoid taking to the grass as he ran onto the marbles and unfortunately collided with the side of Nigel’s car. However, this caused both of their cars to stop in the middle of the circuit. I had nowhere to go and despite my best efforts to avoid a collision, I ran into the back of Rob’s car. D’oh!
As I moved off again, I could hear a great deal of scraping coming from the front of the car and so there had obviously been some damage. Fortunately for me, the pit lane was just around the next corner and so I coaxed the car towards the pit lane. I felt a bump from the right front tyre and looking in my rear view mirror showed that I had just run over part of our front splitter. That would be that broken then! As I called into the pits, Des and Suz came running over to assist me (Suzanne was laughing for some reason though…….why was that again?) but it was evident that it would take some time to secure the bodywork before carrying on again and so I decided to call it a day. Not the best end to a race day particularly following such a strong start in the second race, and of course some repairs to be done before the next outing for the car, this time with Al at the helm at Brands Hatch.
So thanks to all the team for helping get me to the grid but apologies for not bringing it home unscathed. I must try harder next time. Good luck to Al at Brands on the 21st of June. Mike
