Driving up the A1(M) on Thursday morning the weather looked to be changing for the better, the snow had gone and the sun was now shining. After the weekend at Thruxton where the heavens opened every 3 hours it was going to be nice at last to drive the car in better conditions.
Geoff took the car out first and made some minor adjustments to the set-up and then left the rest of the first session to me to get some more time in the car to familiarise myself with it’s characteristics. I thought I had remembered Croft from my visit for the first time last year but soon realised that some parts weren’t coming back to me so quick and in a GT car you need to be sure of where your going before you start to push.
For the second half-hour session we decided that Geoff would do the whole stint and then I would do the last half-hour. Once again the time was spent refining the set-up of the car, trying to dial-out the ‘bump-oversteer’ and stop it pitching around on the bumps of Croft. During the last half-hour session of the day I was still finding the limitations of the car and still building my confidence levels up with a car that has so much more grip and corning ability than anything that I have even driven!
At the end of the day though I was still 3.8 seconds slower than Geoff – it looked like I needed to really interrogate that data from the logging system over night and find out where it could be gained.
Friday morning was spent with Chris our data-logging expert, analysing why the gap between Geoff and me was so great. It’s good to spend time looking at laps in such great detail, it allows you to reflect on your performance and decide the best course of action to decrease your lap time. We talked things though, looking at ‘G’ loading on the car, wheel speed, rpm and concluded that short-shifting from 3rd to 4th through Hawthorn before the Chicane would greatly increase the cornering speed thus increasing the exit speed onto the back straight. I also needed to spend less time on the brakes and trust the front tyres on the turn-in on all the mid speed (3rd/4th) gear corners. By the end of the day the gap between Geoff and myself had come down from 3.8 seconds to just 0.5 seconds. I was feeling much happier in the car and was starting really play with the power available, probably a little too much because on my last session of the day on the exit of Sunny I had my first spin. At 140km/h I got on the gas a little too eagerly and lit up the rear tyres, it over steered to the left and I corrected, but too much! It flicked my back to the right and at this point I decided to do the sensible thing – let go of the wheel, dump the clutch and hit the middle pedal. With no damage done and only 5mins left in the session I radioed the pits and informed them of my little incident and advised them that I was coming back to the pits.
After such a great end to Friday, I was a little disappointed with my performance in the last part of the morning session. Geoff had put us on pole and I was given the last 20 minutes to get my three laps in and try out the refined set-up on the car. I never got a clear lap, either being passed by the faster GT cars, slowed by the slower GTO cars or calmed by a waved yellow. I knew the speed was in me but I never get in the groove to fully exploit it, I was annoyed by it but not worried about how I would perform in the race conditions on Sunday.
The late afternoon session was sat out to preserve tyres and the car until the last 5 minutes when Geoff ran the car around for 4 laps to 'buff' up the new left hand side tyres for the race on Sunday.
The format was the same as Thruxton, I would start the race
and Geoff would finish. I enjoy the rolling starts
a lot more than I do the standing and although you are all traveling a that
little bit quicker into the first corner I think that everyone is that little
more cautious.
The start didn't go quite the way I would have liked it to,
until I get to look at the data I am not sure whether it was the cold tyres that
caught me out on the short straight after Clervaux or if
it was a tap, either way the result was that I was sent into a spin and ended
dead last. A re-assuring 'keep it going' from the pits over the radio was
much appreciated (thanks guys) and I was on my way, taking back 3 places at the
end of the first lap and another 5 by the end of lap 5. I now could see
the GTO Chrysler Viper and setup about closing down the 7 second gap between us,
the slower traffic was delaying my progress along with yellow flags. On
lap 10 the gap was down to just 1 second and on the approach to Tower he left
his breaking a little to late and overshot the exit of the corner.
On lap 14 the call come in over the radio and I pitted and Geoff took over, almost immediately the Safety Car came out and he was stuck for a lap unable to make any progress through the field until the yellow flags and the SC had been withdrawn. On lap 25 Geoff pitted again, this time with a gear selection problem - nothing a crow bar and tank tape couldn't sort though! But he was delayed from leaving the pits by an over-zealous marshall and once again got stuck behind a very slow Lancia Stratos under Pace Car yellows for a frustrating 5 laps. At the end of the race we were a lap down, but quite a respectable 4th in class, 8th overall - I think that everyone in the time would agree that this was a race that we'd rather forget.