Brands Hatch June - Race 1 and 2 - delayed report!

Race 1
Another good start, quite a different from the last (and first) time I raced at Brands.

Through Paddock hill bend for the first time, I went around David Wale on the on the outside to stay in 5th place on the first lap. As we finish the lap, I get a better run out of Clearways than Tim, had a good run on him down the start finish lap, headed up to the left as Tim covered the overtaking line into Paddock Hill.


So I just went around the outside and managed to get back into the inside before the hairpin to take 4th. I was then right behind John Goodwin into the hairpin whilst he gets a little too close to John Cutmore who had an excellent start into the lead. A slight sprinkling of plastic and glass! I then get a better run through and out of Graham Hill bend and get along side John Goodwin for 3rd place. Just before I head into the chicane I noticed that Tim was heading up the inside of me. Well from my position I thought I would take his nose off if I cut into the corner and therefore with a late entry I ran wide and bounced over the grass for the second time in a matter of hours!

Off grass in one piece but still traveling very fast which means I run wide into Clearways and skirt around the inner edge of the gravel trap. This lets a gaggle of 6 cars through and I rejoined following Colin and Henry. My run down the start/finish straight was good and I came up behind and on the inside of Colin as we enter Paddock Hill bend. I kept to the inside of Colin, hoping maintain the inside line into Druids, excellent driving from Colin as we ran side by side with inches between us.

A few car lengths ahead of us, Matt Rowe goes wide through the latter half of Paddock Hill, keeps his foot in and drives in a nice arc through the gravel. Matt rejoins in a cloud of dust as Colin and I move to the right to stay out of his way, Colins continued transition to the right encourages (would normally say forces but heÂ’s too nice for that!!) me further and further to the right which left me over on the dirty edge of the track and when Henry slams on the brakes I just did not have enough grip and ended up using Henrys car as an extra brake. No major issue for Henry except part of my headlight being added as ballast for him as it stuck into his rear body work. For me however, there was more of an issue, it pushed my bonnet back and to the side which popped the air box off the carbs and limited to me 7k rpm and therefore the end of my race.

For the next lap or so I kept an eye on temperatures and pressures and all seemed ok , so decided to continue to run around and get the 3 points for a finish. Its quite interesting doing the Brands Indy circuit in just 5th and 6th!

After the race it was a matter of putting the air box back on, trying to re-mount the bonnet and taping up the missing light. Here you can see Jamie with a rather taped up Fury!

Race 2
There was a delay before our allocated time for the second race due to a rather nasty accident in another formula which meant that our second race would be a combined A, B and C race.
Again I managed a good start but it was from 12th in class and even further back now we had a joint race. The track temps were even higher than earlier in the day and as we set off I was a little uncertain as to the grip levels. I had also elected to run a lower tyre starting pressure as an experiment so some more unknowns! Off the line and around the first few corners were rather close and frantic but I did manage to keep an eye on Paul who was a couple of places ahead. Well he was until a quick reaction to avoid a rather wayward David W meant he had a rather bumpy adventure over the grass at surties Unfortunately he was also rotating and I just caught the end of his spin in my mirrors to see he bouncing back on to the track and avoiding other cars – phew! Well on with my race and on with overtaking, I managed a few good moves but a few laps later as we all approached surtees again I was behind Pete Rope and David Wale. David has just passed gained a place a Pete ran a little wayward on the exit of Graham Hill bend and as I got close through surtees he again seemed to be very ragged. Unfortunately for me and David that meant I had to make an avoiding action or hit Pete as we had a rather large closing speed. I dived to the inside of the corner to get out of the way and slow down, not attempting to pass. Dirt on the inside made it really hard for me to slow and David could not see me due to the acute angle which meant that as David turned into the corner we collided. My front corner clipping his rear corner and tipping him into a spin which David did not manage to catch before the lure of the gravel trap. It was really disappointing to see David sit out the rest of the race as he was running really well at Brands. After the race I had to go and see the Clerk of the course with David about the incident and have my knuckles rapped. After that incident on the track I continued on with my move up the grid with ever more sliding due to the high track temperatures. One interesting run through Clearways had me completely on opposite lock whilst having to dip the clutch to regain forward motion! The only other point of note in the race was a little battle with Matt Rowe which came a little closer than either of us planned with a little understeer in Druids which left me with some nice tyre marks on the side panel!
Overall a little messy race but I did go from 12th to 5th in class and regained a least some useful points.


Reflections

So not the best of race weekends for me results-wise. Some repairs to do on the car before the next race although its mostly superficial and not my finest hour of driving but it was a lot of fun and as always a great group of friends to go racing with.

I do however think more than ever that Qualify if really important.

Another reminder for me is that even if you have lots of cars to pass, take your time and make each move count. More time can be lost by slowing each other down in passing attempts that are never going to work.

The changes to the oil cooler position definitely made a difference, with such a high ambient temperature I was expecting over 130 oil temps but in fact it never got about 115deg which is lower than any other race meeting this year. Quite impressive if you think that most races so far have been cold and in some cases cold and wet!