Silverstone Race

By the time the race came around the track was dry and the weather looking much brighter. We had a joint A,B, and C race so lots of cars on the grid with Mike and I heading up class C being on the 4th row back in the overall lineup. I was just hoping the many straights at Silverstone would mean the class A cars would power off into the distance and leave us to our own class race.

In the first start I got a really good run off the line and through the first few corners, being able to stay with Mike and keep clear of the rest without any great effort. Deciding to hold station and see how the race panned out. Unbenounced by us there was a some coming together as you say in the mid pack which meant the race was red flagged as we came under the bridge heading towards Brooklands. We were in a close pack at this stage all racing down the straight and the first thing I noticed was Rob Baldwin with his arm up. I thought to myself that he must have a problem and that was a shame for Rob. As it turned out he had seen the red flag in the distance before he had in the following pack. Shortly afterwards we all spotted the red lights on the bridge gantry and slammed on the anchors. The slight delay meant we were all very close it was a good test of outright braking abilities!

So back on to the grid for a while whilst the glass fibre explosion was cleared up and ready for the second off.

In the restart I had too much wheel spin, some of which may have be a result of leaking brake fluid on the rear tyres and a resulting missed 2nd gear change meant I had lost places to John and Mike Atkinson into Copse. I had a good run from there into Maggots right behind John. He had a bumpy time over the apex curbing and got a little out of shape and we came out of the corner almost side by side. As I got back on the throttle the car snapped sideways very unexpectedly and our cars touched. As we were interlocked we both headed to the outside of the track and separated. By the time we were back on track of course the field had departed and we had a mammoth task of catching everyone up.

 
It was only as the race progressed and as I made my way through the field that I realized the braking on the Fury was disappearing. For the 2nd third of the race onwards I had almost no braking at all. A join in the rear brake line where it meets the drivers side rear drum had sprung a leak and by that point in the race all of the rear cylinders brake fluid had been squeezed out. The brake bias bar then does not have anything to push against and you loose almost the entire front braking as well. It’s amazing how fast you can go without braking much. My tactic was to run into the corner loaded up on the front with some understeer to scrub off speed, chuck it at the apex and do all of the gear changes (could not heal and toe during the ‘braking’ areas as the brake pedal was so far towards the bulkhead that I could not get to the throttle with my right foot) and then get back on the racing line and fire out of the corners.

It ended up being a lot of fun, coming from the complete back of the field through up to 6th place on the last lap. John managed to recover back to 5th, in fact we kept in step with each other most of the race, with maybe 1 or 2 cars between us as we both headed through the field. Here you can see John getting past Henry on the 2nd to last lap, something I duplicated on the second from last corner of the final lap!