Oulton Park Double Header - Championship decider or will it go to Mallroy?

Quick summary from Oulton Park as I am traveling.

Turned up to the most rain I have seen all year, the paddock area was flooded and lots of reports of treacherous conditions during the Friday practice. Saturday morning dawned with the pause in the rain, although the surrounding area seemed to get rain all day.

The qualify session was wet although it was not actually raining and the car felt good although not very predictable at the rear. Well actually it was ok but the throttle sensitivity means its hard to invoke a slight slide in the wet or to control a slide to a small angle, it it either sideways or not which means its hard to feel the changes in grip level. All was going well until about half way through the session when I slided more under braking and turn in to Druids than I had expected and had a fun session of traveling on the grass and over the gravel trap. In fact I though it was ok once I held the slide over the grass but it was quite a wake up to realise I needed to accelerate, whilst off the track, to be able to clear the gravel and rejoin. From then onwards I did to push hard enough which mean I did not make use of the increased grip that was evident by the other improved times int he last couple of laps. This left me 5th in the first race (and behind Steve) and 4thin the second race. My worst qualify for over a year I think.

The first race went well for me, I just about missed Martin who stalled on the grid, got to 4th on the run down the cascades, 2nd after the straight and chased Steve for the rest of the lap. Steve was experiencing some brake issues and therefore lifted early for the entry to the first corner of lap 2, which I slipped past and pulled out a good lead. That is where it finished and although Oulton is a great track, it was a very quiet race for me.

The second race, at the end of the day, looked like it could be effected by the rain and therefore we decided to run the wet weather types to cope with any sudden down-poor. As it was the race was completely dry. I had a great start and drove around the outside of the 3 class C cars in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place which gave me the lead after the first corner. From there I took it easy and concentrated on the race win for the championship points.

So 2 race wins and fastest laps have given me 26 points from the weekend. Paul in class B and my closed rival for the overall Championship had a 2nd and 1st in a reduced points round and John in class C did not convert the weekend into 2 wins so the points are looking good.

Interesting results with brakes as well.

At silverstone, the newly supplied brake discs from Hispec failed after just 1 qualify session.
The much smaller spare for the rear, when fitted as a replacement at the front, lasted a full race.
The spare disc, supplied originally from Hispec to BDN Sportscars, ran for the qualify and 2 races at Oulton faultlessly.

Interesting dilemma for Hispec, original manufactured discs work fine, smaller spare by them worked fine, newly manufactures replacements (and there were 2 remember) both failed first time out! What to do then Hispec?

Derek