What a scorcher this
turned out to be, in more than one sense. Our “weekend” started on
Friday with a quick trip to Brands to see if we could run in our
rebuilt engine. We managed a grand total of nine laps thanks to a
huge number of stoppages mainly caused by Toyota MR2 drivers. Our
engine suffered a cracked block at Snetterton, which meant it had to
go back to Harvey for refettling. We also had to repair the rear
suspension arm, which was damaged when a bolt came loose. So there
had been plenty of work to do.
Because of the lack of
“running in”, Rod decided to enter the sports/saloon races on
Saturday. With several BARC HQ championships present it meant that
the practice sessions would be run to the full 15 minutes. Rod
stayed out for the full time and achieved the third quickest time
behind John Cross (Focus V8) and Bob Rice (Caterham), the rest of
the grid being made up of BMWs including John Willcocks in a nice
M3.
From the start John Cross used his V8 power to good effect to
take an early lead whilst Rod nipped past the Caterham. On the
second lap John came out of North Bend a little wide and our black
Escort was through in a flash. John did retaliate, getting very
close at Paddock Bend (see photo on “ten-tenths”) until his gearbox
jammed in third. This allowed Bob Rice to take the runner up spot
with John having to settle for third from Willcocks.
On the last couple of
laps Rod noticed the ignition light had come on, so we set about
changing the alternator. This does take a while on our car, so we
missed the second race. John Cross broke his diff on the warm up lap
and John Willcocks sat it out as well, which left an easy run for
the Caterham.
With enthusiastic help
from various people such as Bill Richards, Andy Pipe, Andy
Woods-Dean we fitted the new part only to find the problem was not
cured. Various wires and tests were carried out to no avail so we
came home to charge up a couple of batteries. On Sunday Graham (the
Guru) Bahr who convinced us that nothing was wrong joined us. Indeed
when the engine was started the light went out. Strange, but true.
As is now common at Lydden we had too many cars for one grid so A, B
and I (saloons) went out first. Fortunately Rod set a good time
straight away, as on lap 3 a boost pipe came off. At least this was
an easy fix although we couldn’t get out for the rest of the
session. The result was that we were second behind David Oates, who
achieved his first pole position since joining the DT&R
championship.
The second row
contained an on form Peter Wilkinson and Nick Williamson followed by
birthday boy Bill Richards in his Metro Cosworth. Nigel Craig headed
class B, from Graham Bahr, John Willcocks and Steve Weatherley. Tony
Gorman brought out a very smart BMW M3 E36 whilst Andy Wickens
debuted his class B Ford Sapphire Cosworth. The first six minutes
race saw Rod snatch the lead straight away from David at the rolling
start. In fact all the four-wheel drive cars “mugged” the white
Tigra but all four cars were very close with Bill hanging on as
well. In class B Nigel had Graham Bahr snapping at his heels, whilst
a little further back a good three way dice had developed between
the two M3 variants and Steve Weatherley. David Smart was being
chased by Ray Adams, with Peter Reeve making up places after a
practice problem.
With Rod edging out a
slight gap all eyes focused on the second place battle. The red
Mitsubishi looked like it would pass the white Escort but Nick
resisted all the pressure. David also looked for a gap but could not
match the turbo cars grunt and he also had to worry about a certain
blue Metro. At the chequered flag the positions remained the same,
although only two seconds covered the runner up scrap. Craig held
off Bahr for class B honours, whilst Willcocks got the next place
from Weatherley and Gorman. The rest are listed on the results page
with Martin Dower taking the invitation class saloons, in his
standard Easytrack BMW. Some of these BMWs did seven races over the
weekend!!!