HELEN FROM THE DRIVER'S SEAT
MY 2nd FAVOURITE TRACK, BUT WHAT A LET-DOWN!
Nothing actually wrong as such, class win, class pole, fastest lap, 17 points, but I’m very disappointed. Next in class is Skeletor, 25 seconds down the road, so we’re not embarrassed, that’s a hell of a worthy opponent to beat, but it’s the fact I couldn’t get down to and better 2008 lap times that has depressed me.
In testing last year Angelina was pumping in 2.07s, circulating with Stewert, and this car is clearly better kit, but could I hell find the pace. THe rear end just didn't want to know, and without the rear working I can't turn it in with speed, I'm not big on oversteery insanity.
Lost the morning with a leaking water pump, and it was the odd kind with a shallow impeller, so despite tracking down 3 new spares they were all wrong.
As it turns out, this was the eventual problem found. We won't locate this issue til after Silverstone, but this break in the subframe, crudely welded up here, together with 3 of the 4 dampers having quit after only 12 months, is why it wouldn't go round the bloody corners all year!
Took to the track in the afternoon only, ran the engine in for the first 2 sessions, but still had a few wild moments before that, dropped oil had me straight off the track at the first chicane, and the last session was the first chance to get to grips with the track.
A Ferrari dropping all its oil put paid to that, but it was Stewert’s incredibly fast spin at Druids that red-flagged us, just as well or I’d never have found that my rad had been holed, something came through the grille sufficiently fast to rip 4 of the 6 bolts out that hold the protective mesh, bend it aside and go through the core, day over.
Very little full-attack testing then, which for me is a disaster because I don’t tune into a track very quickly, like to take my time to build up to full pace and find the car’s balance.
All that was therefore done in quali, which was slow. 2.09.7 all I could manage, nearly 3 seconds off last year. Couldn’t find the balance and my confidence to throw her in, so much oversteer and lack of grip yesterday from the spillages that I just didn’t have the balls to throw the car in, the proximity of Oulton’s barriers weighed heavy upon me and I never found the usual gung-ho assault mode. Basically I drove like a big lezzer.
5th on the grid, Stew a massive distance ahead, Palmer, Coppock, Merrett, all with an extra hundred horse, my only hope was Coppock and Merrett tangling.
Fortunately so it occurred, sort of. Bad start for Coppock and I went down his inside, stole the place at Old Hall. Merret run wide by Stew, on the grasscrete and I got him too, up to third.
Stew’s going round on the grass as Cascades, that’s 2nd place for me, but it looks like he’s coming back on and going to spear on in front of me so I got off the power, cover the brake til I realise he’s not, but that let’s Merrett back through, 3rd again.
Defending from Coppock quite well, he’s got power and brakes but I can corner faster and that gives me enough space to cover the middle of the road and defend, it’s halfway into the 2nd lap that it changes. Video sees me check the mirror exiting Knickerbrook, no problem, middle of the road up over the hump, then bang as a white wedge slams its way past and I'm heading for the grass with a sphincter going like a rabbit's nose.
Post-race he’ll claim I squeezed him, but it’s not what I recall, or indeed what the tape says happened. Just a V12 getting bored of the irksome D class successfully defending, if you’ve got the power and aggression you can play that game.
That’s me in 4th then, very angry is not the way to race and without the calmness to allow a smooth attack I’ve got no laptime to speak of, can’t catch him again, but fortunately a recovering Stewert in the mirror gives me a weapon to exact revenge with, so I hardly make it tricky for him to overtake, practically on the grass as I set my dog on the offending V12.
Sure enough I have an entertaining few laps then as a mobile spectator, nothing in the mirrors and a 3-car fight to watch, all tyre smoke and grit and grass, almost forgot to brake at Old Hall as I watched it all unfold, but the Lez gets p2 at the last corner of the last lap. Denies Coppock the class win, we’ll call that Helen’s revenge.
Bit of a dull, disappointing race then really, lap time is better than quali, but still about 2 seconds off what I wanted, and I really only started to play with the circuit at the end of the race, never brought my A game, and I’m still not happy with the car’s handling, that rear end needs to behave.
The class win and the timesheets are a mere formality, class D in the bag again, as I noted to Stewert and Bear, none of us have any pots this year but those for class or race winner, if we finish we always win, what we’re not doing is putting on that display of race-winning dominance, or stunning lap times, we’re not raising the bar, and that’s what we’re supposed to be about this year, it’s why I stayed D.
We await the return of some of the higher-calibre drivers to push the boundaries, where’s Darth Lock in that 6 litre to make Stewert raise his game? Where’s my balance gone so I can throw that car like I did in March at Cadwell? The thing I’ve got now won’t hit a flat 1.48 there, that’s for sure, and it did then with a list of mechanical faults, so what’s the deal here?
6 weeks til Silverstone to find out. Not that Silverstone tells us anything, the National circuit is not a D car track. As the head instructor noted when I sat my ARDS, this track is 4 corners, and if you can’t master 4 corners then you need to think about giving up – but that means there aren’t enough corners to make up any time, two long straights mean E and G will rule. Now the International, that would have been fun.
Injury of the week – I got burned. A lot.
Most-played in the garage – Def Leppard, pretty much all of them.
Helper of the week – The Bear.
POST-OULTON
Nothing. Nada, zip, zilch, the big goose-egg. We changed our mind about fixing Helen's handling woes and set about a mad rush to build a new red car. Maybe next week. Or the month after that.
POST-OULTON 2
Still nothing. Helen’s sat in the truck still. But I have ordered her an upgrade, so in theory I did something.
OK, let’s just skip to the end, Helen sat in the truck til the night before we left for Silverstone. I did nothing to her at all. Not so much as a clean, she got fuel for quali and loaded back up, flat battery and all. Not broken, nothing to fix I had parts for. No time anyway, red car build went on til 2am Friday morning!
