Mallory Park from the pit wall 2009

Arrived Saturday afternoon and joined the huge queue waiting outside to get in, unfortunately there were a lot of the Jaguars in front of me and that might have caused a parking issue in the paddock if they get in first. With the Lister of Jefferys on the trailer it makes my outfit roughly 65' long, over 80' with the ramps out, not something that can be squeezed into a corner, ideally I need to go in first and get them all to park around me. When the gates were opened I decided to be a little rude and bully the other jags with my size so they would let me get in before them.

The only job left to do was to bed the new pads to the new discs that had been fitted, this was done by driving the car around the paddock for about five minutes using the brakes a lot but gently. When I returned to our encampment I found that the hire driver had arrived to check in with us before he went to find his hotel for the night. He was shown the car and the controls, the seat and belts were adjusted to fit him as he was quite a different size and shape to me, its the closest the car has ever been to its legal minimum weight.

Sunday morning and race day, it was quite a wierd feeling being there and not being the one racing, no sign on etc to do. I didn't have anything to do, I know I'm supposed to help Dermott as he's on his own but that's not till later on when it's getting close to qualifying.

I decided to aid the hire driver and scrutineer the car for him whilst he was getting his new drivers' briefing, in fact it worked rather well because I managed to get there before the majority of the other jags and I was actually through and about to head on back to our encampment when he showed up from his breifing to see if he was required to do anything.

Time for qual, Andrew and Stewert did the usual team plan and got to assembly early. I helped the hire driver get settled in the car and by the time he was ready and had arrived at assembly he was only three cars from the back of all the saloons and XJS that were once again merged for qualifying.

He asked me what he should do and Dermott told him to start off gentle, get used to the car until he felt a bit more confident and then try to quicken it up a bit, most of all have fun. All I said was drive it as a point and squirt car to start with and watch out the fast cars coming round, try to stay out of their way if possible.

Time to go out, a new, completely green driver who hasn't even practiced in the car before is about to take the team's pet monster out on a track that can really bite you in the arse if your not careful. Oh god, here goes.

On the pit wall brought back old memories from 07 when I wasn't a driver and I forgot how quick the cars looked from the outside. The first thing I saw was Andrew having a big lock up going into turn one on his first flying lap, about three stabs on the pedal if I counted right, not really the best way to start qual now is it? The red car came around staying out of the way of the others, that's one down without disaster, about another thirty more and all will be fine and we can go home.

Every lap he was getting more confident and his lap times were tumbling as well, you could see that he was getting braver all the time because he was giving it more death down the pit straight and going later and later on the brakes into turn one.

Over the entire duration of qual he managed to take 14 seconds off his lap time, not bad going really, thats almost a second a lap. I'll be interested when the results come out because I'll be surprised if he's last with that time.

RACE

I was surprised, because he was last. Only by a hair, but I knew if he got it off the line he'd be several places up by turn 1, it does accelerate well enough to hold off a V12. I was tempted to drag him out of the car and take the race for him, it's really hard to not race when you're there with it all happening around you and not getting to go and play. I gave him the Brands Hatch recipe for the start, but he had to watch for the sloping grid, no sense getting caught with a jump start. As it turned out, should have told Stew instead!

Sure enough he was about 3 places up by turn 1, but backed it off to avoid the turn 1 chaos. Probably a smart move, he slots in behind Burton far as we could tell. We were standing at the essess, a great place to watch the action, and lap 1 was a bit hectic. I thought Palmer was going off, he only just kept it on the track, and I thought Andrew would get him back into the hairpin, but he didn't have the power. Wish I'd had the red car in there.

Soon after we heard the announcement for Stewert's penalty for a jumped start, but he obviously didn't know because he was just holding his lead.

I saw the red car crash, only from where we were standing it looked as if it was just a spin, we'd no idea it was damaged until the first drivers came back in.

The Webster/Hill/Drage train was close all race, but apart from that, and maybe the few seconds of Andrew vs Merrett at the essess - I must get some big brakes like that - it was a pretty dull race, just not enough cars.

When the wreckage of the red car came in we knew straight away that it was dead, it was bent too far back to save. The driver was fine, but all the jokes we'd made about the red shed going to her death were right. Boring this track might be, but it's not very forgiving.

Winching the wreckage aboard wasn't too bad, once we got something to get hold of, the wheels were still on and facing the right way, and with the sump intact this time it wasn't even that messy, Andrew's car was spitting more coolant out than the red wreck!

I couldn't help but wish I'd been in the seat. Race win one week, destruction the next. That's gloomy.