MAAALLORY

Race 5, and finally someone has a 2nd win. Of course it's not the race winner, that'd be far too easy...

QUALIFYING

Mixed saloons and XJS again. We don’t like it, we don’t want it, bloody well stop mixing us up. Dry track, normal surface, a T1R-shod XJS makes mincemeat of any saloon. Which means you’ve got fast saloons out there for whom 1/10^th might make the difference between 1^st and 3^rd spot, and they’ve got a mid-pack XJS in the way. It’s just not fair.

No shock in the XJS, Lyddall on pole. Only 2 V12s here, one of them a new driver in a car that’s never been competitive in anyone’s hands, Lyddall was never going to be under threat and takes comfortable 1^st.

Team-mate Harrison locks out the front row in the D class car, yet again the mixed qualifying benefits the slower car and puts him well out of position.

Palmer a fuming 3^rd, having been blocked by Merrett for every corner of the 15 lap qualifying. Merrett lies 4^th.

Webster 5^th, his best for a while, a tenth clear of great class E rival Ray Hill in 6^th. Drage heads a pack of D cars, a tenth clear of an improved Seath, Comer 9^th.

New boys Burton in the yellow 6 litre manual class G, and Gregory in the race-winning Kutuka class E car lie towards the rear of the XJS grid in 10^th and 12th. Not surprising on such a tightly-contested grid in perfect weather conditions with no opportunity to test beforehand, Gregory was sitting in an XJS race car for the very first time ever. Beecham splits the pair with glee, the roadgoing filler to a modified class sandwich.

We apologise unreservedly for the sandwich analogy.

RACE

A 17-lap charge round Mallory’s endless tedium, you can get dizzy if you race here long enough. Make no mistake though, with only 12 cars this is not an epic race, Autosport reported it as “sophorific.” Need I say more?

Interesting at the front. Half the cars on the grid gently rolling down Mallory’s sloped grid as they watch the lights, but only one was to get caught…

Lyddall was never going to be in danger and romped away immediately, but p2 was a sitting duck.. Harrison predictably slides over to slam the door on Palmer. Merrett, therefore unopposed, goes round the outside and slots into second before Gerrards, but is then slow in the corner, boxing in Harrison and allowing Palmer to hang on round the outside of both to create a 3-way gaggle down the back straight all the way to the essess.

Improbably late braking from Palmer almost has him off the road, but he just hangs on and is able to snort ahead of Harrison into the hairpin and latch onto Merrett’s tail. Brave, bold driving.

P 5 -9 though is a now-familiar story. Ray Hill and Roger Webster in class E cars, Ian Drage, Simon Seath and Philip Comer in D cars, it’s Beards v Skins in a fight of entertaining proportions. The E fight is over the last podium spot, the D scrap is for 2^nd in class.

At the rear of the pack Gregory initially made a good start, making up three places, then immediately losing two of them as discretion into Gerrards make more sense than a first-corner pile-up, but relegating Beecham to tail-end Charlie. Fellow rookie Burton also gets a good charge into Gerrards, but likewise takes one look at the crowd going into the first corner and decides that surviving your first race is more important than first lap heroics.

Lyddall extends a healthy lead in short order, the pursuing scrapping E class dual no match for the V12. Harrison languishes 4^th, unable to hold onto the E pace. Palmer’s greater experience soon tells and he sell a beautifully clean overtake to Merrett to take second place.

Lyddall has a 6 second lead in short order and backs off the pace. No need to destroy your opponent, a win is a win by a mile or a millimetre, he cruises in with a distant Palmer unable to match him and also backing off to serenely potter to the finish for his haul of E class points. With a championship to chase there’s no need to win the race, just your class.

Merrett has dropped off his tail after a few hot laps, and is so often the case with no-one to chase his pace drops off, so much so that the pursuing D class of 4^th placed Harrison starts to close in again. It is a situation we have seen so many times by now, the lead car without reference tends to slow and the chase car with a target to hound soon end up a battling pair.

Towards the rear and there’s an interesting duel developing between the new boys. Both in powerful modified cars but in their first race, we have a G class pilot who has tested the car, and an E class pilot who has never sat in a racing car until this morning. Burton extends quickly, but the learning curve is a steep one, and within a few laps Gregory dials in and begins to close him down again.

A little before half distance a penalty board is shown on the pit straight. Car 23, Lyddall, is given a 10-second penalty for a jumped start. He never sees it. Whether there is an issue with the board in terms of placing, colour, size, whatever who knows, but only one of the front 4 sees the board at all. That said, if one can see it, all should have…

The Hill/Webster/Drage/Seath/Comer battle is a mobile accordion. Seemingly joined by invisible elastic this quintet can neither make anything happen to effect a pass, nor break away from the car astern.

Hill has by far the most power of all of them, but with straights here being just not quite long enough the cams are only delivering that gutful of power for a few moments before it’s time to hit the anchors. Having overtaken Webster on lap 2 he has the Bearded One hanging a consistent 0.7 off the back bumper and can’t shake him.

The problem for Webster is he has the exact same thing happening in his mirrors with Drage astern by an identical margin. Behind this pair Seath is sniffing Drage’s exhaust, but Philip Comer does that which we see so often, closing him down inexorably until he can go for that late lean on the brake pedal, lap 4 sees him make the pass.

That squabble gives Drage clear mirrors and the time to set about Webster properly, which as Webster comes under pressure, and has himself a wibble at the hairpin, lets Hill finally get away.

The Burton/Gregory pursuit has now become a proper fight, they’re now together on track and Gregory has superior drive out of the corners and is looking to overtake. A clean outbrake into the essess looks most likely, but sadly impatience strikes and he tries a look round the outside at Gerrards. It’s a do-able move if you know the track, but to pop the nose out wide at the exact moment the corner tightens just asks the rear too much and the car spears nose-first into the infield Armco with sickening destruction. The car bounces out, spins again, and has just enough life left, and the driver with enough race sense, to roll onto the infield, the car written off.

Unaware of the penalty, Lyddall is still holding station at the front, Palmer is pegging him but not exactly pushing on either, the front end has become a demonstration drive.

Happily for the spectators the E v D battle is still on, and lap 10 sees Seath pay Comer back to regain his place, the scrap for the last glassware is fierce. Hill has a small 1.2 second gap to the Beard by this stage, but the Webster/Drage duel is still going, ¾ seconds between them lap after lap and precisely-placed green machine making Drage work hard for even a hint of a place to try.

With few laps remaining the Merrett/Harrison gap has narrowed inexorably and Merrett is suddenly slow exiting Gerrards, 3^rd and 4^th place hurtle into the essess side by side. Bigger brakes means Merrett wins that one, but is having such trouble at the hairpin there’s the world’s easiest overtake as his car is very slow on the exit, Harrison slides past unopposed back into 3^rd place.

At which point it becomes clear that Merrett is in real trouble. Only after the race does it become clear that he was nearly out of petrol and suffering terrible fuel starvation out of the corners, the car just not able to accelerate.

Nearly race distance, and at this point Bob Beecham decides his afternoon needs enlivening, runs wide into Gerrards and in trying to gather it all up has a spectacular tyre-smoking spin backwards off into the gravel trap. Fortunately the car is so heavy that he finds traction beneath the grit and drives out again to rejoin, he will finish the day!

Seath finds Comer slowing and is released from the chase, but Drage is too far ahead now to close down. Webster holds off Drage and grabs himself a second’s gap, Hill still out ahead of the gaggle. 17 laps, 22.95 miles, and still fighting, this lot could have gone on like this for hours!

Lyddall 1^st, Palmer 2^nd, Harrison 3^rd, classes G, E and D wins respectively. Only not. It falls to the unfortunate lady with the microphone to tell the drivers that unaware of the penalty for the jumped start, Lyddall did not beat Palmer by 10 seconds, and despite track position Palmer wins the race.

Merrett takes 4^th for class E 2^nd. Hill 5^th, Webster 6^th from Drage 7^th, Seath 8^th, Comer 9^th, Burton 10^th, Beecham a pebble-dashed 11^th. Gregory DNF-ed the hell out of it.

XJS WINNERS AND LOSERS

Winners

Chris Palmer – unexpected promotion to 1^st, he never saw Lyddall’s penalty board either, lucky as hell that Merrett’s challenge faded and Lyddall backed it off, but he still had work to do.

Kutuka Motorsport – 3^rd ever 1 – 2 quali, and the team’s second in succession, 2^nd and 3^rd in the race, shame about the death of the red car really!

XJS driver’s rep – Newly appointed Beardy Webster saved us a good £60 by having read the sneaky chocolate bar provision in final instructions and passing the message on, we knew we had him elected for a reason.

The midfield ruck – Webster, Drage, Hill, Comer, they’re all so close on track these days they might as well oil up and wrestle, if only Hill would grow a beard too the set would be complete. One theory is that their faces are magnetic and those are not beards but iron filings, they have to race together and in that order because physics says so. No-one wants to know which bit of Ray Hill or Simon Seath is magnetic.

Losers

Stewert Lyddall. – had the notification board been out for more than a lap he might have seen it and kept his foot in to win by more than 10 seconds, though that board was seen by other drivers so an argument can be made that pilot error is a factor. With such an easy margin over Palmer he backed off to save the car, and lost. Lesson in there somewhere, but equally there’s a lesson to learn if you don’t back off and blow it up – you can’t really win! We will note this though, there were at least 4 cars rolling at that start, only one got noticed.....

Paul Merrett – needs more petrol next time.

The spectators – 12 XJS don’t make a lot of noise.

Mixed quali – screwed up the grids again – class D cars don’t belong on the front row of the grid, give us some tarmac to set a real lap on.