Kutuka broke cover again this weekend for their next round of the Classic Touring Car pre-93 championship, a bustling and busy 26-car assault on tarmac heaven – CadwellPark

In stark contrast to the Jaguar outings here, there would be 26 cars with no reported contact at the end of both races, and only one with any damage, a BMW with a broken headlight. Close, fast, and clean. We like that.

Kutuka fielded Helen, the still-stock-engined 4 litre car that we have rebuilt with a view to tackling the pre-83 series, but still scrapping it out with the newer stuff whilst we find our feet with this series. The recipe is really all wrong, low power, high weight, but damn it people, this is Cadwell, there is nowhere we go that is more fun to throw a tonne and a half of Jag.

Testing showed new pace. Some old problems, understeer that refused to be dialled out, and simply not enough horsepower for a truly impressive time, though we did crack into the 1.44s, which is heading for 3 seconds faster than the car’s previous best here, and pushed her still-rusty pilot into new and exciting levels of incompetence.

Qualifying put us 8^th on the grid, amidst a sea of properly-prepared and very expensive cars. An ex-Tim Harvey SD1 touring car, a fistful of Cosworths with more power than a number of gods, and some very shiny M3s with large pricetags appended. Sitting in the midst of this lot is the home-brew XJS and a driver wondering what the hell we’d got into. 8^th from 26 is a marked improvement over Mallory’s qualifying.

Qualifying’s gains could not be held onto in the race, baulked at the start by a slow-launching Cossie we dropped 2 places and regained one to finish 9^th, after an epic duel with a Renault 5 Turbo and a severely corner-challenged but potent Cossie, a close, breathless but clean scrap in the trees each lap but the six-pot Jag outrun along the straights. A red flag for the BMW that lost his headlight at Hall Bends allowed a second go at it, but p9 was all we could manage.

Race 2 was another slow Cosworth start, but the place we dropped was regained, and despite losing her gearknob and the head gasket Helen scrabbled home in 8^th. Great fun and no damage. More of this please.

We’re calling that a good day at the races. Two class wins, which was made rather easier by nobody else entering the class, and a handful of pointless points, but we had fun, a great weekend out in the park. And this time our position was on merit. No breakdowns or accidents, we earned 8^th, and that’s not nothing. We now have a clear idea of what we need, and Helen will now put her feet up for a well-earned rest whilst we re-assemble our wits.

Oulton Park in 2 weeks, and with Vanessa in action at OultonPark with the Jags in October, we’ll be throwing her at the pre-93s in Helen’s place by way of a shakedown, a chance to see what Vanessa can do with her day in the park.

Classic Touring Cars baby!