RACE 2

The race 1 result determines our starting order, so it’s Coppock on pole, Palmer second, Lyddall regains his third place from Alex Harrison, G v E for the front two rows. Class D scrap it out on row 3 as Seath and Harrison set themselves for a drag race to turn 1, and then it’s an E v D melee down to last-placed Bob Beecham. Merrett’s failed head gasket has the car out of action for this race.

Once again the saloons are on track with the XJS, their grid 30 seconds back, but sure to be a factor in the race as the annoying mixed race scenario, that only Lyddall wants, continues. Please can we have some more drivers, please?

Lights out and it’s cleanly away this time for both grids, no red flag today. 25 minutes of clean racing to follow, the race extended to make up for yesterday’s red flag. The subtext actually was that they were running behind on Saturday and the red was a great excuse to save some minutes they could give us back today by shortening the lunch hour for the boys and girls in orange. We didn’t really mind!

Coppock holds Palmer into 1, Lyddall his usual suicidal self looking for a gap to stick his snout, but no real opportunity this time, Palmer wise to this trick by this point and watching the mirrors carefully.

Alex Harrison bogs down by taking his foot off the accelerator at the wrong moment, possibly the most rookie-est mistake of his career to date, he drops to ninth off the line.

Seath v Harrison is a straight 4 litre drag race, one car with more power, the other possibly with more torque, Harrison has the inside line and takes turn 1 ahead. With good behaviour from both drivers there is room for both through the turn, and the pursuing bunch of Webster, Ramm and Drage are not compromised.

The recovering Alex Harrison once again makes his astonishing first lap assault, and overtakes Drage and Ramm along Revett, outbrakes Webster into the essess for the second day running, and swallows Seath along the pit straight, for the second race in succession lying 5th at the end of lap 1 and hunting his brother.

Ramm wins the drag race against Drage, and is only a second behind Webster, who in turn has Seath on 8/10ths off the nose as he seeks to repeat Saturday’s overtake.

Reynolds holds station, but Comer from the back row takes Gregory, 4 litre AJ16 v 3.6 AJ6 is a clean overtake for Comer’s vastly more experienced beard.

By lap 2 Coppock has the gap on Palmer up to 1.7 and is starting to extend as Palmer tries to shake the sideways shadow of Lyddall. The tyre disadvantage cannot be overcome on straight horsepower even here, but nobody told Lyddall to quit trying, and he’s only 7/10th off the boot of the R1R-shod machine. Neither traffic nor corners nor braking points can give Palmer the brief respite he needs to get his head down and run, but not far off his ultimate pace in any event it seems the 5.3 V12’s power is just enough to keep Lyddall in contention, but not quite enough to make the pass.

4-placed Harrison’s D machine is rapidly falling back, the gap is over 4 seconds to Lyddall at the end of lap 2 as the heavy roadgoing cars struggle with the endless straights. With brother Alex one second behind the inevitable pass occurs down Revett, armfuls of candy stolen from his 5th baby of the afternoon as Harrison breezes past Harrison.

The start has cost him though, Lyddall is now 6 seconds clear at the end of lap 3, and the chase looks impossible.

Class E power and light weight of both Webster and Ramm is telling, both overtake Seath on lap 3, revenge for Webster for the red flag of Saturday, and proof that the engine tweaks have delivered solid horsepower to set his beard a-bristle. It’s a straight point and squirt overtake for Ramm, who will now settle in to chase Webster for that all-important third in class, lap three ends with the gap still under a second.

Drage is now only 1.5 seconds behind Seath for p2 in class D, and with a target to hunt.is closing inexorably, it’s half a second by lap 4.

Reynolds a lonely 10th, 8 seconds behind this squabble, Comer next down the road, still doggedly pursued by the ever-improving Gregory the pair trade laptimes for much of the race. Comer has more power and greater experience, but still trying to get to grips with the car, Gregory’s lesser engine does power a more balanced machine and the duel is closer than expected.

The lead saloons caught the first of the XJS by lap 2, and their rise through the field to mix the grid up thoroughly was a feature for the XJS as high as p5, Dorlin and Bye catch all but the first 3 XJS, their overall race time very comparable with Alex Harrison’s E class in p3, their outright pace a shade lower but more consistent.

With the field merged by lap 5, saloons and XJS find themselves once again racing each other and cars of a different species. The ability to cut through traffic is largely dependant on horsepower here, and indeed it is a backmarker who finally sorts out the XJS race. Coppock has had Palmer a fairly constant 2 seconds from lap 3 onwards, but Palmer has Lyddall swarming his mirrors and they are not falling back as would be expected, in fact the gap decreases slightly until the decisive moment on lap 8.

Coppock crosses the line with 2 backmarkers between himself and Palmer, the resultant time lost gives Coppock another 2 seconds on his lead, and that’s game over. Coppock looks to have a little pace in hand and to be measuring the gap, he’s now well comfortable up from and extends that lead to 6 seconds. Palmer tries to close him down again, but realistically that’s job done for the XJRS up front, those 6 litres really telling down the long straights.

Palmer still has the pesky T1R-shod V12 in the mirrors, and can’t shake him. The pair are locked in a very close duel lap after lap, there is minor contact – minor cosmetics only – as they trade paint in one hairy close-up moment, but Palmer defends beautifully, covering his lines to hold Lyddall at bay.

Alex Harrison in 4th is still in pursuit and holding station ten seconds down the road, he closes slightly on this fight but doesn’t have enough extra pace to dent that lead sufficiently, back-markers provide the sport in a somewhat lonely race.

Andrew Harrison in 5th has a dozen seconds over p6 by lap 4, and with no hope of pursuing the leaders at this power-oriented circuit, backs off the pace to hold station in a similarly solitary race, by lap 6 he can see neither the car in front or behind, and cruises to an unremarkable 5th place.

Webster still has Ramm hanging off the boot, but appears to have the measure of the orange-nosed machine, the gap is a second and staying that way, but Ramm gets a good run at lap 8 and closes it to 4 tenths, forcing the Beard defensive as the duo face both backmarkers and the flying coupes of both Bye and Dorlin. In the ensuing chaos Webster makes the better job of both hacking past the traffic and allowing through the saloons to break clear, first Bye getting between them, and then Dorlin and Pearce diving into the melee. Ramm drops huge amounts of time to emerge on lap 10 now some fifteen seconds behind Webster, that duel decisively terminated.

Gregory is still chasing Comer, it’s a 5 second gap but staying that way, fluctuating up and down by as much as 2 seconds per lap as they contend with blue flags and faster cars, until something finally gives, Gregory overcooks it coming out of the essess and spins. He regains the track, but the 30 seconds lost ends that race, he regains in front of Bob Beecham. Bob’s sensible run as tail-end Charlie is probably the hardest job in the field as he has to contend with not only the track but every other car that dances in his mirrors, he may well be the busiest and most-aware driver on the entire grid.

The breathless E v G duel reaches its conclusion on lap 15, as Lyddall, closer than ever, powers across the line only 2/10th behind and accelerates round a back-marker into a desperately-late move on the brakes. Palmer’s superior grip and big brakes count though, and Lyddall has neither, and can’t make it stick, flicking the car sideways to avoid collision he spins and stalls the car, stationary across the track at turn 1.

Team-mate Alex Harrison encounters this sphincter-constricting sight as he rounds turn 1, and flashes past to take third as Lyddall tries to get the car moving again. Lyddall lies 4th, just ahead of the final Kutuka Motorsport car of 5th placed Harrison as the race enters its final phase.

Class D has developed a fascinating scrap for p2, Seath and Drage are fighting tooth and nail for position. By lap 5 the pair are half a second apart, and the gap is never more than a second, sometimes only a few hundredths as they jockey for position. Seath has the harder job to do in defence, but has the greater experience of XJS racing, and probably more power. Drage’s karting background leaves him unfazed by close proximity, but these 1.6-tonne barges are a little bigger to get around, and he piles on immense pressure lap after lap in the hope of forcing a mistake from the wily Seath.

It’s still only 3/10th in it by lap 11, which is getting on for 20 miles of nose-to-tail racing, and something has to give. Lap 14, and a mistake from Seath loses the place, he’s ten seconds adrift and scrambling to recover. With clear air he is actually slightly faster, but the damage is done, Drage takes second, Seath 3rd.

Reynolds has no XJS to play with for position, so has turned getting lapped into a sport, he races any saloon or XJS he encounters, and is locked in battle with Kirkham in the XJ Motor Services X300 for several laps. With the field so chaotic after 25 minutes of racing the marshalls have lost track of who is racing who, and blue flags have largely been abandoned by this point, making this a free-for-all.

As the final lap unfolds after this extra-long race, it is Coppock a dozen seconds in the lead, Palmer having backed off when the Lyddall threat faded. Alex Harrison takes 3rd and 2nd in class, rueing what might have been but for that start.

Lyddall 4th, his tyres gone and with no answer after his do-or-die move, but nobody can claim he didn’t give the T1R tyre a bloody good go against the new rubber. In fact it’s close enough that there has to be a question about just how much better the R1R is against a well-driven T1R car.

That question is repeated in p5, Andrew Harrison having had a Sunday afternoon cruise without any drama, or seemingly any effort, an easy 50 seconds clear of the class without troubling the limits of the new rubber.

Webster a splendid drive to p6, Ramm 7th, Drage 8th from Seath in 9th. Reynolds 10th leads Comer from Gregory, Beecham surviving the traffic in 13th.

Conclusions about the new tyre are hard to read. It’s clearly faster, but how much faster we cannot really say. Lyddall on T1Rs was under a second slower than Coppock’s mighty 6 litre on R1Rs. The same difference may have been apparent on the T1R. Palmer was not a deal faster than his T1R time, though Alex Harrison did take a second off his previous best how much of that was new differential rather than grip?

Class D have struggled significantly. Though Harrison demonstrated that there was pace to be found on the tyre, he cruised in with laptimes that a T1R would sneer at in an attempt to try and save the rubber, but the wear evident on the car was enormous, 2nd placed Drage similarly lamenting massive tyre damage despite no additional speed. The tyre at this stage is not working for class D.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

WINNERS

Coppock - a solid double win, the car is sorted, no argument, he has the power.

Palmer - a perfect weekend.

Toyo T1R tyres - come back old friend, all is forgive. Shown to be, so far, probably every bit as fast as the new rubber when used properly, and about half the price...

Webster - 3rd in class both days, the upgrades work!

LOSERS

Alex Harrison - cocked up the start and ruled himself out of a Palmer hnnt.

Lyddall - do or die didn't do. Brave, but p3 on the T1R hanging off Palmer's boot would've been a very loud statement. P4 somehow sounds much worse.

Andrew Harrison - the same perfect weekend as Palmer, but without any hint of his excitement, a solitary Sunday drive.

Philip Comer - hating the new car and a worried man, down in the beard about his purchase.