CADWELL

The Cadwell weekend every year is the controversial one. It’s that part of the season, with championships having taken shape and the rivalries established, the pressure is on just as the cars get to this, the most demanding, narrow, tortuous track of the season.

In the last 3 seasons of coming here, since I began racing with the XJS, I have counted 18 XJS collisions. Some with the scenery, some with each other, and 6 of them in one go in the infamous 2007 startline incident when our hero Lyddall stalled it on the line and half the grid drove into each other.

Added to the pressure is the nature of the track itself. With so many important corners and fewer power-dependant straights, class D cars tend to run higher up the grid here than anywhere else, and with the weather always a wild card there have been some unexpected qualifyings in recent years.

As we head into the Cadwell weekend it has all become a bit tight in the championship standings. It is a two-way fight for the overall title, Palmer v Andrew Harrison, the latter with a commanding lead. Un-noticed by many though there is a stealth attack being mounted by Alex Harrison, who with back to back victories at Mallory and Silverstone has closed right up on Palmer and could yet mount a challenge for both class E and even the overall title.

The points position is such, however, that by taking points off Palmer to further his own challenge, The Bear inadvertently assists his brother extend his own lead over both himself and Palmer, putting himself in an impossible position. Mathematics says that if Bear takes a clean sweep of class E points this weekend he will be on level pegging with Palmer, but if Andrew does the same trick in class D he will win the overall title this weekend.

With this in mind the only way for Palmer to rescue his title challenge is to finish ahead of the Bear, and to hope for problems for Harrison. Just one of the two wouldn’t do, he needs both. That’s the maths, and we’d all done the sums.

TESTING

So few testing that it was a free for all on track, the Harrison duo playing chase, a Webster getting his eye in at what he confesses to be his most challenging track, but no other XJS. A mixed wet and dry day gave the testers the best of both worlds, practice here is everything.

QUALI

A reduced grid, but then it’s only a week since Silverstone. BCB is back, but Beecham is missing, car still in the shop after a certain E class smote it last weekend. 11 cars only, but no less busy for that. Merrett’s V12 is back and apparently now reliable, but Coppock’s car is missing, he loathes the track and you couldn’t pay him to be here.

As the rain came down there was one lesson that once again the XJS grid failed to learn. It’s raining, but it has been heavy, it’s quite light now, but it looks like returning. In such conditions the only way to play is to go as fast as you dare immediately. The track will dry slowly, but if it rains it’s going to get worse, lap 1 might be the driest of the lot, so you must go for it right out of the box. Anyone watching F1 knows this, so how come few seem to actually apply it?

The Harrisons were, as ever, lined up for qualifying two days early, anxious to apply their own reasoning and not get held up by drivers wanting to play themselves into the track. As the cars were released both set about the customary game of chase. Both immediately dropped the rest of the grid by a substantial margin, any one of their laps was good enough for the front row and the only question in these difficult, greasy conditions was whether E class power and agility or D class traction would win the day.

Reinforcing the golden rule that testing makes for speed, no other car would come within 3 seconds of either car, Kutuka stole row 1, Bear 0.8 clear of his brother, p3 a full 4.5 seconds adrift of pole.  

The battle was therefore for 3^rd, and the question really was whether Lyddall at a track he hates on the slickest, oldest, baldest tyres he could find, could beat Palmer on the fresh, fat R1Rs, the widest tyre on any car on this grid. Lyddall has been seen to pull out some remarkable results in the wet, and we shouldn’t forget that he has won the last 4 races here basically by qualifying well and then blocking the track like a fat bloke wedged in McDonalds’ doorway.

No. It’s too much to ask, grip wins. Palmer, despite a heavy off at Park that battered in every panel on the nearside, lies third, Lyddall 4^th, but it’s a gloomy place for Chris to be sitting. Championship rivals both ahead of him, and the notoriously competitive Lyddall alongside, known for his ability to gain places into turn 1 at any track on the calendar.

The rain resumes, hampering those who are still learning the track, and whilst many will set their fastest laps later in the session, the truly quick ones are put in on laps 2 or 3, reinforcing the lesson.

Some drivers are here for the first time, or at least the first time in many years. BCB, returning after a long sleep, demonstrates that track time is vital here, his lap times tumbling by handfuls of seconds with each lap, but ending up off the pace due to the premature end to the session, just didn't get enough track time to re-learn the place before the red flag.

In these conditions big-power cars like the Merrett V12 struggle, and he would qualify a disappointing 10^th.

The real drama, however, was indeed at Park, but not Palmer’s collision with the tyres. Ian Drage, his braking point compromised by the treacherous conditions, goes straight on in an accident reminiscent of last year’s Comer crash, his XJS mounting the tyre wall with sufficient ferocity to park the car atop the wall like a bizarre monument, red-flagging the session.

Despite the off, Drage takes 5^th place with a respectable time, the class D weight and traction evident as he staves off Webster and Ramm in more potent machinery, they take 6^th and 7^th. Seath grabs 8^th, Comer uncharacteristically low down in 9^th.

LAPTIME GAPS.

Pole to p2 – 0.8 seconds. Pole to last place – 17.4 seconds
Class E 1^st to 2^nd – 4.4 seconds. 1^st to last in class – 8 seconds.
Class D 1^st to 2^nd – 5.4 seconds. 1^st to last in class – 16.6 seconds
Class G 1^st to 2^nd – 5.5 seconds.

RACE

First casualty of the race is Bruce Cologne-Brookes, whose car took a look at he track in the dry on the green flag lap, and decided it wasn't going to play, he would retire without completing the first lap. That irritates more than collision damage, to go to all that effort to get there and not even take to the track is the ultimate in frustration.

For the ten brave souls who got to play, Cadwell is all about grid position. Qualifying sets the grid position, grid position determines where you’ll be off the line, your start controls where you are after turn 1, and the chances are where you are after the first corner is roughly where you’ll be at race end. For those whose qualifying didn’t go to plan, the launch from the startline to turn 1, maybe 300 yards, is the best chance to change their fortunes.

There is, however, a spoiler in the pack, because it has now dried out, and the sun has baked the track into grippy but green tarmac, and there’s a class D car on the front row of the grid. For row 2, the modified cars of Palmer and Lyddall this is a real problem, because the track is narrow, and D cars do not launch well at all, their initial traction is better than any, but after we’ve covered 30 yards the weight and power penalty comes in as if they drive into molasses, just as the mod squad come on song. We are about to have two cars firing into the back of another that is proportionately slowing.

Palmer needs to clear Harrison to hunt Bear, Lyddall needs to pass everyone for the hell of it. Lights out and Harrison gets moving first, there is a brief instant in which the class D machine leads the race, but it lasts about half a second as Bear gets the E car rolling and fires into the lead. Palmer, not held up by the Bear’s unexpectedly good start, follows him through up the inside ensuring the door isn’t closed on him, and Lyddall smells some space in the pit exit, storming down the outside with two wheels occasionally on the grass to make it three abreast.

Palmer and Lyddall clear Harrison, and go into turn 1 with Lyddall edging ahead for p2 simply by not lifting off as much, two places gained. Palmer, held in tight by this move has had a dab of the brakes, but Harrison hasn’t and he catches back up, Palmer finding the blue machine unexpectedly alongside and having to yield to it as the cars go into turn 2.

As the cars head onto the back straight it is Kutuka 1,2 and 3, Harrison, Lyddall, Harrison, with Palmer 4^th, the worst possible outcome for him, three serious contenders ahead, none with any interest in letting him by.

The action in the pack is again all about a class D car out of position. Drage’s D class has three modified cars behind it, and every one of them mugs him on lap 1. Webster and Ramm make great starts and both take Drage off the line. Merrett goes even better, he jumps three places on lap 1 alone to join onto Ramm’s tail, the car’s power not in question now that there is traction to be had.

Down the back straight and Palmer fails to mug Harrison for third place, a real problem as the cars head into the technical back section of track, he remains likely stuck there until the end of the lap now, with Bear in the lead now given nearly two minutes to make hay.

Comer lies last. As a previous class winner here he is decidedly off form, and his bravery is not in question – though he may have been a bit more cautious at Park this year! – suggesting that perhaps his car’s agility isn’t quite what it might be.

Lyddall’s lack of grip now bunches p2-4 together through Chris curve, and as they leap at the Gooseneck Harrison makes an unexpected move and dives past him on the brakes, taking 2^nd place back again. Crucially this gives Harrison a buffer between himself and Palmer, and a brief opportunity to escape. They might not be racing each other for points, but there are overall podium slots at stake.

This leaves Palmer with a big white rear end to look at, the problem being that this V12, even with the power drain that car has suffered, is still a match down the straights, and though it has no grip at all in the corners it can still be positioned to make life awkward.

Webster has a windscreen full of Palmer, and his form of late is such that the Beardy of old, who would dismiss any chance of passing him, is instead looking at the white and green machine ahead and considering its weaknesses.

As the lap ends it’s Harrison from Harrison, Lyddall still ahead of Palmer, but under serious pressure. Palmer takes his chance at Park, moving to the outside and braking later he is able to take the place from Lyddall with the greater grip of those 245 R1Rs, he is back where he started, and in the dry he clearly has the legs on the blue car in p2.

Closing on the D car ahead it is, however, a game of patience, because though different classes this is a fight for p2 overall, and p2 means a lot more to a D car than it does to an E, and he isn't going to just roll over.

It’s the end of lap 2 before he cruises past on raw power, the Bear has had 2 laps to establish a lead. The strange thing though is that he hasn’t really, there is only a hundred yards in it, and the race is on. Harrison hasn’t given up on p2 though and there is a moment reminiscent of 2009 as the duo head into turn 2, but there are more sober heads at work this year, with an eye on his points Harrison doesn’t mount an attack, clearly not taking any chances today.

Down that long, sweeping, rollercoaster straight, and Palmer makes use of those huge brakes to spin neatly off the track at Park, losing not only p2 again, but 3, and 4, Lyddall and Webster sweeping by.

Ramm’s car is in trouble. Laying a smokescreen like Hollywood special effects, he is well off Webster’s pace, and being heavily harassed by a resurgent Merrett, laptimes near identical and only half a second between them. It’s all in the exit from Barn where it counts, one clean exit close enough astern and Merrett will simply breeze past.

Drage is falling back from this battle already, but he has the legs on the pursuing Seath, at least in this early phase of the race.

Palmer is back on track fast, and on the attack, the race is lost but he hasn’t quit, can still score more points. It takes several laps before Palmer gets close enough and threatening enough to challenge, it is lap 5 before Webster sees the body language of the pursuing car astern and makes a judgement call, correctly deducing that logic and sanity have been replaced with raw aggression he moves over to cede the position. It is a measure of The Beard’s progress of late that in the midst of a heated tail-chase with Lyddall he makes a calculated decision to allow another machine past in the hope that he will benefit from what he assumes will be a collision between Palmer and Lyddall.

He is immediately proven correct. As the cars dive down the gooseneck Palmer goes for the late brake move, but Lyddall learned his lesson on lap 1 and the door is shut. With nowhere to go and no hope of making the corner Palmer rams Lyddall in the nearside rear quarter, tipping the V12 into wild oversteer even as he himself spins off the track up the escape road.

Wild oversteer is, however, Lyddall’s natural state, he simply collects the slide and continues, the incident a mere inconvenience, battle is rejoined with the ever-faster Webster.

At the front The Bear is unhurriedly, lazily extending his lead, he only bothered to set one vaguely competitive lap, a 1.48.9 on lap 3, nowhere near the capacity of class E machinery, but still, bizarrely, fast enough for fastest lap. Behind him brother Andrew has also lifted off the moment Palmer span off the road, with no hope of catching the leader and no chance of being caught by Lyddall he is also cruising some 4 seconds per lap off dry weather pace, the race at the front is over and done, nothing at all will happen to the two leaders for the rest of the afternoon.

It is a measure of the decline of Lyddall’s machine and grip that he is still some 3 seconds per lap slower than p2, and nearly 5 slower than his own pace in 2009. Webster is all over him, and faster, but there are few places to pass here unless you really sell the move, and Lyddall drives a wide car.

Palmer rejoined without losing a deal more time, and is soon back on Webster’s tail. Reasoning that it will happen again, Webster once more lets him through almost immediately and settles in to watch the chaos.

Man on the move is Merrett, he did indeed get that run he needed and Ramm’s smoke machine falls victim to that big V12 on lap 4.

The class D fight astern is, however, not really making any ground. Drage is 4 seconds clear of Seath and extending, Seath and Comer are swapping lap times but holding station, this fight is an intense stalemate. The clouds of tyre smoke coming up at the foot of the mountain each lap spoke to a large tyre bill for someone, they were certainly trying, but it is Ramm making the most of his special effects, the car is dramatically unhealthy.

Lap 6 and Ramm’s machine runs out of most of its vital fluids, he retires to the paddock in the nick of time to avoid mechanical damage, but the car is out of the race.

Still snoozing at the front the Harrison duo are ever slower, by lap 8 Bear is 17 seconds clear of his brother, p3 another 19 seconds adrift. It is at this point that Palmer, stymied by Lyddall’s defence, and frustrated to the point that he had begun foaming at the mouth, makes a beautiful and clean pass to take third place back.

The extended race time – this is a 20-minuter for some reason -  leaves him two laps to do something more, but it is an impossible task. Nobody can catch up nineteen seconds in two laps. He manages nearly eight against the sleeping leaders, but it could never be anything like enough.

Webster’s plan to watch p3 and 4 kill each other has failed, leaving him setting about Lyddall again, but he doesn’t have the car to make it stick against a wary V12, and won’t make it stick before the flag.

Merrett is comfortably clear of Drage, who in turn is nicely clear of Seath right up to the last moment, Seath hauls him in on the last lap as Drage measures his gap to the flag, but there is only 6/10^th in it at the flag from a one-time lead of some 4 seconds. Comer comes home in last place, somewhere we are not used to seeing him ever before.

At the flag then it is the Bear tasting his third win in succession, 21 seconds clear of his brother, to win the class and take a perfect set of points. Palmer’s late run is not enough to salvage fastest lap, which is critical in their points duel.

Harrison second, 12 seconds clear of the recovering Palmer for another class win and a set of perfect points. One more such day tomorrow could win the XJS title.

Palmer third, with a very damaged car. The qualifying damage is joined by a stoved in front end, and the machine still sports the scars of Cadwell Park from 2009. A good recovery drive cannot disguise the errors made here today, and the frustration evident in the pilot is a reflection of it. P3 is nothing to be ashamed of, and passing Lyddall twice is no mean feat, but the issue is bigger than that, it is the effect on the title fight that causes the damage.

Lyddall 4^th and lucky to be there. His run of wins is broken, the car likewise clearly no longer competitive.

Webster 5^th, not a bad position for someone not at all keen on this track, third in class keeps him nicely clear of Ramm in their duel for p3 in class overall.

Merrett’s 6^th is nice progress from his lowly start position, and he may well make more ground tomorrow from there.

Drage 7^th, leading the D class squabble, a huge 49 seconds behind the class leader but still taking 2^nd in class in a car that had to be beaten with hammers and squeezed back into shape to get it into action again.

Seath 8^th, Comer last of the finishers and unusually subdued here.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Winners

Alex Harrison. Pole by a lot, race win with ease. The only caveat to this is that he was not actually fast today at all, his quick lap was hugely off the pace. But that pole lap was superb, that alone won him the race.

Andrew Harrison. Class win without problems, and 2^nd overall represents his best finish of the year. So much for the rule changes slowing D cars down. Again, the caveat here is that pace was nowhere near the limit, the car in this trim is proven to be capable of 1.47 laptimes here.

Roger Webster. An interesting mix of aggression and planning. Not a stellar finishing position, but there is a lot to be said for a brain that’s capable of playing chess when stuck up someone’s bootlid, his ascension from true cretiny is noted.

Losers

Chris Palmer. A spirited recovery drive should be applauded, but when the recovery requires another recovery it loses its shine. Compared to where the car should have been, this was a crap day.

Ramm – mechanical failure denied him the chance for a decent finish.

Philip Comer – way off the pace, and we really don’t know why. He is better than this.