24th June

This is the only weekend car meeting of the year at Combe after the demise of the GT/F3 meeting it has been replaced with the Dunlop Great and British meeting. How a BMW Mini can be considered great or British is beyond me but I guess the tyres are made in Birmingham so they must count. Because of the amount of races over the weekend the GT’s, Castle Combe Saloons and Dunlop Track and Race saloon races were held on the Saturday. As usual we got there early and had everything setup but 8.30am. Unusually the scruiteer came around to our pits, bit like sprints, which meant the crew didn’t have to push the car to and from the scruiteers which went down well. As is usual with motorsport you are either running around like a blue arsed fly or sat taking in the atmosphere. This time we were sat around taking in the atmosphere as the car was ready to go but we had a 3 hour wait until our qualifying session. 11.30 soon arrived and we were getting the car to the collection area, at last we had a nice day so there was no issues trying to decide what tyres to run. I take the first couple of laps to get settled into the car again. I then tagged on the back of a SR3 for a few laps until I was finally able to past it going over Avon Rise. As usual the MR2 was out on track and not going particularly quickly, as I came up to lap him he didn’t see me and pushed me onto the grass going through Westway. Net result a visor covered in mud, a car full of grass and part of the front splitter missing…I was not happy! I composed myself and got my head down for the next couple of laps, my mood soon changed when my lap timer showed a 1:12.06 lap which was my quickest so far. I was sure that I could beat this so really pulled out the stops for the last lap of qualifying, everything was going well until I caught up with the MR2 again, despite the frantic waving of blue flags by the marshals he managed to block me going throw Tower Corner and my lap went away….gutted. However I did qualify 15^th out of 28 cars so I was quite happy about that….plus I had beaten Simon for the first time by a shocking 6/100^th’s of a second! During the session I had noticed that the car was feeling a bit nervous through Folly and over Avon Rise but it felt ok for the rest of the lap so I decided to leave it as is.

The race was at 15:40 so we had another long wait before we were out on track again. Sitting in the pits watching a long line of damaged Ginettas going back to their pits meant that our time was getting closer. The weather was still very hot, we took a bit of a gamble on the tyre pressures. Problem is that we’ve never run with these hot temperatures before so we had no benchmarks to rely on. I off the grid and starting the out-lap, the rolling start is one of the best ones so far and I get on the gas early coming out of Camp make up one place before Folly and get along side Normal Lackford in his Radical Prosport, being on the outside of Avon Rise isn’t the best position and as Norman moves over to take his line I am faced with being on the grass again! This time I don’t loose to much time but Simon is right up behind me coming out of Quarry. He gets along side me going into the Esses and I yield to him this time…didn’t want a repeat of the last meeting as I’ve only just repaired the car! Simon disappears off into the distance and I find myself chasing Jeremy Irwin in his Rawlson GT. We run very close for about 6 to 7 laps and I am concentrating on him and a Radical SR3 which is breathing down my neck. My car just isn’t working properly and I’m having to work very hard to keep the pace which was mid 1.12’s. Having to work this hard was starting to have a toll on me and I was starting to struggle to keep pace with Jeremy, we got slightly separated by a lapping car and then I started to loose contact with him. The SR3 was still breathing down my neck and I was doing everything I could to keep ahead of him. There was some confusion with the blue flags and I accidentally let the SR3 and a ADR through, in all fairness though if they hadn’t got me then I think they would have passed me before the race was finished. By lap 13 I was struggling to stay in the 1.14s and my confidence in the car was starting to wavier. Just to add to these problems the engine was starting to misbehave which was causing it to die when I changed up a gear. I tried to keep a steady rhythm and hold position as there was only a couple of laps left. This I did, I finally crossed the line 16^th, my worse finish to date, although there were a lot more quick cars entered this time. That said I wasn’t overly happy with my performance and I need to do better next time. I also need to find out why the car was so behaving so badly in the chassis and engine department.

We have a 5 week break now before the next meeting, the "list" is back and I have a number of things to be done before the next meeting. Keep an eye on the race diary later in July for the low down on what has changed.

Thanks to Barry and Dave that helped out this weekend and hello to everyone that stopped by the pit.