24th March - Brands Hatch

Its 5am in the morning and I am getting ready for the trip up to Brands for the first race of the year, and of course the first race with the new engine. After the hassles with the fueling I am very apprehensive about this meeting but I need to do a shake down to make sure everything is ready for the Combe Championship this year. Justin and Barry have made the journey up as well to help out on the day. We arrive at the circuit at 8am and set about setting up. The brakes are bleed though again, this time with out the dramas of Silverstone. Soon the car is ready to go apart from the tyre pressures and we can relax a little. No sooner as we started to relax the pit announcement asks our group up to the assembly area ready for qualifying. Its just then I remember we haven’t checked the tyre pressures on the car. Barry and Justin do the sprint from the paddock to the assembly area in record time and get the pressures set before I set out on track. The grid is made up from Radicals, Caterhams, Lotus Elises of various tunes and the odd BMW. The day is overcast and bloody cold but its dry which is the important thing. Out on track it was pretty busy with the different speeds of the cars and the small circuit made getting a clear lap difficult. I haven’t driven at Brands for over 18months now and we have no testing time here so we just took a gamble on the setup of the car. Around most of the lap the car was spot on but I was getting some understeer coming out of Clearways. 15 minutes of qualifying and I am starting to get into a grove, the car is feeling very quick and my confidence is building. The good news is that at 17 laps the car only used 8 litres of fuel so we will have more than enough for the main race which is over 24 laps and we didn’t have any of the surge problems from Silverstone. The race is the last one of the day and is based on a handicap system. However in the briefing the organisers said they couldn’t sort out the handicap system in time. So they were going to use a sealed handicap system which was basically a name in a envelope and they win….sounded a bit odd to me but who am I to argue. Anyway we all made the trip to race control to get the qualifying sheets and I was greeted with something I’ve never seen before…my name at the top of the timing sheet and over a second ahead of 2^nd place man, a Radical Prosport. It was both an exciting yet scary moment, the thought of being at the front of the grid was an overwhelming one. Add to this I’ve never done a standing start before I couldn’t have picked a better place to try from! After the shock of finding the starting position we had a few hours to kill before our race, which was the last one of the day. Two races before ours the weather started to become overcast and you could feel rain in the air. This stayed the same until the race before ours when it turned into drizzle. Although the paddock tarmac is now totally wet the track didn’t look to bad. The racing line was dry-ish but off line was definitely wet. After some discussion with the guys I decide to stick to slicks as it really wasn’t wet enough for the wet tyres. I back off the suspension all round so the car is a lot softer to try and get some heat into the tyres. Sat in the assembly area the drizzle was still coming down, a few of the drivers were fitting wet tyres while we waited at this point I did consider copying them. I didn’t and I was soon being ushered to the grid, the view from pole position is one I’ll never forget…..you just see track infront of you no cars just tarmac. Then you look in the mirror and oh my god….so many cars behind you. We start the formation lap and I do my best to work out how much grip there is on track. It wasn’t to bad and I was reasonably confident of my choice to stick with slicks. I am soon on the grid waiting for the lights, red…red….off I drop the clutch and the car snaps sideways, I gather is up and snic 2^nd gear and the car starts moving forward, 3^rd and into Paddock hill. A quick glance in the mirrors and all I can see is headlights behind me….but at least they are behind me! The light is fading fast so the headlights behind just seem to get brighter. I hold onto the lead for 9 laps, it was a very surreal experience having an open track infront of me and so many cars snapping at my heals. I come out of Clearways and go to lap a Caterham that didn’t see me and causes me to back off. This gave the advantage to the Caterham CSR that had been sat on my tail and he gets past. The drizzle had become heavier and the surface is getting slippery. The mapping job Emerald did on the engine is perfect for these conditions, the power is smooth and progressive and easy to control in the conditions. The CSR, which was one of the cars to swap to wets, slowly starts edging away from me. The wet track is making it hard to put the power down. I maintain 2^nd upto lap 19 when I spot another Radical bearing down on me, again on wets, there is nothing I can do to keep him behind me so I leave him "racing room" to get by dropping me to 3^rd. I stay in this position until I cross the line. What a fantastic race, very happy with my finishing position. The car was faultless and couldn’t ask more of it. I’m really looking forward to the season now at Castle Combe. Thanks to Barry and Justin for their help during the day. Simon Tilling also popped along to offer moral support and supply the banter. At the time of writing I don’t know what happened with the handicap side of the race, personally I think the weather provided a better handicap than anything the organisers could do.