Seconded.....
Absolutely Brilliant Weekend.
By Monday night I was exhausted...falling asleep on the motorway exhausted!
First thing on Saturday morning my car had no rear end and as the bellhousing had only just been re-welded after a shunt at Brands!! Anyway Dave and I worked form 10am to 10pm to get it together. That plus a late night then a 5:30am start (really Richard) on Sunday to finish it off. Got oil pressure eventually and we headed over to Dave’s house to finish off his Jedi as he was also racing the next day.
Jedi Complete we headed out to Combe and got there for 8pm where Rivett was already waiting/making friends/being worshiped by combe regulars/going to the pub with strange men. Anyway we got a space in the paddock and had plenty of time to unload and set-up!
We got up early (well 7:30am) and enjoyed a bit of a chill before qualifying as the cars were ready to roll! I had two sessions for qualifying as I was doing the open single seater fun race at the end of the day. I was a bit pensive before teh action started at Combe is known for being a really specialist circuit (teh champiosnhip only uses one track so teh locals are good) and "outsiders" historically never do taht well there.
First qualifying went well and I found my feet again after a 2-month break. This was the first time I had driven the circuit properly in the dry save for a terrible test day last year when my brakes kept failing! It started off bit damp and then dried - shame because I was consistently third or fourth on the timing screens in the damp! Anyway it dried, and I got held up by backmarkers on every quick lap I did but managed ninth - so not too bad and in the top ten! Meanwhile Dave's engine dropped a valve in the monoposto qual session after only two laps so he was going to miss that race and use his dad's car in the open fun race.
I managed to knock another half second off my first qual time in the second session (for the open fun race) to get down to a 1:13.4 which landed my 14th overall and top formula ford (we were in with all kinds of single seaters with a lot more power and wings!). Dave was awesome and put it on pole out of everyone a second a lap quicker than his dad in the same car! His little brother wasn't too shabby either in sixth. Matt didn’t do this session, as he wanted to concentrate on FF1600s.
It kind of went a bit wrong about 1pm.......Dave's dad got tripped up by a backmarker whilst running third in the monoposto race and knocked three corners off his car! The decided that instead of taking three corners off Dave’s car (with the blown engine) that it would be quicker just to swap the engines, make one car form two so Dave could take up his pole position for the race later. So with Dave swapping engines I was left without a helper, which was a shame because......
It rained shortly before the race prompting everyone to put on wet settings. We went to the collection area, and waited, and waited, and then to the grid.......and it had dried out! With no helper to change the rollbars and damper settings I was in trouble (as I watched everyone else on the grid change them!) Matt's dad very kindly dropped my tyre pressures to dry so that would limit the damage!
I got a good start and got up to around seventh when I started going backwards, with these settings the car wasn’t working and I was getting wasted! I dropped back to around tenth or eleventh whilst I waited for the tyres to get hot (with the car so soft it could work the tyres hot enough to make them grip) finally they did and the car started to grip, and I was on one.......bit of a collision at the second chicane with Matt's championship rival (his fault) and I soon picked of Chris Acton, Bob Higgins and then started to reel in Paul Barnes. I managed to lunge him into camp on the penultimate lap only to miss a gear and allow both him and Bob Higgins to get along side me! We went three a breast, but Barnes bottled and I got squeezed allowing Higgins through again. I made a move round the outside of hammerdown (a flat out right hander) and stayed on the outside throughout that whole section, through the very fast Tower corner and stuck there until the second chicane where we both ran wide (no a lot of room there) and Bob spun leaving me with one corner to go to the flag and sixth place and a 1:12.9 so another half a second off! Matt and fastest lap with a 12.1 so 8 tenths off with semi-wet settings - Brill!!
Dave meanwhile gave up with the engine change so was unable to take up his pole for the fun race. It absolutely lashed it down just before and it was super wet. Some people got caught out with wet tyres and didn’t make the start and some pussied out on the green flag lap as it was too wet! I didn't work my tyres hard enough on the green flag lap so despite my good start I got passed for the FF1600 lead on lap two and lost a fair bit of time. I soon got it dialled though, and started Reeling in Nelson Rowe (the leader) unfortunately I pushed too hard and spun putting me down to fifth! I managed to pull it back to third in the end but no worries - its a fun race! Still had fastest lap by almost a second and was only a tenth slower than Dave's brother in his 180hp slicks and wings Jedi!
All in all a great day. Two races, little sleep and early mornings took their toll though and I was in bed early with my wrist aching still! (I have now bought a support for it until its all better!)
It was so much fun my next race is going to be......................... Castle Combe - 25th June
ps - I have already cracked my fancy nose cone! Alex Ames cut me up passing me in his F3 car in the fun race, then slammed on his brakes for the corner leaving me no where to go......so I hit him up the gearbox (wheels locked trying to avoid a big accident) which was enough to crack my nose and enought to tip him into a spin ending in the tyre wall. I guess F3s have better better brakes than FF1600s, sorry Alex.........
By Monday night I was exhausted...falling asleep on the motorway exhausted!
First thing on Saturday morning my car had no rear end and as the bellhousing had only just been re-welded after a shunt at Brands!! Anyway Dave and I worked form 10am to 10pm to get it together. That plus a late night then a 5:30am start (really Richard) on Sunday to finish it off. Got oil pressure eventually and we headed over to Dave’s house to finish off his Jedi as he was also racing the next day.
Jedi Complete we headed out to Combe and got there for 8pm where Rivett was already waiting/making friends/being worshiped by combe regulars/going to the pub with strange men. Anyway we got a space in the paddock and had plenty of time to unload and set-up!
We got up early (well 7:30am) and enjoyed a bit of a chill before qualifying as the cars were ready to roll! I had two sessions for qualifying as I was doing the open single seater fun race at the end of the day. I was a bit pensive before teh action started at Combe is known for being a really specialist circuit (teh champiosnhip only uses one track so teh locals are good) and "outsiders" historically never do taht well there.
First qualifying went well and I found my feet again after a 2-month break. This was the first time I had driven the circuit properly in the dry save for a terrible test day last year when my brakes kept failing! It started off bit damp and then dried - shame because I was consistently third or fourth on the timing screens in the damp! Anyway it dried, and I got held up by backmarkers on every quick lap I did but managed ninth - so not too bad and in the top ten! Meanwhile Dave's engine dropped a valve in the monoposto qual session after only two laps so he was going to miss that race and use his dad's car in the open fun race.
I managed to knock another half second off my first qual time in the second session (for the open fun race) to get down to a 1:13.4 which landed my 14th overall and top formula ford (we were in with all kinds of single seaters with a lot more power and wings!). Dave was awesome and put it on pole out of everyone a second a lap quicker than his dad in the same car! His little brother wasn't too shabby either in sixth. Matt didn’t do this session, as he wanted to concentrate on FF1600s.
It kind of went a bit wrong about 1pm.......Dave's dad got tripped up by a backmarker whilst running third in the monoposto race and knocked three corners off his car! The decided that instead of taking three corners off Dave’s car (with the blown engine) that it would be quicker just to swap the engines, make one car form two so Dave could take up his pole position for the race later. So with Dave swapping engines I was left without a helper, which was a shame because......
It rained shortly before the race prompting everyone to put on wet settings. We went to the collection area, and waited, and waited, and then to the grid.......and it had dried out! With no helper to change the rollbars and damper settings I was in trouble (as I watched everyone else on the grid change them!) Matt's dad very kindly dropped my tyre pressures to dry so that would limit the damage!
I got a good start and got up to around seventh when I started going backwards, with these settings the car wasn’t working and I was getting wasted! I dropped back to around tenth or eleventh whilst I waited for the tyres to get hot (with the car so soft it could work the tyres hot enough to make them grip) finally they did and the car started to grip, and I was on one.......bit of a collision at the second chicane with Matt's championship rival (his fault) and I soon picked of Chris Acton, Bob Higgins and then started to reel in Paul Barnes. I managed to lunge him into camp on the penultimate lap only to miss a gear and allow both him and Bob Higgins to get along side me! We went three a breast, but Barnes bottled and I got squeezed allowing Higgins through again. I made a move round the outside of hammerdown (a flat out right hander) and stayed on the outside throughout that whole section, through the very fast Tower corner and stuck there until the second chicane where we both ran wide (no a lot of room there) and Bob spun leaving me with one corner to go to the flag and sixth place and a 1:12.9 so another half a second off! Matt and fastest lap with a 12.1 so 8 tenths off with semi-wet settings - Brill!!
Dave meanwhile gave up with the engine change so was unable to take up his pole for the fun race. It absolutely lashed it down just before and it was super wet. Some people got caught out with wet tyres and didn’t make the start and some pussied out on the green flag lap as it was too wet! I didn't work my tyres hard enough on the green flag lap so despite my good start I got passed for the FF1600 lead on lap two and lost a fair bit of time. I soon got it dialled though, and started Reeling in Nelson Rowe (the leader) unfortunately I pushed too hard and spun putting me down to fifth! I managed to pull it back to third in the end but no worries - its a fun race! Still had fastest lap by almost a second and was only a tenth slower than Dave's brother in his 180hp slicks and wings Jedi!
All in all a great day. Two races, little sleep and early mornings took their toll though and I was in bed early with my wrist aching still! (I have now bought a support for it until its all better!)
It was so much fun my next race is going to be......................... Castle Combe - 25th June
ps - I have already cracked my fancy nose cone! Alex Ames cut me up passing me in his F3 car in the fun race, then slammed on his brakes for the corner leaving me no where to go......so I hit him up the gearbox (wheels locked trying to avoid a big accident) which was enough to crack my nose and enought to tip him into a spin ending in the tyre wall. I guess F3s have better better brakes than FF1600s, sorry Alex.........
Matt chasing me into second chicane in qualifying
posted by Laurie Dawkins at Friday, June 02, 2006
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