Lydd Winter Series Round 4 ; January 18th 2003
Finishing positions:
Round 4: 4th overall and 3rd in Clubmans
Richard and James turned up for a days testing at Lydd on the Friday - Thomas being unable to get out of work and other commitments.
It was cold with a very strong head wind blowing hard against you down the back straight - but at least it was dry for most of the day until after 4 o'clock.
It was the first time out with the new chassis and the newly serviced engine from George Robinson, so James spent the first 20 minutes running it in gently.
Then Richard took over and started to put in some serious laps to get the tyre pressures right.
Having achieved that, James went on to get a feel of different castor angles and tried hard to pretend that we weren't trying to keep up with GP Racing, in between running out of petrol and finally succumbing to sickness.
We then went on to test with different widths, front and rear and were just about to try wider rear rims when the rain hit us. It was getting dark now and it wasn't worth going into a wet setup especially as all the forecasts were for a dry day on Saturday.
The evening was punctuated by long phone calls to Thomas and to Neil Dodson for advice and reports.
We were down at the circuit at bang on 8:00hrs the next day, with Thomas already there waiting for us.
The wind had largely gone and it wasn't raining but the track was very wet and was certainly going to stay that way for practice. Neil also soon arrived and dialled in a good wet setup for practice and qualifying, Thomas going out first and then, after some more adjustments, Richard to get a qualifying time. He was doing well and said the chassis felt brilliant and he would certainly have gone faster as the track got less wet.
However it was decided to change the setup to favour a drier track and to send James out for a couple of laps as he was going to start the race once again. By the time he had done that, the qualifying session ended just as we were ready to get Richard out again.
Unlike at Bayford in the previous race, James managed to stay on at the start (10th on the grid) but lost a few places on the first lap. After that he seemed to go better, for a while overtaking a number of karts, but as the lap times came down so competitors went comparatively faster and James never felt really comfortable until a couple of laps from the end of his session when there was a dry line all the way round the circuit.
At the beginning of the race we had filled the tank absolutely full and on past experience we expected to be able to run for over an hour on this which would enable us to stop just twice.
But after only just over 50 mins at the far end of the circuit, the engine coughed, spluttered to half way down the back straight and died from lack of fuel. James did a high speed push to the pits, throwing the pit team into some confusion for the tyre change to slicks, but despite this the outlap was only a little over 5mins - not too bad really - it could have been much worse.
We had been running in the bottom of the top half of the field up to now, but with slicks and the setup favouring the drying track Richard was making good progress up the field and his times were down through the 44s into the 43s.
An uncharacteristic spin at the end of the straight cost him 10 seconds but he was able to avoid the deeper sections of the gravel trap.
The changeover to Thomas after 48 minutes went well and after a couple of laps he was down in 44s and looking very competitive in about 6th position.
Lap 32 was when he missed the turn in point for the pit bend - and as a result, drove through the gravel trap without stopping - didn't see anybody else do that!
Seven laps later and he got our best time of the race at 43.792 while having a little local difficulty with B & R Racing - who eventually got away.
Richard took over for the final stint and we found ourselves in 4th with Team Cobra too far ahead in 3rd to be able to do anything about it and B & H 25s down on us and not significantly catching.
Even a quick spin on the pits chicane didn't seem to make a lot of difference and he came in with Cobra and Nine Lives in front of us in the Clubmans, and with the redoubtable Titan winning the race from 15th on the grid and despite a disastrous first fuelling stop.
Our thanks once again to Neil for his essential advice and help throughout the day. We now have to decide whether to do the last round of the BEKC Winter Championship in only three weeks time or spend the time testing - probably with only James and Richard again - or both. With the news that we are are now challenging for second place on corrected scores, its hard not to go for the last round, but its a question of time and in the long term a days testing instead would probably be more valuable.
Decisions, decisions and choices.............................
Results...........................
Reports.......... from Barry Prosser for Motorsport News and Alan Wood from Buckmore.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g