April is the cruelest month…

Well, it’s cold anyway, especially in the wastelands of Mallory Park race circuit. We were racing there at the weekend, on Sunday, and I spent the Saturday morning fettling the Fury (having completely ignored it since Snetterton) and we set off for Mallory so as to arrive at about 5pm when they’d let us into the circuit. Mallory is unique in that you have to drive round the circuit (actually in the wrong direction) so as to get to the paddock. Hence, you have to queue up outside for ages.Once in the paddock, it was raining. The forecast was for it to be fine, and the next day too. So, that was a good start. In fact, as the evening progressed it rained more and more. I put the car under its cover but I’d been thinking that it seemed to be less waterproof than it used to be and wasn’t looking forward to looking in the cockpit in the morning.

It finally stopped raining at about 0345; I was awake for some reason. In the morning, though, it was bitterly cold and we all spent a lot of time standing around getting windswept.

I’d signed on for the Allcomers race so as to get a bit of extra practice and that was the first race of the day, and so we were in scrutineering at 0800, still shivering. And then it was out for qualifying. However, the track was still pretty slippery so it was clear that there weren’t going to be any fastest times set. My goal for the weekend was to get below 50s. My previous FL was 50.4 and I reckoned it ought to be possible to get below that. However, in the Allcomers quali the fastest I managed was 55seconds. That was a mere 8th on the grid, behind a couple of class C cars! I knew I was being tentative but that was annoying. Worst, really, were the number of yellow flags. I don’t think I got a single clear lap the whole time. I don’t understand why people throw their cars off the road, especially, as often happens, on the first lap. Surely, you’d spend a couple of laps looking for where the slippy stuff was? Here it was clearly at the Esses, although everywhere was fairly greasy.

Next up was RGB qualifying. This was now important and I got into the assembly area earlyish. What’s more, the weather now seemed to be decidely better and it seemed likely that a decent lap was possible. Still, I didn’t really seem to be able to get a lap together; it would have been a lot easier with a dry quali for the Allcomers earlier. And then they red-flagged the session. I can’t actually remember why and as I forgot to turn the video on I can’t really remind myself. What’s more, I got pulled up in front of the beak for overtaking under a yellow in this session. I’m almost positive that the yellow must have come out when I was looking past the post but I can’t prove it. It’s  a bit problem, in general, in that the posts are sited in a straight line along from the straights, in a misguided belief that that’s where a driver would be looking. However, we’re all looking through the next corner so it’s surprisingly hard to see the straight on posts. Oh well… The clerk did say that they’d got some enthusiastic new observers out so perhaps I was a victim of that.

After the red they, for some reason, guided us back into the paddock. That seemed really odd and I went back round to the assembly area to see if the session had really finished. It turned out that it hadn’t. I think only about four of us realised that but that meant the track was really empty. In the first session I’d got down to 50.06 but that was still above 50s! On the out lap I concentrated on getting the car warm and dropping back from the others; I was last out of this small group. Then I went for it and was immediately rewarded by a 49.8 second lap! And, that was with a rather unpleasant slide at Devils Elbow that meant I lost nearly two tenths in that corner alone.

Here’s the video of that lap, which turned out for the fastest, although another one beat it to it:

That all left me 4th on the grid, and in the class B pole which was rather pleasing.

So, after some lunch it was time for the Allcomers race. I nearly didn’t do the race but thought that a practice start would be useful. So, when the lights went out I got a half-decent start and ended up in about 6th place. I was behind Doug Carter (class A RGB) and further up the field was Colin (class C RGB) who’d got a really good grid slot. After a bit of ducking and diving I got past Doug at the Elbow where my car seemed really quick. In fact, I’d managed to get to the point of driving around it completely flat, although it needed short-shifting into 4th before the corner to do it, with 5th having to be grabbed in the exit. Then Colin was in front and I did the same thing to him, although slightly questionably because I’d slid a bit wide at the apex.

Then there was this socking great Marcos a hundred metres or so down the track. It was reputed to have a 6 litre engine was therefore really quick in a straight line, but slow around the twistier bits, not that Mallory has too many of those. However, I hauled him in fairly easily. I was then fairly lucky to come up to the hairpin in a collection of other cars and I got past him too at the Elbow. However it seemed unlikely that it’d last as he’d pass me too easily on the straight, unless I was silly about blocking him which I didn’t want to do; if nothing else his car was probably more than twice the weight of mine. So, round on the back straight he just powered up the inside and then, on turn in (for the right hander) turned sharp left into my car. I only just managed to keep it together and promptly buzzed the engine because my head was all over the place. I really can’t imagine why he did this. He was easily past me, I’d left him enough room and the corner was clearly his.

See for yourself in this video of the race, the important bit is around 6:30 into the race:

Still, ho hum. I did wonder if we were going to get called to the beak later, especially as it was at the same corner where I’d be called for earlier on. Nothing happened though and I couldn’t face some sort of process. I still can’t understand why people drive like this though.

After this coming together I instantly started driving slower. I was worried about the engine and everyone started passing me again. So, I pulled in to retire, at the same moment as the race was red-flagged anyway.

Back in the paddock I worried about the engine but we checked over it, later on the logs said I’d got up to 13,800 RPM is a bit of a concern. However, we checked the valve clearances and all seemed fine. We did discover that the front suspension alignment was slightly out, but probably not enough to explain why I was suddenly 2 seconds a lap slow. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all in the head.

So, later on it was the RGB race. As I said, I was 4th on the grid. However, this time I got a truly horrible start and after a bit of sorting out I was in 5th place, first in class B but with Tony Gaunt (who’s also B) just behind me. This was like it had been at Snetterton last year when Tony stuck behind me like glue and managed to go way quicker in the race than he’d done in qualifying.

It seemed to be the same this time. Tony had done 50.7 in qualifying but this time he did a whole sequence of laps that were way faster than this! However, I managed to keep him behind me and, towards the end of the race, managed to pull out a bit of a gap.

Still that was another class win and I thought I ought to have got fastest lap. However, when the results sheets appeared Tony had done a 49.5 early on in the race so he got the point for fastest lap. Good on him! One encouraging aspect of this is that Tony’s car is a Riot with a home-designed body on it. In essence, therefore, it’s the same sort of car as my new J15. That at least appears to show that the car can do decent times which is a real encouragement.

So, battle is rejoined at Brands in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’ll get on with the J15. I’ll tell you in the next post what I’ve been doing.