Coming to grief

Well, I suppose it couldn’t last. After ignoring the Fury all season it finally had a bad race.

Last weekend we went down to Brands Hatch, again, for a two day, two race, weekend. What’s more, our race on the Sunday was quite early so I was hoping to get home to get on with the J15. I should know not to think like that…

As before what I really wanted to do was to get below 52 seconds. So, out in qualifying I was trying, again, to do so. It seemed as though every lap I did was 52.0 seconds. However, finally I managed a 51.95! At last. Back in the paddock and I was 5th on the grid, 3rd in class behind Derek and Mat, for the first race and 4th on the grid, 2nd in class behind Derek, for the second race. That was pretty successful so I settled in to wait for the first race.

Of course, by the time it arrived it was raining. Although not too badly. When we set off though, as we round Paddock Hill Bend there was Paul spinning in front of me in his pole-sitting Contour. There was one of those “I hope he doesn’t shoot sideways into my path” moment but all was well. After that things went quite well. I got past Mat at Druids (around the outside!) and then caught up with John which surprised me as he should have disappeared in his class A car. However, some thought made me remember that he’d had a big accident in testing in the wet and so was taking it carefully.

So, I managed to pass him too and at this point I must have been running in second overall, although as it had taken me a while to get past Mat, Richard and John he was 5 seconds or so down the road.

After a couple of laps John got his act together and came past. Then it was down to trying to get up to Derek. However, Mat had by now also got his act together and was getting ever closer. I thought I’d got it all in hand until I had a bit of a problem with a back marker on the penultimate lap. (I have to learn to be more forceful in these situations.) However, he didn’t manage to quite catch me and so I was 3rd at the line.

So, another podium finish and second in class. 🙂 My fastest lap was 52.21, reflecting the controlled nature of the race, I guess. Here’s the edited video of the race for your delectation:

The next day was bitterly cold, as you’d expect because it was the day before the summer solstice. It did warm a bit eventually, although it also chucked it down with rain. However, when we got around to race time it looked fairly overcast but didn’t look like raining.

I lined up fourth and got a slightly better start than usual. I keep thinking that what I ought to do is to book some time at an airfield day and spend the day practising starts and then just replace the clutch. Problem is, there  never seems to be the time.

Down to Druids and I tried to go around the outside of Mat again. This time he decided that the best thing to do was to drive into me an shove me off the road which he duly did. I wasn’t the slightest bit impressed with that. Especially so as I ended up dead last.

Still, it meant a considerably interesting fight back and I set about it. I was 21st at the end of the first lap, 18th on the next lap, 17th, 16th, 14th and so on. Eventually I was 9th behind Mat and Richard. They were battling away, Richard struggling with a car that seemed determined to fly off the road and Mat using some very odd lines. At Druids they tangled (I think Richard might have nearly spun and was stopped by hitting Mat, or Mat turned into him, I can’t be sure) and I got past Mat and was now behind Richard. Around to Clearways, though, and I was faced with a spinning car in front of me for the second time over the weekend. This time, though, it didn’t turn out so well. I tried to get past Richard  on the left but he carried on spinning around and smacked into the side of me. In retrospect I’m very glad about the side-impact stuff on the chassis there.

We both ended up in the gravel trap. His car didn’t look too bad but the Fury was rather second hand. In the paddock we cleared out a lot of the stones and general mess (thanks to all the RGB chaps for the help) and I ended up with a list of damage that included:

• A few broken rod ends in the right rear suspension.
• A seriously bent damper rod.
• A seriously bent upright.
• Lots of gravel everywhere.
• At least one suspension mount torn out of the chassis.
• Some, although not too much really, bodywork damage.

I should, though, be able to fix it in time for the next race at Cadwell, assuming that I can get the damper fixed anyway. Best bit was that on my fight back up the field, in full red-mist mode, I got in a lap at 51.6 which was the fastest lap of the race and for which I get a magnificent one point!

Again, here’s the video of the race:

I’ll tell you about the J15 next. To keep you on tenterhooks, though, there’s a photo right at the top of the car on the drive wearing some of its clothes for a change.