The last races of the season took place at Oulton Park, a great circuit in Cheshire where it always seems to rain. However, this time on the journey there it didn’t rain so much as monsooned, if that’s a noun that can be verbed. That is, it absolutely threw it down. When we got there the car, which is carried on an open trailer, was not so much wet as impersonating a bathtub.
What’s more, on the Saturday I’d signed up for the allcomers so as to get a bit of practice; I’d never been here in the class B car before. On the race day it had at least stopped raining. What’s more, the forecast was good. However, the circuit was a skating rink out for the allcomers qualification. I’d promised myself that I’d only do the race if I qualified on the front row as I didn’t want to bend the car before the RGB races themselves.
As it was, it was very slippy although a drier line did start to emerge. I never got near the ultimate lap time though, not least because the circuit was full of Locosts. Even if they’re sensitively driven it ends up being a bit of a lottery.
Before this meeting my FL was 1:57ish, although that was in the class C car. All the same, in the wet my FL was 2:14 and some change. That put me 3rd on the grid behind cars that were racing with full racing wets. Hmm, perhaps I should reconsider my cautious pre-condition?
Later on in the morning things were looking a bit brighter and it was time for the RGB qualifying. This time the track was working better, although I was still essentially learning the circuit. This time I was down to 1:56, 4th in class and 6th on the grid in both RGB races. However, there as a problem. Near the start of the session I’d noticed some smoke from the front left wheel. At first I thought this was because the bonnet was slightly mis-positioned as I’d managed to bend one of the bonnet mounting springs. However, the smoke got worse and when I got back to the paddock there was oil all over the place in the engine compartment.
That was a bit odd because I’d wondered about an oil leak and had kept checking the oil pressure but it was fine. That is, the leak must be something really small. The logical thing was the oil cooler—they’re aluminium and prone to cracking. And, so it turned out to be; the oil was coming from a small crack at the bottom of the cooler. It must have been the case that the crack was small enough that the oil pressure was still high enough for the engine to escape unscathed.
The easiest way to fix the cooler was to just remove it and I set out to do this and to remove all the gunge around the engine compartment, the wheels, tyres and brakes. That took quite a time and I missed the Allcomers race as a result.
Still, it was together for the first RGB race and I went down to the assembly area. Eventually, they called us out onto the track and we went around, almost a full lap at Oulton, the grid.
The problem was, I had a horrible misfire. This was reminiscent of last year’s problems and rather dispiriting. I pulled into the pitlane, out of the race, and back into the paddock. There I opened the bonnet and noticed that one of the plug leads was loose. Sigh, I could have fixed that in the pitlane and started the race from there if I’d just looked. Next time I’ll think of that…
So, later on I was back for race 2, this time I made it to the start grid and was still there when the lights went out. I got a rather poor start with far too much wheel spin, here we go again, but nonetheless got away. After a while there was a queue of us being Austen, in class C. He was rather too difficult to get past, at one point even jumping the Knickerbrook chicane and not yielding a place. However, eventually I we all got past and the chequered flag was out.
I ended up in 4th place in class. The consequence of that was that I ended the season 3rd in class, again, and in 8th place overall. To be honest the big problem has been lack of consistency. I started the year well but there have been too many issues, especially since Mat Green, who’d obviously been watching too many touring car races, punted me off at Brands Hatch.
That leaves us with the Birkett as the final race of the season which I’m really looking forward to. I’ve decided that I’m going to be selling the car so to concentrate on the J15. If you’re interested, I’ll be posting an advert on the RGB forum.