Oulton Park May 17th 2008

Practice

Greetings race fans!

What a weekend we had at Oulton!!

I will keep the practice report to a minimum as there is so much to tell about the race.

The British Summer returned to Oulton for the Peter Best Practice with a constant fine drizzle just sufficient to create a glistening surface on the track.

I was very disappointed with my qualifying time and found the track to be slippy as I tried out my usual variety of racing lines.

On return to the paddock I discovered my rear nearside wheel was covered in differential fluid, it looked as though a hub gasket had failed.

At this point I must offer my thanks to Jay Dubyah, Dave Brooke, Peter & Richard (car 18) for their help, advice and provision of spares to get the car fixed.

I am especially indebted to Doctor Blaine Neaves for diagnosing the problem and his expert wielding of a lump hammer in order to fix it!!!

I believe the actual fault was that the bearing had decided to make a bid for freedom but this was soon halted by the surgical intervention of Dr. Neaves.

It speaks volumes of the series when a competitor suffers a problem; it’s all hands to the pump from the other drivers to get you out for the race.

Many thanks.

The Race

The weather began to look decidedly iffy as our race approached. The talk was all of last minute tyre changes and had anyone seen James Darby, our intrepid driver turned journalist.

Also missing from the grid was Alan Brooke who had difficulty throwing off a particularly heavy duvet and opted to spectate instead.

I was particularly concerned that my brother was behind me in his Montego and had expressed some concerns about stopping distances, but more of that later.

The Lunar Racing Team was out in force (or should I say let the force be with you) and according to the commentator had fielded a massive entry of three cars. It later became apparent that John MOON (57) was in fact an independent entry.

Anyway, back to the race, we were held for a long time on the grid while the debris from the preceding race was cleared.

Red lights on….off….. Then all hell broke loose!

The pack descended on the first corner as one, but the combination of cold tyres and the drizzle seemed to catch out some of the drivers. As I turned the corner I was greeted by the blue Loony car and what I think was the yellow Midget of Robert Beasley (let me know if I’m wrong) hurtling towards me.

Evasive action resulted in me resorting to grass tracking at an earlier stage than usual and I managed to get through the melee unscathed.

Unfortunately as the race progressed, after a couple of failed attempts Simon Hutchinson made contact with the Armco in Deer Leep.

I said in my pre-race report that the race was in the lap of the Gods and they certainly seemed to look favourably on my underpowered car. Yes, the rain began to fall and the leaders began to slow down.

So much so that I was able to discard my long vision binoculars as I could see Jay Dubyah and Peter Andrews unaided! (This is a first).

The rain got heavier and I began to make up some places.

I got past John Binczyk (whose name I never type correctly) who had blasted past me at Mallory in the previous race.

John Wreghitt (5) was making the most of the rain and I had to pull out all the stops to get past him as he was storming along (Weather related pun there folks!)

The track had turned into a veritable ice-rink and cars were spinning around all over the place.

Peter Andrews tormented me on the last lap by wagging the tail of his yellow B along The Avenue allowing me to close up on him until he hit the loud pedal and zoomed off again.

The race was all but over when I spotted  that the Lunar Racing car of Peter Burchill was on a similar orbit to me (here we go). You could say he was a man on a (space) mission. The atmosphere was electric and he seemed to fire a booster and blasted-off past me on the approach to Lodge. He spotted a deep-space and rocketed past me to take 7th overall. There was no earthly thing I could do about it. Oulton, we have a problem!

The chequered flag waved and the race was over…or was it? On the slowing down lap at the last corner I was greeted with frantic waved yellow flags.

Oulton was to take two more casualties in the forms of car 77 Margaret Farquhar-Rigg and oh dear, my brother Alan car 45 the Montego. It seems Margaret had made a last ditch overtaking manoeuvre but hit a pool of standing water and the MGF parted company with the track.

Alan taking avoiding action discovered his braking distance was longer after all and gave the Montego a bloody nose as it discovered the Oulton Armco.

I am pleased to say that although pride and a bit of panel damage occurred during the race the drivers only suffered minor injuries and will be back to race again another day.

Results:

1st Dave Brooke (11)
2nd Barry Holmes (37)
3rd Doctor Neaves (7)

Class A (the one that really matters!)

1st Jay Dubyah (1 or 15 whichever suits)
2nd Peter full power Andrews (18)
3rd JONESEY

Roll on Silverstone. I have already started to do my rain dance….remember last year!!!
Jonesey