Race Report Oulton Park May 2010

Neaves takes the biscuit as Cripps crumbles

Summer arrived in typical Oulton style for the PBIC May visit, with freezing cold weather and a biting wind with a spot of rain thrown in for good measure.

A relatively small amount of die hard racers pitched up the night before for the traditional pre-race drinks and feeble attempts to psych out their fellow competitors with various claims of modifications and tactics.

But despite my best efforts the the majority insisted on either drinking child’s portions of beer or fruit based drinks laced with red-bull.

Consequently the bar staff decided to close the bar at 9.30pm and concentrated their minds on ejecting us at the earliest opportunity.

The prospect of a good nights sleep was ruined by the usual idiot who felt it necessary to run a generator all night just because he liked the sound of it, coupled with the fact that my air-bed tank tape repair failed miserably leaving me feeling very deflated.

Qualifying

Saturday was damp windy and cold with a grid of 22 Peter Besters ready to do battle. The possibility of rain threatened, but as it turned out there was only just enough to get the track a bit slippy in places but a dry line was present for most of us to use.

The V8 boys were keen to put the whipper-snapper Ollie Neaves in his place and Cripps & Spencer took 1 & 2 on the grid with Ollie a lowly 3rd.

The ever consistent Walpole took pole for class A basking in the recent success of his new diet book “Lose weight the Walpole Way”. This follows hot on the heels of his “Bald is Beautiful” book.

His latest tome has simplified dieting for the masses and seems to consist of just the one recipe:
1. Buy one carrot.
2. When you feel hungry, eat it.

Anyway back to the racing. I had been lulled into a false sense of security when Red-bull swilling octogenarian Lew Bergonzi did a sandbag run in qualifying and let me past. This resulted in me being about 6 seconds off the pace but nevertheless still next to Twinkle-toes Tinkler on the grid.

The other half of Church Lane Racing in the guise of the Jolly Green Giant Peter Andrews had fielded another car this time a V8 GT, which was to prove it was a true MG in every sense.

Race 1

I made a reasonably good start and managed to get into third in class A passing Primrose in the usual 1st corner scramble.

The memory of my pathetic qualifying forgotten I made strenuous efforts to keep ahead of Primrose and a storming Miss Daisy whilst also trying to at least keep up with the two James’s who were once again performing their synchronised driving display.

All was going well until the chicane when Primrose nipped past putting me back down into 4th.

Four laps of hard work followed as I closed in looking for the chance to get past the yellow peril. These efforts were to end in disaster. As we left the 2nd chicane I got a good run out and closed hard on the boot of Tinkler…now was it Lodge or Druids corner?

Pretty sure it was Lodge, anyhow, I was hard on Tinkler’s heels and the door was open, foot down and go for it …..at exactly the same time Primrose closed the door resulting in disaster!

Fibre-glass wing lost out to the metal rear wing on Primrose as we made contact.

Two flat spotted tyres under locked brakes later I saw Primrose recover and disappear in to the distance as bits of my car blew away.

My race was run. Not sure of how much damage there was I bumped along at reduced speed to finish the race well down the field.

On the plus side the damage appears to have been confined to the tyres, wing, headlamps etc and during the extended break liberal amounts of tank tape enabled me to get out for race two.

Primrose had  a bit of panel beating and replaced  her rear lamp lens and was also able to continue having picked up a third in class A for race one.

Walpole took class A honours and young Neaves took the race win having sailed past Cripps and Spencer.

Miss Daisy had put in some excellent times and was looking good for a decent finish but the Jonah of the Joneses struck again as the Montego engine hit the self-destruct button and fired a con-rod through the block. OUCH!

RACE 2

With my patched up car looking very sorry for itself we trooped off for race two.

The weather had improved a little with the dark clouds doing no more than threaten rain.

Following the unusual qualifying times for some, the grid was interesting with many of the front runners to be found starting from the back.

Peter Andrews V8 had suffered a few teething problems in race one and this was to continue in race 2.

Lew Bergonzi was also well back, but now having gulped down half a gallon of Red-bull was back to his canny self.

An event free start saw me up into 2nd place in class A alongside James Baldpole using the element of surprise, i.e. I surprised myself that I was in 2nd.

This soon wore off as they all got past me by turn three and I found myself 4th place in class A.

Still looking good for a pot I thought but this was not to last as Bergonzi was biding his time looking for his chance to nip past which he did very neatly at the corner I had crashed into Tinkler during the previous race….I knew it was possible  to overtake there but….anyway enough of that.

Then shock horror, Walpole broke down with a repeat of his rotor-arm failure of a year or so ago. B****s, I could have been 3rd!!!…er, ..I meant to say, I am sorry to hear of Mr Walpole’s mechanical failure.

With renewed vigour I chased after Bergonzi but it was all in vain,  first I got stuck behind Terry Holmes as his car expired then I over cooked the first chicane and went grass tracking all the while seeing the field just get further away ….ARRGGGH!

It’s clearly just not meant to be…..

I should mention I also had a good tussle with Catweasel aka Andrew Barker in car 87, who I sadly cannot call Catweasel anymore as he has  grown a full beard instead of that dinky little goaty he had before. He shall now be known as son of Long Haired Dave which is probably far worse.

So where did we all end up then?

The invincible Ollie did it again clearing the board of trophies, which were much nicer than the picture frames dished out at Brands.

Swap anyone?

Lofty Cripps blew his engine in his efforts to beat the tea-total Neaves who strolled home to victory. Lofty made up for it with a hilarious speech at the awards. Tea-total Ollie?????

Dan Ludlow stormed to second place overall and first in class B in the newly re-named Vulcan Racing Car. The new name apparently due to Sandbag Ludlow’s uncanny resemblance to the Mekon. (for those of you who don’t remember the Eagle comics…try Google for help).

Expect plenty of Star Trek based puns in the return of the pre-race report for Silverstone. Yes I know… I am sorry I didn’t do one for Oulton but to be honest I didn’t think anyone actually read them, I will try harder.

Apparently Team Vulcun were going to be called the Star Wars Team because of Burchills’ resemblance to Jabba – the- Hut but this did not prove very popular.

With the DNF of Walpole this allowed James Two (Darby) through to class A victory followed by Tinkler and Bergonzi.

I managed to be the fourth loser.

Peter Andrews suffered clutch failure in the new V8 which hopefully will be the last of the teething problems, I am sure he will be a force to be reckoned with once back on song.

The presentations took a leaf out of the race format and were much quicker by doing the results for both races together. A simple but effective way to reduce delays for the weary homeward traveller which worked well.

Once again the sporting nature of the series shone through with the lucky pot winners paying tribute to the clean racing and courtesy shown by the drivers to each other.

I am sorry I let the side down! but I did manage to push Simon Tinkler into third nonetheless!

Pitlane Gossip

Not much gossip to report as I have been sworn to secrecy with regard to Wilson’s beer consumption which was only beaten by Dan Neaves who was found staggering back from the Burchill Bar in the early hours of Saturday morning.

I have trashed my tyres and will be looking to replace them before Silverstone. Funds being limited, coupled with the other bits I need to replace following my brush with Primrose, the thought of purchasing the more reasonably priced Silverstones looks appealing. Not only the price but I think it is excellent that this year we have on-site tyre support at the races which I think we should patronise. However, I note the Class A regs state we can use a maximum size tyre of 185×60. Silverstone’s do a 185×55. which would be permitted……I do not see that the slightly smaller tyre would be a major difference to the yokies other than being more reasonable on the wallet….I await your comments before I have to shell out in the very near future.

Also, for general consideration have a look at this link. It shows the production team AMGTV’s efforts ( http://www.raceandrallyuk.tv/ ) when they filmed the Trophy Boys at Brands…..what do you reckon?

And finally I understand there is no truth in the rumour that Long Haired Dave intends to update the official website on an annual basis.

He feels once every five years is enough….boom boom!  Oh all right , I  believe he will be putting on the latest newsletters and updates shortly…but don’t hold your breath!

Until the Pre-Race Report then!

Bye for now.

Jonesey