Oulton Park (International), 14 April 2007
The gearbox has been fixed, of all things a piece had broken off of 5th gear and was preventing the selector forks from engaging 3rd. As simple as that - shame the gearbox had to come out and apart to fix it! And due to pressures of my holiday, I didn't have time to pick up the kappa from Auto Integrale until Friday evening. So that set me up for a nice long drive, 5 hours door to door to get from home to Oulton Park via Auto Integrale.
So I arrived at Oulton Park just on the stroke of midnight - and the gate was shut. Just when I was about to get stressed, a security guard appeared, opened up the gate and let me in. Only I was under instruction not to go to the paddock for fear of waking people up - at midnight, surely they will be still partying? Anyway, I wasn't in the mood to argue so obediently went off and parked up in the car park, curled up in the back of the Shogun and tried to get some sleep.
We had a very early start, sign-on and scrutineering were scheduled for 7:30am. The wiser amongst us, and those flash so-and-sos who came testing on the Friday had already positioned their cars down by the scrutineering bay. Those of us who arrived too late decamped to the Paddock at 6am and started to unload the car. Its a long way down to the scrutineering bay, so needless to say the "don't start your engines before 8am" instruction went straight out of the window, but sensibly no-one complained either. With scrutineering passed, it was back to the top of the paddock again, and then off to the drivers' briefing before going back to fetch the car ready for qualifying.
Qualifying:
Almost got caught unprepared as we got sent out for qualifying, just about got the harness done up in time and out on track we went. I've only raced on the full International circuit the once, and that was back in 2004 when the kappa made its debut. In those days we were running the 3.0 litre V6 engine so I was hoping for a bit of an improvement on my best lap time of 2:12 that day.
It was going to be a crowded day, there was a full entry of 34 cars for this, the opening race of the season, although one poor soul crashed his Marcos Mantis on the Friday (its a brave man who goes testing on Friday the 13th) so we were down to 33 cars. Of these 33, 8 were in class A, and 12 more including us, in class B. With a number of other rapid drivers in allegedly slower cars, a top 20 place was going to be good going on a circuit where I lack confidence.
Its a very long way from the assembly area to the start line, a point that had already been made to us. So plenty of time to get the engine and the tyres warm before even starting qualifying laps. Due to my still doing up the harness as the cars went out, I was some way behind any cars, I had overtaken Stephen Peacy's Rover 220 GTi on the run to Knickerbrook and it took until approaching Lodge before I could even see any other cars. Over the start line and I first came up behind Yaser's road Clio following one of the Clio Cup cars, these were both despatched coming out of Cascades. No more cars in sight until coming down to Knickerbrook when I caught up with Jim Mepham's Renault Megane. Jim was quick round the corners, but the kappa is ferocious down the straights and he was passed before the end of lap 1. I certainly can't complain of not getting in any clear laps, it was very stretched out on the circuit, I really tend to need to someone to chase to get on properly. Dan Crossley's white Rover Tomcat was some way in front, and he dragged me along to fnd Matt Speakman's lurid green Clio.
Turns out my fifth lap, (fourth full lap) was my fastest. I wasn't surprised at this, I had closed down Matt Speakman's Clio a fair bit in this lap, we were resuming our fun battles from early last season. I was aiming to land the psychological blow by overtaking Matt, he obviously was keen not to let this happen. Coming round Cascades the back of the Clio stepped out and I was treated to a masterclass in car control before watching Matt driving along the grass on the side of the track, and then rejoining the grey bit behind me. My moment of glory didn't last - coming into Knickerbrook Chicane that same lap, I outbraked myself and made the decision to carry straight on, wiggle through the barriers and rejoin the circuit behind Matt. Those brakes letting me down again just like they did at Brands three weeks earlier. Keith had identified the problem, the discs I had bought on eBay were pattern, not original equipment, and plainly not up to the job. With my confidence in the brakes waining again, the following laps were slower, but at least the lines were an improvement on my last time here. And so was the lap time - while I didn't quite achieve the 2:00 lap time target I had set myself, the top twenty place was there, the kappa sneaking into 19th (and 7th from 12 in class). But the times were all very close, 10 of us were separated by not much more than a second. I reckoned the positions 4th to 10th in class B could go any way and would probably depend on the luck of track position and a good start as much as anything. That will be OK then, the kappa was sure to make up places from the start, wasn't it?
Race:
Row 10, further back than I've been in a very long time. Its not like I didn't see it coming even, I had already reminded Tony and Sara that the later rows on the grid would not see the start line, that they should try to ensure the grid was more bunched up than usual. So how did it happen? How did I make such a mess of the start?
We bunched up nicely coming out of Druids, almost came to a stop. I realised I was going to need to be in second gear rather than third gear to get a decent start. As we came down towards Lodge, it was already too late. By the time I realised the cars up front were getting on with it, I was still turning into Lodge unable to put down the power. By the time I did, row 9 (Dan Crossley and Fergus Trenholme) were already 10 car lengths clear and pulling away. The kappa is quick, but not THAT quick. I almost caught Crossley's Tomcat coming into Old Hall, but on the basis that more races are lost at the first corner than won, I had to concede the corner to him. Another attempt to pass accelerating out of Cascades came up with the same result, almost alongside but not quite. And to compound my bad day, Stuart Jefcoate slipped down the inside coming into the hairpin. With little confidence in the brakes, although I could easily catch people, I couldn't outbrake them. Stuart was just the first to go by, although we did pass Matthew Orford's Clio (looked like he'd been on the grass) on the run into Druids. From there it just got worse - I got picked off here and there, and although I blitzed a pair of Clios coming out of Lodge on lap 2, that was pretty well my last act of glory. It was worse for Matt, on lap 3 I saw the Clio parked in the wall at Druids, Matt's brakes had let him down again.
It was a hot day, untypically hot for April. If it wasn't bad enough that we had been kept waiting in the assembly area (I have 18 minutes of stationary video) while the remains of the previous Porsche race was cleared up, so the driver was already boiling over, now it was the turn of the engine. We know we're marginal on cooling, that's why we ordered a new, even larger radiator back in November. And in typical idiot motorsport supplier fashion, all we have is excuses. No new radiator. The water temperature was moving upwards, over 100 degrees. And still going up. As it went up, so the kappa started to get slower. I didn't really notice when it happened, but on one run up the straight where I could barely out-accelerate a Clio I looked at the boost gauge. Only 1 bar, not the 1.4 it should be. That's a cylinder not doing its stuff, almost certainly another coil pack that has expired. The kappa cannot generate sufficient exhaust flow on 4 cylinders to provide full boost. Small wonder we were going backwards.
So, not quite the result we were looking for. 12 starters in Class B, I had beaten 2 of them, and Matt was in the wall. So 9th in class and 24th overall. A lot of effort for just 4 points. The goalposts have moved again, I was aiming to stay with the Clios - qualifying showed that was possible - if not John Hammersley's Cavalier. But even John was a distant 3rd in class to the front running Lotus Exige and Sunbeam. Going to need to do a lot better next time out at Rockingham. We're also going to need to solve the problem with the self-destructing coil packs and get some brakes we have confidence in!
You've read my story, now how about Simon Jackson's tale.
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