Anglesey 25/26 September 2010

We are back! After 2 years away from the race track, we were able to enter the race event at Anglesey. Needless to say the Lancia kappa is nowhere near ready to race, but we have been storing Rich Ellingham’s Class E Fiat Tipo for the past year and he kindly agreed to us racing it.

First some background - we took the Tipo over to Lydden Hill back in July for a shakedown run, the car hadn’t been out on track since the end of 2008 season. We both did a session with instructor Bill Richards on board, before doing a solo session each. Finally Rich went out again and came back in very soon with warped brake discs. The slick tyres were completely worn out, understeer was of biblical proportions round the tight Lydden circuit. But otherwise the Tipo came through unscathed.

With almost 3 months to go before the Anglesey round, we should have had plenty of time. Rich had three sets of brake discs, all warped. We tried to get the AP 4 pots from our old Lancia Y10 race car fitted to the Tipo, but the hole spacing was different, and the toothed wheel around the drive shaft (for the ABS) meant we couldn’t simply redrill the brackets to suit. Weeks were wasted with the brakes and one complete side of the suspension in an engineering shop before we gave up on that idea. So we got all 3 sets of discs reground and prepared for a weekend of disc changing. David Pierce came up trumps with a set of used-once tyres from his old Renault Clio, Rich sent over some nice new shiny white Team Dynamics wheels. An oil change later and the Tipo was ready for the long trip to Anglesey.

A couple of 10 minutes sessions does not make us race ready, so we went up to Anglesey on the Thursday night to take advantage of the Friday test day. We had also not raced on the Coastal circuit before, the one with the daunting looking Corkscrew. We arrived at the track at 12:40am Friday morning and were asleep within a few minutes. Up on Friday and we found Simon Jackson waiting for his MG ZR to arrive! Paul had been working on the reshell right up to 21:00 on Thursday night, Simon would spent Friday just ensuring the MG was right. Yaser turned up during the morning and unloaded the Daihatsu, and Chris Mason and Mike Gregory pitched up alongside us in the paddock. A few of the other Euro Saloon competitors were about, more than half the grid getting in some testing.

It was Anglesey, so unsurprisingly we drove up with the Tipo already sat on wet tyres! Friday morning was dull, cloudy, very windy and while it had rained lightly overnight, the track was dry. We lifted one side of the Tipo and swapped over to the scrubbed slicks (from Lydden) and went off for breakfast. And it started raining - so after breakfast it was off with the two slicks and back on with the wets. And then it stopped raining, a quick look at the track suggested it was still dry, so we put all the scrubbed slicks back on the Tipo and headed out on track.

Things were not good, a number of Fiestas were out on track and they seemed much faster than us. The Corkscrew was daunting and we just couldn’t seem to get the line through, the driver and the Tipo felt slow, and worse, the brakes had an almighty judder as we braked for Rocket. Four or five laps later, confidence was at a low and the mood was not good. It was a long way to come to be this slow on our return, we came off the track for a break. We missed the next session as well, still trying to get a feel for what was wrong. Food will solve that, so we had lunch!

After lunch, it was time to get back out on track, this time we followed Chris Mason in his Peugeot 205GTi. We figured that Chris would be our main competitor here even if we were battling to not come last. The first two or three laps were an eye-opener, Chris seemed quick round the corners and at first we struggled to keep up. Then it all clicked into place and became easier. Now we could see that going up to Rocket, we had so much more speed potential, we were climbing all over the 205 as we changed up into 5th. Feeling buoyed by this, we went to pass between Rocket and Peel and Chris let us through. I figured he would give us a hard time but to our surprise the 205 disappeared backwards quite quickly. Ooh, not so slow here after all. Chris estimated we were a couple of seconds quicker, and now we really felt in racing mood. The judder under braking was worse than ever, probably because we were now braking so much harder. So bad in fact that the wipers would come on as the dashboard shook and the wiper stalk moved! We can drive round that, but given that the discs were freshly ground, it was disappointing.

We did one final session on the Friday, concentrating more on finding the right line and speed for the other bends rather than going for outright times, we were lifting off well before Rocket to save braking so hard. But we did find that the Tipo was more than a match for the Fiestas in a straight line. Session over, it was back into the paddock to change the front discs for a fresh pair, and to put the newer tyres on. We didn’t overly rush, and there was just 5 minutes left of the final session by the time we were ready to go. Rather than get all flustered trying to get out on track for a lap or two, we elected for a drive round the paddock, brakes felt fine, so hopefully they would be judder free in the morning.

Qualifying:
We approached the qualifying session with some trepidation. With no timing equipment on board, we had no idea of how we were doing other than hearsay. The talk in the paddock was that Chris was running 1:28-1:30, while Yaser, Simon and I were around 1:25 or so. We knew Simon wasn’t pushing hard so expectations were low. We went out on track, bright and sunny, almost needed sunglasses! A lot of time was spent moving over for faster cars, then getting back into the qualifying groove, trying to find a good half lap, and then concentrating even more to back it up with a decent second half lap. But at least the brake judder had gone so we could brake with everything coming into Rocket. David Pierce was on the case, too much so as he ran off at Church in front of us and treated us to his best "Flymo" impersonation - Jim, you are missed! Late in the session we came across Simon in the MG, he must have slowed to cool the car just as we were thinking of doing. We tried to keep up, and we looked like we were. This is good, at least running in the same ballpark as the MG then. With one lap of the session left, we pulled in. The engine was getting hot, the driver was getting hot, and we had done all we thought we could do.

When the timesheets came out, we were in for a bit of a shock. Sure enough, Chris in the 205 was last in class, but next up was Andy Jordan in one of the Clios - it was his first race and he would get quicker as the weekend progressed. Then came Yaser, Simon and us - just 6/100ths of a second separated the three of us, and we were quickest, just 1/50th faster than Yaser. We were hoping that we were about on the pace, but could not believe just how much - so much for the 1:25s on Friday, we just did 1:21.6!. So we would line up 12th on the grid, with Yaser and Simon right behind. 11th on the grid was Class C Mike Gregory, fully 3 seconds quicker than our little group, the 3 front running Clios were all running 3 seconds quicker than us too.

So, a possible 4th in class up for grabs - but with rusty racecraft we weren’t confident of staying in front of Yaser and Simon for a whole race.

Race 1 (Saturday):
Even sunnier, even brighter, most unexpected weather in Anglesey. We lined up on the rolling lap alongside Mike Gregory, behind Tim Clarke’s Clio with Yaser and Simon on the row behind. The race started for us while we were still on the Corkscrew, couldn’t see the lights go out but we heard the front cars go so we did too. We didn’t get the best of starts, Tim’s Clio was away with a big gap back to us and although we initially got the drop on Mike, his Escort powered past before we reached turn 1. We tucked in to follow him, moved over to the left ready for turn 2 only to see Simon coming down the inside. Yaser had been baulked giving Simon a clean run at us, and he took full advantage braking into turn 2. We followed him out and pulled over to try and re-pass, but he turned across us through Church and the place was lost. Worse was to come, on the run up to Rocket we stayed over to the right a couple of lengths behind Simon, Yaser came steaming up the inside with everything locked up and just got into Rocket as we turned in. Two places lost and not even half a lap done!

If that was bad enough to take, now Andy Jordan was smelling a chance to pass and the Fiat’s mirrors were full of Clio while we tried to pressure Yaser. We chased Yaser through the Corkscrew and to the start-finish line, already 3/10th down on him and Simon pulling away. On lap three we took a big run out of Church, having missed a gear the previous lap when planning to do the same, and shot along the coastal "straight". It looked like we had passed Yaser as we turned further right at the top, but as we turned into Rocket, there he was again, in a cloud of smoke, inches in front of us. And still Simon was getting away, but at least we had breathing space from Andy Jordan behind us. Across the line at the end of lap 3 and we ran at Yaser again, got a good exit from turn 1 and as Yaser moved across to the left ready for turn 2 we followed Simon’s example and stuffed the Tipo down the inside, just getting the pass done. 3 seconds behind Simon now.

Not sure what happened over the next 3 laps, but the red mist was certainly down. The Tipo was flying along the fast part of the circuit and we could see we were visibly gaining on Simon, turns out by a second a lap. We put in our fastest lap of the race on lap 5, in the 1:20s as well. We crossed the line at the start of lap 6 barely 2 car lengths behind the MG, and we closed right up through the banked turn 2. A good run through Church and we were right on the MG now, 2/3rds down the straight and we screamed past the MG with enough speed to make this move stick, unlike our earlier attempts at passing Yaser. Simon wasn’t going to take that lying down - we had joked before the race that we should play our jokers on separate days just in case we both wanted the same piece of track, we didn’t want it to matter too much to BOTH of us. But even though we played our joker for this race, Simon wasn’t going to concede the place. He attacked coming out of Rocket and was alongside coming out of Peel. We left him room and the Fiat and the MG went side by side through the Corkscrew less than 100mm apart. We got the better exit and crossed the line two car lengths in front - yay!

Now it was a case of could we stay there? We were in 4th - the Clios were long gone but if one didn’t finish we could get on the podium. Simon kept the pressure on, we were faster from turn 2 to Rocket, Simon was faster through Rocket back to the finish line and lap after lap we crossed the line no more than 2 or 3 car lengths apart. Even when the leaders started to lap us, things worked out pretty even and didn’t really affect either of us badly compared to the other. Lap 12 and Simon got a good run, a missed gear on our part (one of many during the race) helped him close right up as we ran through turn 1, and mindful of his first lap move, we went defensive into turn 2. Another run up to Rocket provided a small breathing space - we were half a dozen lengths ahead instead on 1 or 2, but as we braked for Peel it all went wrong. The Fiat wouldn’t engage gear and there was a banging noise that sounded so much like terminal engine noises that we swore. Simon dipped by inside thinking we had missed a gear and then turned carefully into the Corkscrew as he couldn’t see us in his mirror but assumed we must be there somewhere.

We weren’t. We rolled down the hill through the Corkscrew and into the pit lane trying to engage gear. As we came to a halt as least we knew the engine was OK, the noise was transmission related and our race was run leaving Simon to take a comfortable 4th in class from Yaser in 5th. Back in the paddock, best guess is something inside the gearbox has broken, but we have no idea what. The Fiat is now with NJS in Pershore for investigation.

Watch the video - with apologies for the Gordon Ramsey impersonation at the end.

Race 2 (Sunday):
We watched from high above the circuit outside Peel trying not to be distracted by the views across the sea. Too much time spent watching Simon having an excellent race after a very good start and wondering where we would have been in relation. Andy Jordan was doing better, at one point he overtook Simon into Rocket, but Simon’s practice run with us at the Corkscrew yesterday paid off and Andy backed out of the side by side manoeuvre after Simon pulled away again. Yaser and Andy had a small coming together at Rocket, Andy spun the Clio right round and Yaser had nowhere to go but into the driver’s door. Both cars pulled off that lap although Yaser’s Daihatsu didn’t look damaged from a distance. He had pitted to check the damage and rejoined albeit a couple of laps down which promoted Chris to 5th in class.

We can take away some positives - we drove well, beyond our expectations. We have proven the Tipo can be competitive in the sub-Clio class, maybe its owner will be able to come out in it next season. For our part, that is our season, we only planned to do the Anglesey weekend and even if we hadn’t broken the Fiat, the fnal round at Snetterton was not on our agenda. We are concentrating more than ever now on trying to get out next season, back in the Lancia kappa where we feel comfortable. But a big thanks to Rich for the loan of the car and the chance to revitalise our racing energy.

Read the official race report here.

Check out the current points standing.

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