Oulton Park (Fosters), 18 August 2007

Back up north to Oulton Park for our second visit of the season, only this time on the shorter Fosters circuit. A leisurely drive up on Friday afternoon seemed a lot more traffic free than I could have dreamt of, the one flaw in the journey being caused by the Caddy's sat-nav system. Having set the destination as the postcode of Oulton Park circuit, we were doing fine with just two miles to go - then we were diverted the back way to Little Budworth down some very narrow and windy lanes, not Caddy and trailer friendly at all. To cap it all, with 120 yards to go, the sat-nav announced "there is insufficient data to locate the destination, please refer to a map"! Unbelievable! Just as well we really were 120 yards from the circuit, just round the corner.

But sat-nav aside, we arrived around 6:40pm on Friday to find the paddock area already filling up with LMA drivers. David Roberts' son James was borrowed to help apply the new Nyssa Racing stickers to Rover, this round was going to be on telly after all. It was good to see birthday boy Jason Newman (21 today) with his freshly repaired Peugeot 306. Not so promising was the news that the new engine was showing 226bhp, 26 up from the old one. Like Jason wasn't pulling away at Anglesey? This didn't stop us helping Jason celebrate his birthday, his family kindly laid on barbecue food and beer until it got dark and started raining at which time we retired to the bar. Note to Oulton Park - when you have a bar full of drivers, don't switch off the lights and throw them all out at 10:30pm!

The weather forecast for Saturday was rain - it arrived early on Friday night and continued throughout most of the night. Most drivers had brought their cars up on wet tyres ready working on the basis that its better to change to dry tyres in the dry than put the wets on while it was raining. We had planned to arrive on wets too, but work committments meant it never happened. Woke in the morning to see a wet Oulton Park, a cloudy, darkish sky, but it wasn't raining. We were 4th session out, I reckoned if it didn't rain again the track would dry out enough for slicks, but watching the TVRs out first while we were queuing for scrutineering make me question that pearl of wisdom, such was the spray being thrown up.

Scrutineering - that was a screw up. Only 15 minutes allotted to cover 30 cars, the wise amongst us went down to queue early. Those of still still involved in preparation - in my case setting the tyre pressures - took a little longer to get there, but many of our crowd were a lot further back. The Newmans supplied bacon butties while we were in the queue and eventually we got the clean bill of health required. Suddenly we were called to the assembly area and almost before we were all there, we were out on track - fully 15 minutes early. Now it's good to get ahead of schedule, but not if you still have a queue of cars delayed in scrutineering - we were lined up to go out 5th of our drivers.

Qualifying:
The track was slippery but no more than damp and I started to build up speed although plainly not enough speed as everyone else was going faster. Going up past Deer Leap the Rover was all over the place, most disconcerting. I've still not really got the hang of having to rev Rover's nuts off (even though the rev cutout is around just 7200rpm), so was experimenting with what gear to use for much of the session. Any hopes of keeping up with Mark Hammersley's Fiesta were dashed when he came flying past and disappeared into the distance in no time at all. I didn't see Pongo or Jason's 306 during the session so at least they weren't going to completely embarrass me.

Turns out Simon Jackson was caught very unawares by the queues and the early start, Pongo starting qualifying with no fuel and wrong settings. Pongo managed just four laps before coughing, spluttering and limping back home out of fuel - but was still 15/100ths faster than Rover managed in 10 laps. Worse befell Jason, the 306 managed 5 laps before losing all power, another engine expired and a second consecutive early bath for the Pug.

John Hammersley had come to Oulton Park with the ex-Simon Blanckley Honda Accord as the Cavalier was not ready yet, and hoping the Honda would have a better Oulton Park than last season - Simon hit the wall hard. And in true Hammersley fashion, the Accord would not start all through the qualifying session so would have to start from the back of the grid.

Race 1:
Despite Oulton Park's best efforts at getting ahead with the schedule, our first race was still scheduled for after lunch. And it was at lunch time the rain started to fall, there was soon no doubt this was going to be a wet race. Rich Ellingham was acting as spanner-man for Nyssa Racing today, his Fiat Tipo engine is still not back together, and we quickly changed over to the wet tyres - the supposed lucky wets which accompanied the Y10 and Alfasud all season long in 2002 but never actually got used. The luck had run out. At the drivers' briefing pre-race we had been told that we would do one formation lap to line up on the grid and that our rolling lap would then count as the second - you need 2 when the weather and track conditions change, but someone changed their mind and we were informed on the grid we would do two formation laps before lining up. The guys set off at a decent pace and Rover was having to try fairly hard in places to keep up!

Finally we came round to Lodge on the rolling lap - mindful of being caught out as we were here back in April, I was keeping tight on the car in front (Nigel Ainge's Tomcat) but he still got the drop on me out of Lodge. I gave Rover everything even though the start line was over the brow, John Hammersley slotted down the inside coming into Old Hall but I managed to get the better of Pongo who spent the first lap chasing down Rover before getting by at Old Hall on lap 2. That first lap was more than a little eventful, the conditions catching out a number of drivers. First up was Andrew Neal's Honda Integra running along the grass past Old Hall. He was running in Class D so that was a place gained. Douglas Ellwood in the Marcos Mantis was next, we came across him completely sideways in Fosters and somehow we all managed to miss him. Rover lost a lot of time as we were unsighted until the last moment chasing Nigel Ainge so as we climbed up towards Deer Leap the pack were pulling away. This time the yellow flags were out in time and as I approached the brow I knew something was up the other side. Nigel Woodbridge's Vectra was sideways across the right side of the track, plenty of space to go left, and Antony Sullivan's Clio was on the grass. They had had a big coming together. Pongo got a good run on me out of Lodge and overtook easily into Old Hall, I must learn to defend better there!

Picture courtesy of James Roberts

The carnage continued, David Roberts was parked sideways on the outside after Old Hall, the Tomcat having taken a bash to the rear quarter - but he would resume and come storming through the following lap. Before we reached Cascades, Pongo and Rover got past Dan Crossley's Tomcat which was just rejoining from the grass as we went through. The marshals were still waving yellow flags up Deer Leap, Nigel's Vectra was now pushed right up infield to the Armco but unbeknown to us he had hurt his neck and the marshals needed medical assistance to get him safely out of the car. I was losing places now as Dan and Douglas came through into Lodge before the end of lap 2. With Dave Roberts storming round the outside at Knickerbrook on lap 3, we were back to last on the road. Lap 4 and what looked like Bernard Hogarth's Mondeo was parked up at Fosters with a sore nose - and still the flags were out at Deer Leap, still Nigel was in the Vectra. And coming into Druids I was lapped - Nick Williamson's Escort Cosworth coming through with Mal Davison's Noble right on his bumper. Mal was weaving down the straight looking to pass and made the move going into Lodge. Lap 5 and still Nigel was in the Vectra, still the yellow flags were out. Finally as Rover rounded Lodge to end lap 5, the red flags were out so the ambulance could get out to attend to Nigel - about time.

So for the second consecutive televised race, we had a restart situation. This is hardly going to do our reputation any favours. We were a long time on the grid, more than 30 minutes for sure, long enough for both video cameras to reach the end of the tape before we lined up to start again. At least once we were ready to restart the marshals gave us the information which had been so sadly lacking back at Anglesey. It was going to be an 8 minute race started again, so the previous 5 laps were struck from the record book. The Super Tourers didn't take well to parking on a hill and the long wait, both Alvin Powell and Derek Hale were pushed off the grid and out of the race. Strangely Bernard Hogarth was able to patch up his Mondeo and make the restart despite having been parked up when the red flags came out.

Needless to say we were back last on the grid and this time could do nothing about keeping Pongo back. Rover chased Pongo round what seemed an even more slippery track than before, more rain fell during the break. Coming into Lodge Pongo got very sideways but we weren't close enough to get by. We got luckier at Druids next time round when Pongo went completely chasing its tail and doing a 720 degree spin right in front of us. We almost came to a stop waiting to see if Pongo would suddenly spear off in any direction, before being able to get through the gap and into second last (we thought)! Now to defend that position! I was thrown on the next lap by the sight of Stephen Pearcy coming up from behind, I found later he had started from the pitlane making a quick repair during the break.

This time round Nick Williamson managed to hold on to the win from Mal by just 3/10ths with Rover finsihing 4th in class and ahead of Pongo and Tim Morgan-Barrett who was going for some kind of spinning record in the VX220!

Race 2:
Race 2 was late in the day, with the schedule having now been delayed by us - our race took over an hour all in - there was some concern we might not even get race 2, but in the end we were told it would be a shortened (15 minute) race starting at approx. 17:30pm. The rain had all but stopped but every time we thought about changing back to slicks, it would start with light drizzle again. Julian Brown phoned with some weather intel - he was driving up the M6, the atrocious weather following him. It would surely arrive at Oulton soon, but whether before the end of the race was anyone's guess. Eventually we decided on wets, but Stephen Pearcy and the two Mondeos went for slicks. Brave men - and truly inspired as it turned out.

We made the rash decision to play our joker, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Should have played it at Snetterton when I realised that 3rd in class was on the cards as Rover isn't competitive in Class D (at least not with my driving!). Four cars finished race 1, fourth was better than I could reasonably hope for in the final rounds at Brands and Snetterton, so we went for it. And didn't check first that Andrew Neal hadn't got back into this race!

Picture courtesy of James Roberts

On the out lap we all realised our folly, the track was drier than it had been for morning qualifying. Protecting the wets was the order of the day with most drivers searching out for any damp patch on the straights to cool the tyres down. We had a quiet race, got lost on lap 1 and fell further back to finish comfortably last. The Mondeos made it to second and fourth splitting winner Mal Davison and third place John Hammersley. All along the grid there were some strange results, chief of which was Simon Taylor being beaten in Class D for the first time (by Andrew Neal - so that's me and Simon wishing he hadn't made it out after all), Simon losing four places on the last lap alone.

Due to my stupidity we came away with 4 less points than I had expected. Not sure if Jason Newman can get back out again, hopefully they can find another engine and come out and play. Rover moves up to 4th in Class D just 4 points behind Jason, but Jason has yet to play his joker so will be hard to beat for 3rd if he gets out. Brands Hatch next in 3 weeks time and we're hoping that our greater experience at the circuit will be enough to get the best out of Rover and give Pongo and maybe Jason a decent race.

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