The weather was er...windy to say the least, but the rain held off most of the day.
11am came around, car scrutineered, fueled and the new super heavy duty oil cooler fitted
Ready to go and qualify... after suffering some fuel starvation problems at Brands I'd adjusted the new carb and done a good half an hour on the road. The car had performed perfectly so this should really be a true indication of the pace of the car..
I pulled out of the pits and nailed it down to Gerrards the never ending very fast right hander after the pit straight and....fuel starvation half way round
Ok, it's not the end of the world so lets see if we can drive round it.As the 30mins counted down the car seemed great out of left handers and terrible out of rights, this being a clockwise circuit that wasn't ideal..
However feathering the throttle in 4th and using the middle pedal as little as possible seemed to be keeping a respectable pace, so I was relatively happy when I got back to the paddock and pretty bloody amazed when I was 8th out of the 29 runners
Iain Daniels and Neil Condliffe in the Sabre 6 were 20th with the other Sabre 6 of John Leslie in 13th.
Pole was a TR6 with a 54.224 and my best effort was a 56.619.
The car was checked over by my chief mechanic (Dad) and the after some disscusion about the fuel starvation the problem was identified, however it was not something which could be sorted before the race so I'd have to live with it...
The cars lined up in the collection area and I had a couple of E-types, the Tr6, an Elan and a Lotus 7 in front of me as the heart rate increased...a lot!
On to the grid and the lights went off and we were racing!!
I got a good start but a V8 Morgan went past on the inside, forcing me to go around the outside of Gerrards where the GTE seemed to be able to go quicker than the cars on the inside enabling me to hold 8th.
As the field spread a bit I was behind the 7th place Elan and catching where the car was good and losing out where it wasn't so good, so as soon as the pit stop window opened my team (Ben) gave me the single to pit.
Down the pit lane and to a halt next to Ben who was ready to open my door for the, get out, stand on ground, get back in mandatory pit stop for single drivers.
The engine has to be turned off and obviously the belts on and off...this caused me a few problems, as I became all flustered and made a right mess of it, refusing Bens offer of help (mistake) I carried on and eventually got them fastened
OK, lets hit the starter and go.......the engine slowly turned over with no sign of firing....on the third try it just spun and fired, next phrase best not repeated
Back on the track and I seemed to be able to get past the traffic pretty quickly, mostly on the brakes into the hairpin or around either side around Gerrards and it was interesting when the leaders were catching me to lap, the leading E-type followed me down the straight and was no faster and he spun leaving the Lotus 7 which I dutifully let past and followed very closely for a few laps, being as quick or quicker when the car was on song and only losing when waiting for the power to kick in, which again was promising for the future.
The rain began to fall and I seemed to be catching people faster now, this enabled me to take 7th from a Spitfire and run there until the penultimate lap when we exited the hairpin together only to come across a MK2 Jag on my side of the track. I had to lift and the Spitfire regained 7th, I tried to get him on the last lap but finished .6sec shy of him at the finish. My fastest lap was 1.7secs off fastest lap set by an E-Type.
Exiting devils elbow:
Iain and Neil finished 12th and John was 13secs behind in 13th.
Well I'd waited a good 30 years for that and it was well worth the wait, the smile lasted quite a while
Bring on Anglesey at the end of June and we'll show em what a Scimitar can do
Some pics here:
http://triumph-motorsport.fotopic.net/c1518358.html
Paul.
