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Pre-Practice
What I dislike about Mallory is there is no bridge to the paddock. Scrutineering wasn’t until 10:20 but the gates shut at 9:20 for the entire practice. So miss the gate and wave bye-bye to the day’s racing. Well that’s the official line maybe some fast talking would change that but I wasn’t going to risk it. So realistically I needed to arrive at about 8:30 to avoid having a heart attack up the M1 wondering if I was going to beat the gate. Once inside the circuit we had time to fiddle around with the Z-Bar. With my car in the garage on it trailer I had not been able to set up the Z-Bar. So we set it up before pushing it around to scrutineering.
Practice
Circuit dry but cold. With the Z-Bar now setup the car felt 5 times more stable in Gerrards. So I could start leaning on it a bit more. Going into the hairpin I over revved it a couple of times. Very annoyed with myself. My efforts netted me pole position for the heat ahead of 15 other drivers. A 54.42 was 1.5 seconds quicker than my last effort at Mallory. Quite pleased with myself and I was starting to like Mallory park.
Race (Heat)
Sitting in the assembly area in the number one slot is definitely a good experience. But I was under no disillusions that this was going to be a pole to flag victory. A fellow Vee driver Richard Harris gave me some advise. Well it was more good reasoning. Saying if I was on pole then I was faster than everyone else. So all had to do was drive as fast as I did in practice and in theory I would win. Now put the theory into practice. Whenever I’ve done the warm lap I’ve often wonder why we drive around so slowly. So I thought being a pole I would whip around at some pace. I did and when I got to the hairpin I could only see a couple of cars behind me. So I crawled around to the grid, Murray Walker/James Hunt reverberating around in my head. “He doesn’t want to be standing too long on the grid. These cars have no fans and rely on moving forward to cool and some cobblers about overheating the clutch”. Clutch and cooling was the least of my worries. Green lights, Go. Not too bad a start but I could see the guys behind closing. Held it too long in second and I was fifth in to Gerrards. I wasn’t too unhappy with fifth. I felt confident of pulling it back. Then I got a visor full of oil. Forced to slow a little I reckoned about 5 cars went past but it seemed like 10. I cleared my visor with some frantic scrubbing. Now I was 10th and not happy. I overtook a couple of people and managed a 53.5 fastest lap to finish 8th. I didn’t have to wait too long in the pits before my crew and John Mitchell were asking what went wrong and cracking jokes. I asked my dad later what the commentator had said. He was giving me load of chat but his comment summed it up for me. After the start and as I entered Gerrards the commentator said “Where’s the pole man gone”. Where had he gone ?
Race (Final)
I was looking forward to have a bit of dice and try and work my way up the field for the final. We had changed the fuel filter between races. Through Gerrards the engine sounded like it was struggling and the fuel filter was full of rubbish. Off the line I found myself last into the first corner. But then over the next few laps I overtook a few people to pull myself up to a battle between Gordon Rae and another chap. Gordon Rae is 70 years old and a veteran of Vee. This weekend he had borrowed a car off John Mitchell. As the pair battled they were holding each other up. Through Gerrards I was much quicker than them (I love that Z-Bar) and as I pulled out to overtake both of them into Esses, Gordon squeezed me out either that or he didn’t see me. I gave way and decided to have a go next lap. But going into Gerrards the rear got a little sideways and I backed off a little and this let Gordon and co get away and with only one lap to go all I could do was close back up onto them. Still good racing and as quick as I had been in the previous race and some overtaking and two races in one day. I was happy.
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