What a weekend of highs and lows !
Family Graham set off for sunny Northants to The Home of Motor Racing on Saturday afternoon having packed the cars up with all the necessary luxuries for the luxury pit garage we had and some glad rags for a night out in Northampton with a load of the guys.
We had booked into Holiday Inn Express for a bargain of £43 for the 3 of us inc breakfast
and arrived there via a small detour to Zen to get my rev limit raised. At Zen, there wasnt the normal last minute panic of fitting an engine into the Impreza, instead Liz was outside polishing it
Steven Darley was inside with his car on the rollers trying to sort out some fueling issues (eventually diagnosed and fixed as fuel pump relays). Sounds superb on the dyno Steven .... very loud indeed !
The hotel was clean and tidy and had all we needed. I changed the wheels on my car there and we drove to the circuit to drop the car off in the garage so that I didnt need to worry about it being left outside in the hotel car park, plus it left us time for fettling in the morning. We arrived at the track at the same time as the DCY boys and had a good chat to them and Stu, Dill and many others before heading back to Northampton for a Japanese meal at the Sakura restaurant.
Sakura was easy to find I was told and we headed in without directions and eventually found it. The meal was fanastic and the company great too, eating with the crew from Zen, Andy Forrest, Steven and Emma Darley, David Wallis, Dill, John Felstead and Team Orange Drift guys from Japan.
Some flamage:
Smoking:
Table for 29 please
oooo that looks good:
Makes you strong like Jackie Chan....
Team Orange having a giggle
Paul (sushi king) Blamire telling Rachel (my wife) what he has ordered for her.... blowfish anyone ?
Number One pit crew:
Some special fried rice served the proper way:
Anyway, meal done and time for Rachel to try some Saki. She didnt like it but necked 6 glasses of it to find it out
her legs werent working too well after this it seems !!
Back to the hotel for a quick night cap and off to bed for an early start.
Sunday morning came and it was dry and reasonably bright so we headed over to the circuit and I started to mess about putting some heat shielding on the oil cooler pipes after chatting to Steven darley at dinner about it and the problems that he experienced last year at Silverstone. Quickly dispatched with that thanks to some cable ties from Sam Kerr's team and ready for signing on and briefing.
Warm up was next and the drizzle was there but still it didnt seem to affect grip at all. Had a nice dice with Mike Payne following him around until he cracked from the pressure and drifted sideways into the gravel
Manfoot didnt work that time, but he was looking quick all the same and a sign of what was to come from him later in the day.
Warm up went well for me recording 11th quickest but there were some without transponders on so not all times recorded.
The friendliness of everyone in the pits was unreal, everyone seemed to be having a ball and happy to chat, swap stories and general have a laugh. This was superb and made the day extra special for me. Great to chat to Pablo, Bart and Dave about their days too as with Club Challenge split into 2 groups we didnt see each other on track.
Mike, Jase and Mark from Area 52 Autosport arrived and were keen to know how it had been going. It was all good at this point and nothing but good to report.
Next up was Practice and the 20 minute session for me was cut short with a boost leak from a hose just as it came onto boost and forcing me to come back into the pits to try and find it. It wasnt the obvious and previous culprits but instead the joint right behind the bumper so needed to remove the bumper to make some repairs. Unfortunately we ran out of time.... scrap one session. I had improved on the previous session's time by 1.7 seconds but still lots more to come. Thanks to Mike, jase and Mark for doing the repairs but the clock was against us and they did a slightly more robust fix on this in order to get rid of this one for the next session.
Rachel and Annabelle were busying themselves watching the drifting and getting annoyed with the stewards that asked them to pay £5 to sit in the granstands ! - surely team personnel dont normally get charged. They got some good pics though and I will post those up later.
After lunch it was time for qualifying and the 20 minute session to set the best times. The top 15 forced induction cars to go through to the final. I rolled out of the pits behind Barrie from DCY knowing that he wouldnt be holding me up
and warmed the tyres on the out lap ready to hit the pedal for a hot lap straight away. First lap I took another second off my previous and down to 1.08 dead but still more to come from it as it felt very settled and strong in the important sections, braking was perfect and lines were getting there.
Next lap I was on a flyer just ahead of a Skyline with my lights on indicating that I was on a hot lap but the white skyline decided he wanted to take my line in the braking zone going into brooklands. I was fuming. Not only had he ruined my lap but he had no chance of getting a good lap himself with a compromised entry to the complex - that is wrong in my book. I decided a cool down lap was in order both for the car and for me. Next lap was a flier and I got more speed out of luffield that before, held it for longer on the straight and didnt brake so much for Copse, carrying way more speed than before and running one wheel onto the rumble strip on the exit and the other just over it. It felt planted and fast
Then the pop. Fek another hose off this time but it felt like it had come off completely this time as there was no drive at all and I could just muster to get it onto the straight and pull over.
I jumped out of the car and over the barrier but in a red mist decided that I would pop the bonnet and put the hose back on to limp to the pits to get back out there, this was my one chance to get back out on track and put in the time that I knew I could do. I did this and heading under the bridge could see that they had red flagged the session. I got flagged down before brooklands and told to report to race control.... into the pits and was told to park in the yellow box (racing equivalent to the naughty step) and follow the marshall up to race control. Duly, and quite rightly chastised I sprinted back to the car, went up the pit lane as fast as I could to try and get the hose back on and back out before the end of the session. Mark helped me get the hose on but then the Chequered Flag was waved before I had a chance to get back out. I was gutted and really p***ed off that yet again a hose popping off had spoilt it.
I am sorry to everyone in group A for causing the red flag and hope that they can forgive me for losing a couple of minutes of track time in my desire to get running again.
It took quite some time to calm down.
The rest of the day was spent mainly cheering Mike on who had done brilliantly and continued to do justice to the amount of time and effort that had been spent this week on getting him to the start line. We were routing for all of the BigPower teams and am so pleased for their individual results.
The pro final was amazing with top times being swapped and the end result of 0.19 seconds covering the top 3. Some incredible driving in some incredible cars. Well done also for Gary at APT for exorcising some demons and putting in a great performance (just imagine what it would do with some proper aero Gary
)
Great weekend in all, nothing broken, no oil consumed at all ! and no issues to stop me having a nice drive home in it
Just cant help thinking about the one that got away though.....
Huge thanks to:
Area 52 Autosport for their support before and on the day - cheers Mike/Jase/Mark
Zen for for the chassis tuning, ecu mapping and organising a great night out
The BigPower massive for the friendly banter and numerous other people that wished me luck during the day