Cadwell Park 13th April 2008 -
Race Progress Report from Andy Shepherd

Cadwell Park is such a challenging test of man and machine that I never begrudge the afternoon trek into deepest Lincolnshire with its inevitable overnight stop. Last year I'd managed pole in the Seven, with a 1m46.4s lap, but this year things didn't go quite so well. I'd positioned myself at the head of the qualifying queue in order to get a couple of clear laps, but on my first real flyer, with warm tyres and brakes, I was too ambitious at the approach to the Gooseneck, the complicated left-hand descending corkscrew corner, so that I had to abort and cut across the grass, spoiling the lap. Grip under the trees between the Hairpin and Barn was also not confidence-inspiring, the experienced Julian Barter (a Silverstone Instructor) having crashed his TVR there in 70s Roadsports qualifying earlier on. A red flag caused by a collision between a TR and an Elan on the approach to Mansfield then stopped the session, enabling me to get another clear lap once it restarted, but I only managed 4th fastest, behind a couple of Elans and Dave Randall's Ginetta. The finger pointed at the driver, since I was two seconds slower than last year, while Dave had gone almost a second quicker than in 2007...

As the Seven's race approached, the forecast rain finally fell in the form of a hailstorm, almost bringing down the awnings covering our Lotuses. But my decision to switch to wets came too late for Colin, so I mustered in the  collection area on the 'dry' Yokohamas. Two green flag laps wasn't enough to produce a dry line now that the hail had stopped, but it did allow grip levels to be tentatively tested. Getting cleanly off the starting grid proved difficult, though - shifting to second gear I caught a load of wheel spin, slipping me in the blink of an eye from fourth to seventh, Martin Halliday's Seven S3, Julian Dodd's TVR Griffith and Colin Sharp's TR5 all flashing by.
I should have passed the TR at the end of Park Straight under braking, but was over-cautious, not having diced with the TR before, so it wasn't until the approach to the fast uphill left hander of Coppice at the start of the next lap that I moved by. Martin was by now a hundred and fifty yards ahead, but in a lap and a half I'd caught him up and he all but waved me by on the approach to the Mountain, putting me 5th. But if I was circulating three seconds a lap faster than Martin, the leading bunch were in a different class. Dave Randall's fastest lap was over five seconds quicker than mine, Paul Tooms' Elan was only eight tenths slower than Dave, but after a slight contact between them, Paul spun and dropped to 4th behind Julian Dodd's TVR while Dave gave chase to Peter Shaw's Elan, not quite managing to catch him at the flag.

All this action at the front happened out of sight from me, but my race soon became more demanding as Robert Barrie's 911 exploited its wet weather traction to climb from 12th on the grid to hang onto my tail. He was strongest through Chris Curve, the Gooseneck and Mansfield, while I could pull out a gap from the pit straight, Coppice, Charlies to the end of Park straight. The narrowness of the track allowed me to maintain my 5th place to the flag - just! Not a great result, not the smoothest driving from me, but at least the car was going home to Cambridge in one piece from a tricky wet track without much safety run off.

The 23's practice was marred by the same misfire that had bedevilled us at Donington, despite Colin's best efforts. New coil, plugs and plug leads and a repaired distributor cap hadn't fixed the problem, which seemed at its worst on right hand corners. Astonishingly, despite the problem, the 23 was sixth fastest out of a small GT and Sports racing car field of just 13 qualifiers. Colin took out each jet in turn from the Weber carburettors, the float chamber tops and the filters, cleaned everything carefully. One of the air bleed jets turned out to be clogged with some brass corrosion from the winter, but then the temporary choke rigged up to start the engine at Donington was revealed to be still choking the forward carb slightly. Colin released this and the car immediately fired up cleanly; the left hand corner issue had been misleading, since the wider open throttle for Coppice was masking the air-fuel ratio problems at the part throttle right-handers.

Come the race and the green flag laps showed the misfire on corners had really gone. Baulked at the off by a slow starting Marcos in front of me, an Elan 26R slipped by me on the approach to Coppice, putting me eighth as we went round Charlies. But a clean exit with a sweet sounding engine made it easy to power past both the Marcos and the Elan before the end of Park straight, even though the track was still slippery in parts. Halfway round the second lap I went around the outside of a defending lightweight E-Type under braking for the Mountain, moving me up to 5th - this was fun! A good exit from Charlies at the start of the third lap allowed me to squeeze past another lightweight E-Type for third on the way down Park straight; what a joy to drive this car is, with lots more front end bite than last year everywhere - except under the trees from the Hairpin to Barn... The fruits of lowering the suspension over the winter seem to be paying off. At the start of the fourth lap I swept past the final Marcos on the approach to Coppice to take third place, the second placed Chevron B6 now almost the length of Park straight ahead of me. After little more than a lap I was on his tail as we exited the Hall bends, but his superior  traction through the greasy Hairpin and Barn allowed him to pull out a second on me through the pit straight, where a slight top end misfire on my Twin-cam at around 7,000rpm made me now change up a little early. I would then claw that gap back through Coppice and Charlies and especially Chris Curve and the Gooseneck, to be back on his tail again as we braked for the Hairpin. This see-saw continued for two or three laps until I was held up on the entry to Coppice lapping two back markers, costing me a couple of seconds. That was enough to see the Chevron safely to the chequer behind Stuart Tizzard's Lenham Spider, but third overall was pretty satisfying. I had made a few mistakes in the conditions, but for what was effectively the first drive in the 23 since October, that was forgivable. The handling of the 23 was good, with tail end slides caught relatively easily with opposite lock when needed. New tyres are planned for our next outing, at Silverstone International, the current ones being nearly three-years old...

Official results are at:
http://www.hscc.org.uk/Results/2008/Cadwell%20Park13-04-08.pdf

Andy Shepherd