Club Lotus - Cambridgeshire

Is this now the bumpiest track the HSCC races on? Flat out on Avon Rise heading up towards Quarry Corner the back end of the Seven goes light enough for the rear wheels to briefly spin - not ideal for rear axle components! Even so, the 'new' hub survived the day. Qualifying proved harder than expected - maybe it was my memory of the track that was weak, but I just couldn't seem to find enough grip out there to post a decent time, ending the session with 1m22.1, nearly two seconds shy of my lap record of a couple of years ago. Dave Randall, who'd pushed me hard back then in his Ginetta, found his form well, with a 1m20.7, four hundredths behind Andrew Marler's Elan, while James Patterson's Morgan Plus 8 was comfortably on pole with 1m19.2. A few tenths behind me were Martin Halliday's Seven S3 and Paul Tooms' Elan.

The lights blinked out and the grid roared off up the hill - Paul Tooms powered past and Martin also slipped by as Tony Howard's Plus 8 also outdragged both of us into Quarry. So at the end of lap one I'd slipped from 4th to 7th - some work to do! Martin was driving well, and early on lap two he put the Morgan between us, stealing his 5th spot and clocking a 1m21.1. As we crossed the line at the end of the lap I was close enough to the Morgan through Camp to be able to slipstream him up towards Quarry, where some epic late braking put me in front. This gave me some good curves with which to pull a gap before the end of the lap, and the Morgan was over two seconds adrift of me at the end of lap three. But Martin was now 3.3 seconds ahead, while the battle at the front had swung from early leader Andrew Marler's Elan to James's Plus 8 and Dave's G4, as Andrew's Elan started to give problems, letting Paul Tooms' Elan take third off him. On lap 4 the troubled Elan pitted, promoting Martin and me to 4th and 5th, both of us posting in the 1m21s - as was Paul's Elan - while Dave Randall took the class lap record off me with a 1m 19.99!

Conditions were super, the track nicely warm and everyone's tyres working well. At the end of lap five I was only 2.5 seconds behind Martin, but he responded and we both put in low 1m21s on lap six, just as Paul made an error and dropped two seconds towards us. At the end of lap seven 2.1 seconds bracketed 3rd to 5th places, when Martin and I both popped in low 1m20s, and after lap eight 3rd to 5th was 1.7seconds! It was going to be a great fight for the last podium spot over the next five laps...

And then the safety car was deployed... For a very good reason, in that a car had spun and stalled on the apex of Quarry, on the tarmac, pointing the wrong way! There had been some contact, apparently, between a pair of cars in front and emergency braking had done the park job. If only the safety car had emerged from the pit lane in front of the leader of the race, as intended... Instead it had picked up third placed man, Paul Tooms, and it seemed to take quite a while before the mistake was recognised. Finally Paul, Martin and I were waved past the safety car, but we hadn't even rejoined the snake before the race was prematurely ended, due to another incident at Tower, where a TR was reported to be on fire. Very bad news for the owners of damaged cars, also a bit disappointing for the rest of us whose racing was curtailed just as it was getting really exciting. But hearty congratulations to Dave Randall, who well and truly blitzed my old class lap record with a 1m19.4seconds run on lap seven, when my best was 1m20.2s and Martin clocked 1m20.9. Paul's best was slower than both of ours, at 1m21.1s, but he was the one with James and Dave on the victory pickup, waving to the crowds!