Club Lotus - Cambridgeshire

It was very much a last minute thing.

The failure of the 23's cylinder head for the third time since Brands last year without getting to race had cast a bit of a pall on my motor sport. But while investigating options for a 'new' head for the sports racer, prepping the 7 S2 for its annual MoT took centre stage. First on the list was replacement of the back-axle A-Frame bush - which I'm getting pretty good at, since these only seem to last half a dozen races... Then any slack in the rear brake drum adjusters was wound away to optimise hand brake performance, which had been a struggle last year. Before cleaning and realigning the headlights - which meant adjusting the mudguard brackets on which they are mounted - I needed to replace the dynamo. The brackets for this were incredibly stout - weighing 2 kilograms! - so I made some lighter ones and once a new dynamo was fitted everything worked well. A screen washer pump was 'borrowed' from my Lotus Elise and 'Blue Streak' was ready for the testing station.

She failed! The front number plate - white numbers stuck on the dark blue nose cone - was 'not in conformance to regulations'. Last year's 'cone - subsequently damaged in the tyre wall at Mallory Park - had a black background. After a few minutes back home a 'new' number plate was tie-wrapped onto the front grill and the testing station issued the necessary paperwork. The tie wraps were then carefully undone and the plate stored ready for next year, and the screen washer pump was refitted to the Elise...

The Croft weather forecast was good for Sunday, and after cleaning the carburetter intake socks, repairing the fibreglass rear mudguard yet again, setting tyre pressures, topping up oil, checking rear brake shoes and fitting new front brake pads, she was loaded onto the trailer and the Saturday evening trip north on the A1 began. The 200-mile journey is straightforward, especially since the recent upgrades removed most of the A1's roundabouts, and the skies were often spectacular as Yorkshire approached, the anvil clouds of the day's storms lit from the west by the summer sun. But hunger was beginning to tell; a few miles south of the circuit, a Northallerton fish and chip shop beckoned. By gum, they were good!

After arriving at the track just in time for a couple of laps on my bicycle, once back in the motorhome sleep came quickly.

Sunday morning was dry but overcast, with blustery winds. Needing to bed in the new brake pads I wanted maximum track time, so made sure Blue Streak headed the qualifying queue, not forgetting to warn those behind me about my impending abnormal use of the brakes. After swotting up on my one-page abbreviated circuit guide, at the signal this was stuffed this inside my flameproof overalls and I headed out on track. Croft is quite technical, with mostly slow to medium speed corners; despite its largely flat 'airfield' topography it does have quite a lot of bumps! A surprisingly fast entry into the Clervaux right-hander is immediately followed by a bit of braking and turning for Hawthorns, a long, opening 180 degree corner with a chicane for an exit onto what used to be the grid straight. A left kink and slight brow leads into the braking area for the 120 degree right at Tower and then it's flat all the way through the Jim Clark Esses and Barcroft before going heavy on the brakes for the big 180 of Sunny In and Sunny Out. Braking here proved to be the biggest challenge, and even after bedding in there was a certain snatchiness, perhaps caused by the bumpy surface, so both delicay and firmness were called for... Then to the 90-left into the complex, a corner that seemed to be quicker than I was managing, before the near 180 leading to the tightest left-hand 'Hairpin' in UK motor sport. Traction out of this is critical, leading onto the main start-finish straight and Clervaux once more.

On my fifth flying lap I clocked a 1m 41.4s, but despite seven more attempts, including three more in the 41s, that was the best I could manage. It was good enough for Pole, but only by fifteen hundredths of a second from Mike Eagles' 3 litre Milano GT - it was looking as if there could be an exciting race in the offing!

John and Jane Pringle dropped by in the paddock afterwards and John gave me the benefit of his Croft expertise - he lives only a few miles away. Watching at the entry to the Complex he showed me where the apex was at the fast left, and pointed out that entering part two on the right - as a result of a very fast entry - was no hardship, with a tight line on the second part being just as efficient as a longer but faster line.

When the race came - the last of the weekend, over forty minutes - I fancied my chances, confident that the Seven would be easier on its tyres than the Milano, particularly once the fuel load burned off. The one minute signal given, I warmed up my engine to full temperature ready for the green flag lap - but the marshal had apparently shown the board too early, since a minute and a half later he hoisted the 'one minute' sign again! I couldn't understand why my electric fan didn't seem to be switching itself on, but when we finally got underway higher than planned engine temperature should come back under control. But it didn't. Even free-wheeling along the old start straight didn't help, so when we rounded Tower I dropped out of the warm-up lap and cut the corner across the in-field straight to the Pits. Leaping out I whipped off the bonnet, wanting to see if the fan belt had gone, but now needed a screw driver to release the fasteners so the nose cone could be eased back. I begged the loan of a screwdriver from some chaps in the pit garage who were loading their stuff away, but it took forever before a suitable tool appeared - and the fan belt was still in place! Could it have been just the delayed start that caused the overheating? The race having just started, I made my way down the pit lane to re-join at the entry to Clervaux - but clearly all was still not well, so before the corner I dived through the collection area and headed for the motorhome, and my tools. I'd thoughtfully put all of them away ready for the homeward journey, but now they were quickly pulled from the cargo hold, with the Seven stopped on the trailer's ramps to give access to the engine from underneath as well as above. The dynamo seemed at an odd angle... then the awful truth dawned - the rear bolt had disappeared altogether, and all the others were loose! Having ferreted in my tool box for a replacement bolt and nut I slid back underneath the car to find - the bolt was too short... And so it went on, even with help from Dick Dixon it seemed an age before I was heading back to the track via the collection area. The surprised marshals waved me through and I was back in the race - the fact that it was a forty minute one rather than the usual twenty making all the difference.

With the sun low in the sky it proved harder for my aging eyes to spot the edges of the track, particularly where silhouetted trees formed the backdrop, as at the exit of Tower and the entry to Sunny In. The braking point for the latter was almost impossible for me to find, not made any easier by the discovery that I had not refastened my helmet strap. Tight fitting though it was, the aerodynamic forces were making it lift as I approached the braking zones. Then I remembered hearing the tannoy while aborting the start, and Marcus Pye suggesting I might be trying to make my compulsory one minute pit stop earlier than the rules allowed. So now I made a proper pit stop and took the opportunity to remove gloves, thread strap and tighten up my helmet before resuming.

With around five gallons of fuel over my back axle the car was more pendulous than usual, but still great fun, and I was able to put into practice what John had suggested for 'Complex 1', powering through it in third gear and taking the shortest kerb-hugging route around 'Complex 2'. Gradually braking later for Clervaux made the entry to Hawthorns increasingly exciting, but to begin to master the details of this track would really take a Test Day.

When the chequered flag was waved and Ben Cookson had helped me load the car and lash it down, the results revealed the race was already 24 minutes old before I'd clocked my first lap, so the Seven was 'Not Classified' in the official results, only completing ten laps to the winner's twenty-three. But its pole time was still the fastest tour of this fascinating track by an Historic Road Sports car, and the whole event was not without excitement!

Lessons learned: when you change anything on a racing car, check the tightness of those bolts after every run until it's clear everything has 'settled down' - and perhaps carry a few light tools on board, just in case...

Postscript

In case I've given the wrong impression, I drove home from Croft very happy! I'd had great fun driving the Seven on track, been blessed with help and support from everyone when things 'went wrong' and enjoyed meeting up with many old friends. The event itself had considerable charm, as the organisers endeavoured to make it a 'Goodwood Revival'
for the North, with many spectators in period dress, a fantastic array of classic cars and even some old aircraft taking off and landing a just yards away from where I was parked.

It really isn't about winning - pleasant though that can be - it IS about the taking part, and the camaraderie, the friendships. The 2010 Croft race meeting embraced all of these, and I'll definitely go again, given the chance.