Club Lotus - Cambridgeshire

Located a few miles west of Swansea, Pembrey is a track rarely visited by the HSCC. It is not a 'classic' circuit with a great heritage, like Brands, Oulton or Silverstone, and it is a long way from the monied south east. At only 1.6 miles it is also quite short track, but despite its flat topograhy it is a very challenging one.

At Hatchetts hairpin the trick is braking really late, but not too late, the preceding section being very fast. Spitfires cleverly disturbs the approach to Dibeni-Paddock, which is like one really long bend, but the unsettling adverse camber of the Paddock portion makes the Circuit's cafe appear magnetic... It takes a while to build up the necessary confidence to really lean on the car through this left-hander - there are few, if any, bends like it in British motorsport. It's not as fast as Spa-Francorchamps' Pouhon, but I would rate that an easier challenge! The Esses is deceptive, not just by name, but Brooklands is perhaps the most surprising corner of all - it looks like a hairpin, but thread your way through it properly and it becomes more of a medium-speed corner with a very narrow exit. Exit speed here is the name of the game, since you are flat through Woodlands until a confidence lift and a brush of the brakes for entry to Honda. 'Don't use the hard run off on the exit of Honda' the Clerk of the course had told us at the morning briefing, 'It's not the fastest line'. I didn't find any of my fellow competitors agreeing with the CoC at the end of the weekend, though.

Having raced here in '97 and '98 I chose not to take advantage of the testing offered, but when qualifying started it was obvious that a significant number of grey cells had lost their connections in the last decade. While over half my qualifying laps were slower than I'd managed in 1998, the twelfth and final lap was traffic-free and workmanlike, 1m 10.9 being three seconds quicker than my previious best here, indicating how developed the Seven S2 has become since then. But I was still on a steep learning curve that others had progressed along further, putting me only 5th on the grid, outqualified by Martin's 7S3, Andrew Marler's Elan and Dave's Ginetta, (and a suspected time-keeping error for Dick Coffey's Turner alongside me!).

In the first race a classically timid start fed me into the first corner down two places, ahead of the Turner but now also behind a Mustang, a 911 and a TR5! Late braking into Hatchett's was the preferred overtaking method, and at the rate of one car a lap I clawed my way up to 4th and gave chase to Martin's Seven. But I wasn't making much progress - we were both still steeply learning and chopping our lap times, but he was consistently ahead of me - until on lap eight his rocker shaft broke, and he pulled off, enabling me to inherit third place at the flag. The second race was pretty dull at the front, since:
a) the grid was decided by the first race's finishing order,
b) Martin's engine was not sensibly repairable trackside
c) Andrew Marler lent his car to his preparer, Richard Hayhow, who therefore had to start at the back of the grid, not having qualified 'in session'.
Richard had fun carving his way through the field, while I tried to pick up tips from watching Dave gradually draw his Ginetta away from me; that got me into the 1m 8seconds bracket, but still a quarter of a second behind Martin's best of the first race... He's definitely getting good, that chap...

The 23's race was hard work, since the brakes were still not able to maintain their performance, despite more bleeding attempts by Colin and modified radiator ducting to help them stay cool. However, rival 23 driver Matt Newman ceded the class win to me since his brakes were working well enough for him to leave his braking too late at Hatchetts and have to navigate across the grass...twice! After 45 minutes he'd closed to within 3.5 seconds of me at the finish.

So flattering results in both events thanks to others' problems - and 'master cylinder overhaul' was now on the 23's job list to give it a chance at the Castle Combe meeting in August, its next event. The Seven, though, was entered at the Silverstone Classic meeting later in July...