BARC Westfield Championship Mallory Write-up

[simon4007]

Mallory 17/09/2006

Westfield racing returned to Leicestershire for the second time of the year and incredibly we had our 11th dry race!! We also have the great news that we have our biggest turn out of the year with 20 cars preparing to go out to qualify. We have Geraint Rees making a welcome return and Lorna Chattin who is making her racing debut slipping in to dad Peters race seat (with a fair bit of extra cushioning it must be said) whilst he recuperates with back problems.

Other News:

Mark Curtis attends the Wednesday morning test session with a brand new Dunnell engine, it expires after 2 sessions somehow loosing all of it's oil - no trace of oil in the engine compartment either, he's very concerned as to where it went and is waiting for the autopsy to be performed when Paul Dunnell gets it back. Mark fits his original engine and makes it to race day.

Seamus Harding was the only driver to take advantage of a track session the day before the race, but from what I can gather he had a horrid time, following slow moving drivers who were getting their first track experience, this made things very difficult.

Tom Robinson announces that his car is for sale and that he plans to go racing with his father in a Porsche 911 GT3. He has plans to get married next year so the Westie has to go unfortunately!

After the carnage that was Snetterton, all Westfield drivers are called before the Clerk of the Course for 'a talking too'! (Some of us were a little bit later than others, but hey I just like my name called over the tannoy!) We are all warned that all officials are under instructions to report any rubbing or body contact between cars and that action may be taken. Is someone going to be made an example of?

Qualifying:

I didn't specifically go seeking feedback from drivers on the days performance so I will summarise.

Tom Robinson, Jonathan Young, and Nick flowers romp to the front of the field. Just 4 one thousandths of a second between 2nd and 3rd, but it's Tom who seems to have a slight advantage posting a time of 51.692.

Troy Robinson brings his Westfield 'Tripod' in a very respectable 4th (52.127) and then the next second is incredibly filled with 12 cars! Didier and myself round out the top 6, and Lorna Chattin qualifys confirming a 20 car grid, she's a little off the pace but doing a excellent job of trying to stay out of the way for the quicker drivers.

The session was dry and incident free, all drivers managing to keep there noses clean (you'd be worried if it came to wheel banging in qualifying too, wouldn't you!?!), everyone other than Lorna completing 17 laps or more.

Race (First start):

The field initially gets away from the grid well, Seamus has a cracking start and I can see him large in my mirrors as we settle in to Gerrads. Two thirds the way down Stebbe straight Jonathan Young and Tom Robinson are very close, looks like Toms moving to cover the inside as we head towards the Dunlop Esses, there's contact, and Jonathan spins violently to the outfield and fibreglass debris goes everywhere.

Those in close proximity take avoiding action and pass through the accident area and the rest of the field start to bunch up as everyone slows, Jon Morton comes round Gerrads and has to take immediate avoiding action, he puts his wheels on the grass and the car launches its self in to a high speed spin. He crashes side on in to the tyre wall on the infield.

Strangely it takes another full lap before the red flags come out. Seamus is placing a move on me just as they the race is red flagged.... we head back to the grid and take up our qualifying positions.

Tom's car from what I can see has damage to the rear off-side wheel arch, the officials are taking a close look at it, his team jump on to the track to slap some tape on it. He's good to race.

Seamus can see fluid running away from his car and calls for the attention of one of the marshals. He's holed his radiator passing through the accident debris and is pushed away from the grid.

Race (the restart):

So this time everyone gets away well, Tom creeps a little on the grid but it's a good clean start.  Movers are Peter Daglish who jumps Martin Gartside to take 6th,  Matt Flowers who passes Brian Small, and Gerrant who makes 3 places.

Paul Round retires on the first lap, he has a broken nose cone but I don't know how this happened.

On lap 3 Tom retires when his throttle cable snaps, he's lead every lap but was not pulling away. Now he's out it's turning in to a 3 horse race between Nick Flowers, Didier Prongue, and Troy Robinson. The next group is lead by me, 2 seconds behind the lead, I have Martin behind now and Peter is still in close company.

Jon Chappell retires on lap 5.

Lap 8 and Brian Small has passed Matt Flowers to take 7th place, there is still only 6.1 seconds between 1st and 8th. The gap between Troy in 3rd and me in 4th has extended to 2.5 seconds. I'm able to control my position for most of the lap but come under loads of pressure along Stebbe straight as we head in to the Esses, I have to defend almost immediately out of Gerrads as the extra horsepower of Martins Dunnell makes its self known and he draws along side me time after time before we hit the baking zone.

Lap 10 and it's still mighty close up front, only half a second between 1st and 3rd. It's this fierce battle that's allowing everyone else to stay in touch but it's still Nick that brings the car over the line in first place at the end of each lap. Can Didier or Troy make their move before the laps run out? I have Peter behind me again as Martins efforts to pass me cause him to leave the door open for Peter to nip through. It also gives me a chance to pull away a little.

Lap 11 and Martin is heading through Gerrads, he's battling understeer and hopes he can getting it under control but the further he gets off line the worse it get as he runs on to the dust and marbles. A trip across the grass, avoiding the barriers and by the time he rejoins he's second from last!!

The 13th and last lap and there is still just half a second between the first 3, as they cross the line Nick holds on to take a well earned victory, Didier for his efforts gets second and gets fastest lap, Troy is just 0.499 seconds behind Nick. Now that I have a bit of breathing room I am able to close on the leaders and finish 1.554 seconds behind Nick, Peter is 5th, and Brian 6th.

Lorna Chattin brings her car home last but judging by the smile on her face in to Parc ferme she's certainly enjoyed herself and will be back for the next race!

Click for full Results

Summery:

Nick Flowers now looks to be in a very strong position for the championship, 16 points between himself and Jonathan. What will Jonathan be able to do about it in the final outing at Oulton Park.

Jon Morton was a little dazed after his accident and the car is away at Westfield being repaired, he's on the mend but won't be racing at Oulton.

Not sure how bad the damage was on Jonathan Young's car but he was seen to drive the car on to the recovery truck.

20 cars at Mallory is great news for the championship, and that's without Geoff Fairburn, Andy Mowbray, & Nick Sinfield (come back guys, all is forgiven J ).

Apologies for any errors or omissions.

Cheers

Simon

[Mobsy]

Thanks for the write-up Simon.

There doesn't seem to be much interest in racing here, the popular activity seems to be sprinting. Having tried both I can honestly say there's no comparison. I might enter a sprint again one day but only if I was really, really bored.

I used to compete at Curborough, but 4 runs in a day each about 30 seconds (single lap, can't remember the exact times) is not exactly a lot of Motorsport. It must be more about polishing the cars and discussing the finer technical aspects than the actual driving.

PS. This is a not so subtle attempt to trigger some debate and see if anyone is interested in real racing.  

[simon4007]

Can open!

Worms everywhere!!

       

[scott beeland]

I think it's the need to have a rather large "damage budget" that puts a lot of people off multi car racing (unless you're lucky/good enough to attract a sponsor or two!!)

Sprinting/racing are hugely different disciplines with different aims/focus too.

Committed sprinters love the need to get it 100% right over a short distance in the timed runs. No one else to blame for a bad/botched run but yourself (or your car).

Others like to deeply analyse their run/time or tweek aspects of the car between runs to see where it went wrong and then face a huge challenge in bettering that time/run "out of the box" with no further practise; and often little time inbetween runs.

No racing (in the real world) is value for money. Yes you get more track miles in at multicar racing...but then you have the regular potential for more damage.

You pays yer money and takes your choice.

I'd like to hear more race reports though

[Lurksalot]

I have noticed a degree of hesitation when the thought of scratching the polish on the westy is a possibility .

However each to there own, If your budget and circumstances dictate then motorsport with less contact risk , is an obvious route to investigate.

I believe to compete in races properly you need to have acces to garage and body shop facilities else it can be too much hassle .

I used to race  250 Karts, a little easier on the logistics but racing is the best fun you can get (with your pants on)  

[jbean]

can of worms opened then.

Having done rallying, sprint, hillclimb and racing. Racing and rallying easily are tops. After retiring from racing for a bit a few years (and some will probably say i should have stayed retired) to do sprints and hillclimbs. Cars in sprinting and hillclimbs were much much smarter than most race cars, and apart from blasting down a short course as fast as possible with very cold tyres/brakes etc that made life er interesting at times as much effort was put into polishing and chatting about cars as the racing and if that is what you want there is no problem. However i do think that some sprinting/hillclimb persons would really like to race, (at least once) but think it would upset them to much to scratch their pride and joy as most race cars if you look close can be a bit tatty. Well once you have the first scratch, whats a few more and its not that upsetting (ish) (worms really out of can now).

However if you are one of those secret closet racers, come and have a go as our championship is not that expensive to do at all and no you don't need bodyshops and sponsors to do it either and its fun all the way down the grid.

I don't think you can really compare the two as far as the driving experience goes they are so different and this forum is sprint/hillclimb orientated so racing will not be the focus...at the moment.

[TPR123]

Nice write up Simon. Good luck next year.

To all those sprint guy's out there, you can race and not scrath your car, you just have to be with super quick or slow.

Cheers.