Oulton Park 29th May 2007

Well some good news to report!

Firstly a little update - I took the car to Valencia for round one of the Radical world cup. Tragically after just nine laps the car split an oil line and sprayed oil over the exhaust - the result was catastrophic with major damage inflicted by both the fire and the seven bottles of extinguisher powder - see the attached picture!

Once the car arrived back in the UK the team at Xero Competition worked some serious hours stripping the car, cleaning it and refitting all the parts back onto a brand new chassis. The result was a car that was as good as - if not better than new.

Oulton Park is one of my favourite circuits and once we had shaken the car down on Friday we knew things were looking positive, In free practice I put in my fastest lap of the weekend - much like we did at Snetterton and we were 1.2 seconds faster than the competition. Very satisfying.

The weekend format had been changed due to grid numbers and we were combined with the enduro classes which I was not particularly happy about as I want to run at the front of the field, impossible when up against SR8's. However we were to race for a full 45 minutes rather than the normal 20 minute sprint format, the enduro classes had to complete a mandatory pit stop whilst we were to run non stop.

In qualifying we secured pole position for both races after a tight tussle with young Ross Allen who was also pretty handy around Oulton's sweeping curves. The race was a rolling start - something I hadn't done for seven years.

Race one was held on Saturday afternoon with a day off in between to recover before returning to the circuit for race two on bank holiday Monday. I kept a gap back to the rear of the SR3 field and by the time we had got to the second corner I had caught them, very conscious of loosing places in this first lap melee I made a huge lunge up the inside of several SR3's as we braked for the hairpin at Island bend and took two of them into the corner and another one on the exit. Now having placed three cars between myself and the SR4 field I concentrated very hard on putting in some competitive lap times. I have to say my desire to win was immense and the pressure I had put on myself to perform was in fact making me queasy. I knew I had to win this and I was full of self doubt as the gap quivered and I seemed to be loosing ground to my pursuers, I was also concerned the car wouldn't last and some cruel stroke of fortune would intervene. Nevertheless I pushed on and once the first twenty minutes had passed I was appalled at the thought of having to go on at this pace for another twenty five minutes - a lifetime it seemed. As I stoked off the laps the gap magically widened as the team had been sandbagging the gap and I did actually crush the field - my winning margin was 18 seconds, we even came 5th overall and I recorded my first win since the VW Cup. Total relief, joy and delight - the winning feeling truly is very special.

I was still smiling as I got into the car for Mondays race, the pressure was off for me and I knew I could do it again. The rolling start was a little faster this time but once again I put an SR3 between myself and Ross Allen, although this time he kept up some very solid pressure on me for the whole race. I just had the legs on him as the gap between us fluctuated between one and two seconds for 43 minutes (out of 45!) before my worst fear set in. The car started to snake at the rear and either I had a flat tyre of the suspension had developed a fault - right handed corners became nigh on impossible and Ross swept past me as I nursed the car home. Cruel misfortune to have it fail one lap from home - he was gifted the win and I just managed to keep second place and some consolation recorded the fastest lap, which was also the lap record.

Even so I was pretty delighted with the weekend as you can imagine and I am now second in the championship and heading off to Spa in Belgium in three weeks time.