What a long way Spa is!

Taking the motorhome over with wife and children plus the normal chattels made it a bit of an epic trek. Going via the channel tunnel, through France and then past Brussels before climbing up into the Ardennes Forest was a good 500 mile trek. Given the motor home does nine to the gallon on a good day it was a thirsty but comfortable way to travel. My mother also joined us making the journey by road from the Atlantic coast in western France, this was also some 500 miles and we caught up with her just 15 miles away from the circuit, a very nice coincidence.

Spa circuit is, of course awesome, the sections of Eu Rouge and Blanchimont are famous in motor racing legend and it didn't disappoint in real life. We had potentially substantial lap time with testing on Thursday, free practice Friday, qualifying Saturday and two 45 minute races on Sunday. I soon got to grips with the circuit which is flat out in the Radical through that notorious Eu Rouge roller coaster and the car was really stretching its legs on the flat out part through Blanchimont up to the newly revised bus stop chicane where the car was on the rev limiter in sixth, very quick indeed.

Testing was a little truncated with the second, longer session red flagged after 20 minutes due to a very heavy shunt at the exit of Pouhon. Returning to the pit lane we then sat around for the next hour waiting in vain for the re start.

The remainder of Thursday was dedicated to setting up camp, shopping for provisions and erecting the new gas barbecue with assistance from wife and mother. Disaster struck however when I managed to remove the top of my finger with a very large knife whilst preparing food for said new barbecue. After running around like a headless chicken I was escorted to the circuit medical centre for first aid and received a bandage so large that my finger now resembled a light bulb, it also seemed and felt to be glowing in the dark...This of course made driving a little trickier and necessitated me removing the finger from one of my driving gloves as my bandaged digit was four times its normal size.

Onto free practice on Friday and the car was feeling good, my finger not so. We had changed the gearing overnight but this was not proving successful, a case of compromising top speed versus torque given the very hilly sections of the track. The weather at Spa is pretty changeable, don't like the weather? Then wait 5 minutes. As an example at one stage the track, which is over four miles long, was dry except at La Source hairpin where it was raining - 400 yards of wet track the remainder bone dry, quite remarkable. With free practice over the team changed the car in readiness for qualifying on Saturday when I must say the car was superb and I took pole position for both races.

Come Sunday and it was a very early call with us being first race of the day kicking off promptly at 9.00am. With parts of the track still damp from overnight rain it was pretty slippery in places. With 45 Radicals on the grid it was quite a spectacle as we took the rolling start - I managed to get myself boxed in and lost two places to Toby and Simon Packer as we headed up to Les Combes for the first time. The car seemed to take a little while to come in but when it did we soon got onto the tail of Toby who was fighting with Simon P. This time 45 minutes didn't seem so long and as Toby managed to pass the leader in SR4 I closed in on second place. Having applied the mildest of pressure poor Simon made a slight error and missed his braking point, sliding off into the gravel and out of the race I then closed Toby down very quickly but suffered fuel starvation on the final lap which cost me, but the win was his and well deserved anyway.

At 4.15pm we gathered ourselves together for the second encounter and this time I was flying at the start and eked out a handy lead over Toby and John Hewit, as I was starting to feel confident for the win I was overtaken by a SR8 which was rejoining from the pits and as it went through Eu Rouge it came upon a dawdling German SR3. I needed desperately to keep my momentum as its an awful long drag up the hill to Les Combes but the SR8 braked hard leaving me no option to do the same and moments later could only watch as Toby and John sailed by. Ho hum we had to now start over again although a mysterious growling from the nearside wheels was starting to concern me. I hauled in Toby and then took him into the bus stop chicane and then set about catching John H. I was soon on his rear diffuser and we had a lot of fun going side by side down eu Rouge together, however the growling had now matured into a loud tortured groaning and my pace was slowing. I had no choice but to focus on finishing and was lucky to bring it home in second. I was very disappointed to not have won as I felt I deserved to and although I love driving the Radical I have serious concerns over its reliability, particularly over the 45 minute races. I am assured we will be back to our original format next time out at Thruxton, I certainly hope so as Toby broke down giving both John Hewit and myself a pretty healthy margin in the championship. With no dropped scores to count we must be consistent yet reliable to win this championship.

Tired but happy we broke camp on Monday and headed off home again, 10 hours door to door and a very good nights sleep followed as you could imagine. Writing this has been tricky due to that blasted finger which is still throbbing! Catch up with you at Thruxton.

25 June 2007