porsche open start

So here we are back after 6 weeks (through injured left foot and car problems) looking very much forward to the Silverstone classic event. We have worked long hours to get the car back to race condition and proud to have achieved that ready for such an historic meeting.

But alas, on Friday morning before qualifying while at work, the suspension on a Freelander gave way and trapped my right foot managing to break my big toe in two places. De ja vu or what!

Qualifying

With a freshly built engine (after our outing at Oulton Park with a blown engine) it was a tentative qualifying session on the Friday. We didn’t want to push the car too hard until we had a few laps under our belt. The qualifying session on the GP circuit didn’t give us much time, just a 20 minute session only equated to eight laps, but it was enough to ensure we were ready to race over the weekend. We were to start from near the back of our class, but had confidence of making up some places within the race.

Race 1

Our qualifying session the previous day was not the best, but we knew if we had a good start we could catch up with the front runners. The start was to be combined with the Open boys, who were to start under the lights and 15 seconds later we were to start under a flag. We made up a couple of places on ‘Copse corner’ and then it was a matter of getting into a routine again. We gained a couple more places forward within the first few laps. Jeremy Clark was the front runner closely followed buy Sarah Bennett-Baggs. It wasn’t long before things fell in our favour and around half way into the race, Sarah over-cooked it coming out of ‘Copse’. She made a graceful pirouette which gave us the chase to take 2nd place. Now it was a matter of chasing down Jezer, but with only a few laps left it was not to our avail, second though was good enough.

Race 2

With another excellent start we were able to hold onto our second place finish from yesterday and again grab some further places forward through back-markers with a lunge and a late breaking manoeuvre into ‘Maggots’ which put us right on the bumper of Clark. We stayed like that, until we came out of ‘Abbey’ and onto ‘Farm Straight’ where there was a heavily damaged 944s2 driven by Charles Winterhalder which led to the safety car being deployed. With less than three quarters of the lap under race conditions we had a further 3 laps under the Safety Car while they removed Charles’s not-so-nice 944. (Charles, thankfully, was a bit bumped but not injured)

With the Safety Car exiting into the pit lane the race was back on. Jez caught me on the back foot and had a better tow out of ‘Luffield into Woodcote’ which gave him a 3 or 4 car lead. With only a few laps left, we were unable to get close enough to make a move on him, so we had to settle for second in class and some well deserved Championship points.

Reflection

With massive thanks to all the team for getting us out again and all the heartache, with the ups and downs of building a replacement engine. Thanks go to Ron Champion, hope you get well soon, without whom the result would never have been possible. We believe the car has got more potential for the rest of the season - so without any doubt - watch this space.

“I didn’t think it would be so easy to come 2nd with two injured feet !!!”

“Without injured feet Dave, you’re gonna’ be a top competitor that others have their work cut-out to match”
Gail Hannaford Team Sponsor – Justthewedding.com