We went into this round with Nick not really needing to enter and with the car offered for sale, he could have been well advised to stay out of it, but he entered anyway! Tony Dolley needed to confirm his second overall with this round, his 206 running my 2 litre engine has been at the front of the 3 litre class for most of the year, but he was still vulnerable for the overall runner up slot to Nick Clark's 1.4 Swift in the lower class.
A little bit of added excitement for us, was the return for this event of our rival from the last three seasons, Will Di Claudio, with his bright green GMC engined 1600 106. He'd decided not to compete for the championship this season, but fancied this round as a one off:
We also saw the return of a car Colin and I built for 2008, with it's new owner Paul Bird. He'd barely driven the 1800cc 306 prior to this event, so a bit of an unknown:
So the cars running my engines for this round were (all naturally aspirated):
Class A (>3000cc)
Tony Dolley, 206 2090cc
Class B (>1800cc)
Nick Charles 106 1628cc
Paul Gardner Saxo 1690cc
Paul Bird 306 1780cc
Class C (>1400cc)
Charles Hyde Andrews Bird (CHAB) Fiesta 1399cc
I like to get there early and that means leaving rather early, living 3 hours from the circuit! It means a nice quite drive though and on arrival Nick came to the gate to give me a pass, always appreciated! I had a cursory look over the cars and all seemed to be well. as 9.30 came around the Saloons were heading out for the qualifying session and I took up position near "Bobbies" chicane, where the induction noise is about best. Nick Mizen joined me to watch, he's normally competing with and MG ZR, but problems at the last round terminated his season early, I was sorry to hear.
What we noticed straight away, was that Nick's 106 was misfiring quite alot, obviously by this stage, there wasn't anything I could do to help, so I just had to hope he'd get through the session ok and qualify reasonably. Will Di Claudio's 106 looked like he never been away and from the live timing on my phone, I could see he was going to qualify pretty well, so perhaps giving Nick some much needed class competition! But he only did about 5 laps before pulling off into the infield... turned out to be a sheared outer CV.
The others all seemed to be going well and as the session closed, Mark Wyatt's Swindon engined 2 litre NA Astra had taken pole, Adam Prebble's 2 litre turbo Rover Coupe 2nd, Nick's 106 3rd, next to Tony's 206 in 4th. Not a bad showing, Tony never tends to qualify well and taking into account Nick's obvious misfire!
Qualifying results:
Clicky
After that session I first turned my attention to Nick's 106. There was no obvious misfire source, so we changed the obvious plugs, leads and made sure the loom was all secure. We'd only be able to find out in the race, if we'd cured it or not!
Looking for possible misfire cause on Nick's car (yours truly in over the gearbox):
Meanwhile, poor Will DC was having to run home for a spare driveshaft:
The 306 wasn't performing as well as i'd expect and investigation revealed he was only getting about 3/4 throttle movement at the engine. He'd changed the pedal box and the new throttle pedal simply didn't pull the cable enough. I got stuck in and tried my best to revise the linkage at both ends to get the full sweep and so full power! Another case of floor mounted pedal boxes being crap in a Saloon... a word of warning... I eventually managed to get full throttle, but almost pulling it off idle at rest, which isn't very good, but with the resources I had there, all I could do! It would give him a fighting chance of a race anyway.
Our other cars all seemed fine, but Tony was unhappy with the grip he was getting. His 206 has been very tempremental in that respect and a regular source of frustration.
After a susbstantial cooked breakfast at the Tavern, courtesy of Nick's Dad (cheers!) I hooked up with Josh Preston, who I'm currently building an engine for. It didn't seem much of a wait until they started to line the saloons up in the waiting area around 2pm. I suggested we watch from the hump near Folly corner on the main straight. There's a good view of the line down to Avon rise, an exciting place to see the cars under full accleration.
They lined up and got away cleanly on the warm up lap; falling back into their grid slots for the real start. The unseasonal heat (about 28C) was very apparent as they all sat simmering on the line until the back of the grid was complete. 5 second board up, revs rise and wait.. .. .. (long light pause).. go! as they got away Nick launched the 106 up alongside Wyatt's Astra on the front row and we're all shouting at him as he outdrags both front row cars to steal the overall lead on the race up to Avon rise! Josh got it on his phone:
Clicky
Nick eased out an adequate one second lead on the Astra over the next couple laps, but Wyatt quite often does well mid race and he came back at Nick to take the lead back on lap 4. The Rover was some way behind at this stage, but ahead of Tony Dolley, who was clearly a bit off his normal pace and some damage to his nearside wing perhaps indcated a wheel knock too. He was easing out a gap to Will DC, who was next in line.
Nick leads the field before the Astra overhauled:
When the leading Astra (288bhp Swindon 2 litre Ecotec) started to catch back markers, Nick closed the gap and on lap 11 took the advantage, passing the Astra down the main straight on the run up to Avon rise. Wyatt kept the pressure on though and Nick's late braking was too late this time, the rears stayed locked as he turned in and tyre smoke poured of all four as he tried to hold the car sideways into Quarry. Some how he did scrub enough speed off to avoid an accident, but the Rover went through into the lead and the Astra got away first as they untangled themselves, Nick was still in 3rd place overall though, such was the gap to Tony and Will.
Nick runs out of steering rack:
Flat spots surely?!!
Not the best angle at the apex...
Nick had caught and re-passed the Astra by the end of that lap however and they held those positions to the end, Prebble's Rover first (class win), Nick second (class win), Tony Hutching's turbo TT also passed Wyatt's Astra for third as he settled for fourth, Tony's 206 5th, Will DC finishing 6th overall.
The 306 performed well initially, but a running problems set in that will need to be investigated unfortunately. Gardner's Saxo and CHAB's Fiesta both finished well, Nick Clark's Swift taking the 1.4 class win, his car's 100kg+ weight advantage over the Fiesta continues to be a problem for us! Charlie did lead the class for a good portion of the race, but Clark fought it back mid race.
It's always a great relief to get them all over the line ok and seeing Nick on the overall podium again! Thanking me on the tannoy interview put a bit of a lump in my throat, it's been a hard year, but we did it
Finishing results
Maybe worth saying a bit about how I feel about winning this championship for the 3rd time. It's one of the most hotly contested series in the UK, with full grids of nearly 40 cars and cited by Autosport magazine as such. When I first came to it at the start of 2008, I'd not built a circuit engine to find we'd be competing with well known companies, "Works" engine specialists such as Swindon, Longman, Minister and aftermarket engine builders GMC, Robspeed, Philspeed. Jason Cooper took the very basic 1400 budget Fiesta engine I built him to some impressively dominant results (with standard cams for the first 6 races) and we only lost out on the 2008 overall title by a frustrating 2 points to Will's then 8 valve GMC powered 106. In 2009 Jason had a hard fight with another 8 valve 106 (the Fiesta is much heavier in race trim), this time Olly Lewis' Longman powered car; but we won the class in 9 out of 9 races, to comfortably win the title and secure a new class lap record; Jason's engine still had factory rods and pistons!
In 2010 Nick and his car matured, with my latest generation TU5J4, fought all the way by Jason's Fiesta, now with my 1600 race engine; another of my customers Dave Kift also with my race TU5J4 and Will Di Claudio's latest spec GMC TU5JP4 engine. Will turned out to be Nick's main rival as Jason and Dave regularly got sidelined by gearbox and shaft problems; Nick's outright performance advantage eventually ensured his first overall title and my second. I had the added joy of Tony Dolley and Paul Gardner converting from Longman engines to mine, and doing their best ever lap times as a result!
So to say I'm pleased understates it massively! I'm hugely grateful to all the guys running my engines for their faith and support, also to the people that help me to get these damn things out; Colin Satchell most of all, also John Read (JRE), Pete Willis, Alvin Powell, Mark Shillaber, SBD, CP-Carrillo, Piper Cams, DTA, Hawkins Peugeot and my other helping hands!
Castle Combe today; Finals today
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