Sunday 19 October - Mallory Park

I had finally got around to buying a camber gauge, and reset my camber prior to this race.  It was -3 degrees, and I reset it to a far more appropriate -2 degrees.  The car should handle better and I hoped to prove it.

Qualifying was dry and cold with 34 cars crowded on to the track.  Finding a clear bit of track was difficult but I managed it twice and got a best time of 57.42 seconds - a whole 2 seconds quicker than my time 2 months ago in equally dry but slightly warmer conditions.  Clearly the change of camber was working.  I was very pleased, and qualified 7th - my best yet.  However my bruised/broken ribs, injured 3 weeks ago at Cadwell Park, were playing up.  I could barely get out of the car after qualifying and didn't move from Mark's motorhome for 3 hours.  The race was not until 1:55pm, and 2 ibuprofen later, having taken a knife to my seat and strapped a pillow to my side, I was ready to race.

I must practice my starts over the winter as yet again I lost 2 places on the grid - Stuart James (99) and Martin Gambling (77).  Brett Townsend (41) then went past as well.  The leading pack were not breaking away as normal, and on lap 2 or 3, I managed to pass both Brett and Martin down the back straight. A lap later and a couple of the leaders tangled.  I was now into 5th position with a small lead over Brett.  And then it all went wrong.  Braking hard for the hairpin on lap 6, my "brake gremlin" struck yet again.  The back end locked up and over took me spinning me round anti-clockwise and hurling me into the crash barrier to the left of the track just before the hairpin.  Race over, season over.  The whole front right corner was crushed and a small dent was added to the back just for good measure!  The front wishbones, shock absorber and radiator are all in pieces, and a marshall found my spring 30 metres down the track (which was good of him - 1 less thing to have to replace!)  The chassis is bent although I have yet to assess how bad - hopefully just a new front from in front of the bulkhead.

Next race - late March 2004 - I'll update the website again once the 2004 Calendar is published.