Andrew Kell
Well it had to happen eventually, having finished my first 19 races, at Silverstone I experienced my first DNF (Did Not Finish), swiftly followed by a DNS (Did Not Start). Not an experience I'd recommend frankly, but could have been a lot worse. Read on to find out more...
Friday 15th June
I decided not to do the test day on the Friday, after all the National circuit basically consists of 3 straights and 4 corners, how hard can it be?!On Friday afternoon, we loaded up Mr Whippy and arrived at the circuit at about 8:30pm. Handbrake on, fridge open, bbq lit and beer in hand and all was well with the world, roll on tomorrow.
(photo courtesy of TSU)
Saturday 16th June
We weren't due to qualify until 1pm so the morning was a pleasantly relaxed affair involving numerous bacon sarnies and plenty of time to chew the fat (as it were) in the paddock. The forecast was thundery showers, although in the end we were lucky with the weather once again and qualified in the dry. 37 cars lining up in the assembly area (probably the largest grid of Elises ever!) looked awesome. As we got ready to get into our cars the marshals in the assembly area said that they'd been informed that part of the track was slippery, but they didn't know where! So out we went, the circuit seemed completely dry so we went for it. 4 corners later all became clear - it seemed that a localised shower had missed the whole National circuit, apart from a section of Becketts, which was greasy as hell! This made for a comedy moment as we all went through Becketts for the first time pointing in various directions!Silverstone is a wide circuit but 37 cars in 1.6 miles is a lot and there seemed to be a never ending stream of cars (especially yellow S1s!) to get past to make some space. I'd found out that Walshy had been doing 1:02s on the test day, so was disappointed to see nothing lower than a 1:05something on my lap timer during the session. This led me to believe that I hadn't qualified that well and I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had qualified 5th, 1.7s off Randy on pole, 0.4s behind Nick Kaye in 4th and my best qualifying performance yet.
Both races were scheduled for the next day, so the rest of Saturday was a relaxed affair, involving a few isotonic sports beers at the Green Man.
Sunday 17th June
The forecast for race day was dry and sunny and Sunday morning did indeed dawn bright and dry. The scratch race was scheduled for 1pm so there was plenty of time in the morning to make sure everything was ship-shape. As usual, the morning flew by and it seemed like no time at all before the 37 starters were lining up on the grid. 5th place put me on the 3rd row of the grid, between Nick Kaye and Scuffham on row 2 and next to the fast starting Russ Treasure on my outside. McApe & Steve W were on row 4 and as I lined up I spotted that Steve had angled his car pretty much straight towards mine. Determined not to be distracted and especially determined not to think about last week's start at Brands Hatch, I tried to gather my thoughts. However as the 3-min board was being displayed I was distracted by Nick gesturing at Scuffham's car in front of me, it turned out Scuffham had overshot his grid position by almost a car length and Nick wasn't happy! What an odd 'mistake' from such an experienced racer?! 2 marshals spotted Nick's gesticulations and I became quite distracted as they clearly didn't know quite what to do. Then suddenly, the red lights were on, and we were off!
(photo courtesy of TSU)
Determined not to repeat my appalling start from last week and aware that I was on new rear rubber, I dropped the clutch at about 2k revs, made sure I had traction and booted it, making a decent, if unspectacular getaway. As expected Russ set off like a cheetah with a raw onion up its arse from beside me and had overtaken Nick, Scuffham, Walshy & Randy by Copse to take the lead. I went into Copse in 6th, when a quick check in the mirror revealed that Tony Doe had made a great start from the 5th row of the grid and was right on my tail. There was clearly a fierce battle going on at the front between Russ, Randy & Walshy, while for 2 laps I concentrated on keeping Tony behind me. As we came through Becketts for the 2nd time, Walshy had been pushed wide and was recovering from the left. Nick, myself & Tony closed up but didn't get past.
On lap 2 Russ went straight on at Brooklands (turned out he had problems with his brakes) and I was up into 5th, just behind Nick. By lap 3 Tony had dropped back (and in fact had retired) and I could concentrate on keeping Nick in my sights. The gap varied from 0.3 to 2secs over the next few laps, I was quicker through Copse but he seemed to be getting better traction through Becketts. Then on lap 7...disaster! As we exited Copse, Nick and I had just caught up with Sarah, Nick nipped through at Maggotts, I toyed with barging my way through as well but decided to hang back until after Becketts. I'm glad I did, since as I braked and turned the back end went and I was facing the infield, otherwise known as the wrong way. Thinking I'd made some muppet mistake, I put it in first and tried to drive off. This had little effect other than some pretty nasty banging noises from the N/S rear. My first thought was some sort of driveshaft issue (not unknown with Honda conversions ). By this stage the rest of the field was pouring through Maggotts and I must admit to feeling quite exposed. Luckily everyone spotted the waved yellows and managed to file past me.
(photo courtesy of Mark (mtbr))
Three marshals appeared and told me that my "wheel was off". At this point I started to wonder whether I had forgotten to tighten the wheel nuts on that wheel! I took a sneaky peek as the marshalls led me behind the barriers and all 4 wheel bolts appeared to be present and correct. Phew! Something had broken after all! Out came the safety car while my car was recovered and I began the lonely (well not all that lonely as it happens as I had the marshals to talk to but 'lonely' seemed like the right adjective!) trek back to the paddock.
(photo courtesy of Mark (mtbr))
As we were making our way back on the recovery truck, I overheard on the radio that the race had been red flagged, it turned out Hans' car had suffered the exact same component failure as mine, except that his had happened at Copse, so was in too dangerous a position for a live recovery. Game over.
Once back in the paddock, the incredible Elise Trophy support network leapt into action as various people mucked in and made truly herculanean efforts to try to get my car back out for the handicap race:
- Rich (aka shortie)
- Kevin & Steve Williams
- Robin
- Wayne from Sincs
- Tony (Sarah's mechanic)
- anyone else I've left out
After about an hour and a half of drilling, hammering, grinding, heating & swearing they managed to get the sheared off bolts out of the hub, only to discover the driveshaft was knackered anyway :(
Ironically, at last week I had been saying that I'd quite like to watch one of our races, well at Silverstone I got my wish and watched the handicap race. I have to say it was most entertaining, and I thought the cars looked great!
Finally it was time to pack up and head home, via Steve's workshop (http://www.swlotus.com) to drop the Elise of for some much needed TLC, extra thanks to Steve for opening up on a Sunday evening, saved me a few hours on Monday.
Roll on Combe...
