Race Calendar & Results

Thruxton 28th/29th June - Heritage Series

We were here in the Jags at Easter but the first time at Thruxton, apparently Britain's fastest track, in the V8.

Qualifying

A hectic session with nearly 30 cars on track.  At the end we had achieved 4th place with 1.29.066, with Ollie Bryant on pole in the morgan with a very fast 1.24.857.  The race was going to be fast!

Race 1

A reasonable start and straight away a challenge to keep hold of the very fast cars at the front, but I managed to keep in touch battling in 4th and 5th places when Arthur Thurtle spun the Camaro leaving the chicane prior to the pit straight and I was able to move up to 3rd place and keep it comfortably up to the chequered flag. 

Third place showed consistency - as I have been 3rd in each of the first of two heritage races entered so far this year.  The problems have all been in the second race.  Broken CV joints, knocked off the track and so on.  Could Thruxton improve on the average?

Race 2

A good start from 3rd on the grid, but soon Arthur Thurtle and Alan Hammonds Camaros were charging past, but I passed Graeme Bryant in the Morgan before he re-passed me, so a very fast, very hard race began to unfold.  I was  running 4th/5th but keeping in touch with the leading cars.

In front a mighty battle between Arthur's Camaro and Lester Stacey's Mustang, I had a great view from just behind them.  By halfway as driver change/pit stops began the order was Hammond and Thurtle, me then Bryant and Lester.  As Arthur peeled into the pits just I was just inches from his back bumper and so moved up to second.  Soon I pitted and completed my 2 runs around the car (it looks very odd on the TV coverage) and rejoined the race. 

The front five were by now lapping everyone up to and including 7th place.  I was lying in a comfortable 4th behind the Thurtle and Hammond Camaros and Ollie Bryant's Morgan.  About 2 thirds distance I took a bit too much kerb at the hairpin which my exhaust system didn't like, the car getting progressively noisier and losing a bit of power.  With about 5 minutes to go I felt decidedly rough, the car was very very noisy and sliding about on very worn tyres.  With, as it turned out, just 1 lap to go and still in fourth the oil pressure gauge showed very little!!!  Not wanting to blow another engine I came into the pits. 

Having exited the car and had a drink I felt very unwell.  Indeed someone said I looked 'grey'.  After a few minutes the Heritage guys decided I should be taken to the medical centre.  So off we went in a buggy.  Once there the medics thought I was having a heart attack - shortness of breath, nausea, headache etc.  They were really great and soon had me plugged into oxygen and an ECG, no heart attack although I thought I was dying when it all went dark (but in fact it was only the lights in the medical centre going out!!).  After about 40 minutes they decided to send me to Winchester Hospital, so now I was getting concerned. 

The ambulance driver was a frustrated racing driver I think so the journey was quick. 

At the hospital again the staff in A&E were fantastic.  A few hours, 3 ECG's, a chest x-ray and a blood test later the doc still wasn't sure what the problem was, but at least by now I could breath properly.  Just before midnight I was collected by the Heritage guys who took me back to my motorhome at the circuit.  It took a few days to feel normal but in the meantime we worked out the problem was carbon monoxide poisoning from the bashed exhaust system, so it was perhaps a good job I stopped a lap early - to fall asleep flat out would have been very messy!!

Without the problem I would have been 4th and with the top 3 have been a lap in front of everyone else. 

Qualifying

4th in 1.29.066 @ 95.22mph

Race 1

Result: 3rd in 21.05.257 @ 93.84 mph

Best Lap: 1.28.843

Race 2

Result: 11th in 41.10.722 @ 92.68 mph

Best lap: 1.28.352