Tuscan racer Graham Walden reports on the latest rounds in the Dunlop Tuscan Challenge. This is the first of a multi-part report
Castle Combe -- 1 May 2006
I’ve never been to Castle Combe before, not even to watch so it would have been a good idea to test, unfortunately thanks to the local NIMBYs there is very little testing -- and what is available is expensive. The only available day was mid-week and it really was about time I did some proper work, so we arrived on the Sunday night without me having driven the car since Silverstone. Jamie did take it for a run around a local airfield to check everything was running ok, so we were at lest confident of a car that would work.
Once at the circuit we did a track walk to find out which way the circuit went and then headed to the circuit facilities for a carvery and a couple of pints. It was a refreshing change to have some good well-priced food rather than the usual expensive rubbish at some of the higher profile circuits.
That evening there was some heavy rain, and I was actually hoping for a wet race. Lots of people don’t like it in the rain and it would also close up the power advantage of the Class A cars. It wasn’t to be, by the time our qualifying session was called it was bone dry and very hot.
I headed out to learn the track. It's a deceptively simple circuit, quick to learn but to fully master it will take time, a lot like Mallory in that respect. It’s also a very quick circuit with much of it at full throttle, definitely a power circuit.
The car felt fine, all the electrical and gearbox problems were now hopefully behind us. I took a couple of tentative laps to get the hang of things and then started to push for a time. Unfortunately one of the other cars stopped on the circuit and the red flag came out ending the session after I had completed just eight laps, not the best preparation for a race.
The race
The start of the race brought immediate drama as Darren stalled on the start, causing the rest of the pack to dive in different directions to get past on their way to Quarry. Matters got more exciting as Steve Glynn span forcing Marc and myself to take evasive action diving either side of the spinning Tuscan. Marc went to the outside and had a very hairy moment as he took to the grass, with the barriers inches from the car. I went to the inside and stayed on the tarmac but had to slow dramatically. At the back of the pack Iain Jones came over avon rise to see cars everywhere. He instinctively backed off, and this unbalanced the car causing him to spin as well.
Tim Hood was well away in the Sagaris whilst I held a slim lead on Marc. Marc drove very well and his experience at the circuit -- it’s his local track -- and using the extra grunt of his five-litre motor to good effect, reeled me in as I tried to quickly get the hang of the track.
After about three laps, first the A class Tuscan of Dean Cook came past and then Marc in the Griff caught up behind coming into the second chicane. I blocked him at first causing him to back off, but then he managed to power past me right round the outside of me relegating us to second in class. For the rest of the race I had a quiet run, relatively unchallenged by the chasing class B pack.
Meanwhile Tim Hood was well out at the front in the Sagaris and chased home by Darren Dowling, Andy Holden and Hugh Marshall. Mark won the class B honours ahead of us, followed by Tim Broughton who won his race long battle with Cliff Jobson. Iain Jones completed the race, and entertained the crowd packing the circuit with several spins in his Chimaera. Howard Bryan the only class C car also finished, despite a cockpit full of smoke from ongoing gearbox problems.
The race -- like qualifying -- was shortened as being the last race of the day was in danger of running into the NIMBY curfew.
We had a relatively good weekend the car had performed well with no problems, although as a driver I wasn’t too happy as I needed more laps to get to grips fully with the track, with both the qualifying and the race being shortened I’ve done less than 20 laps of the circuit.
We'll be running the next instalment of Graham's Tuscan Challenge campaign tomorrow.