PH-sponsored Tuscan racer Graham Walden reports on the latest rounds in the Dunlop Tuscan Challenge. This is the penultimate instalment of a multi-part report.
 Andy Holden blows up  Walden's Tuscan at Snetterton |
Snetterton
With finally some time to relax between races we got the car to a rolling road to map the ECU and got some good results. I also broke the bank and ordered some brand new slicks.
Again the budget and my available time wouldn’t stretch to testing on the Friday, but I know Snetterton fairly well, having won there ahead of Marc Hockin (Griff) last time out. As some of the others were testing and George Carter was taking to the track for the first time in his S3/Cerbera hybrid, I was aiming to get there to help out in the afternoon.
I set off from Worcestershire at 1pm and headed to Silverstone to pick up my new tyres and get them fitted. The journey to Silverstone and from there to Snetterton was horrendous: I eventually arrived at the circuit at 7.30pm, not best pleased. My father who had set off an hour later got there almost an hour sooner.
We quickly off-loaded the car and set to work replacing some parts of the front suspension that needed doing and then fitting the new tyres. That done, drivers and teams downed the customary few beers before bedding down for the night.
In the early morning there was a light rain shower. "Typical", I thought, "I’ve just bought a new set of slicks and now its going to rain". The rain however soon stopped and the circuit quickly dried out.
As I signed on, Iain was just about to sign off but when, they started the car in the morning it was pouring water and steam out of the exhaust with a blown head gasket from Friday Testing. After a discussion, they decided to try and change it so set about stripping the engine. The clerk of the course agreed to let him run from the back of the grid if they could change it in time for the race.
Qualifying
The qualifying session went reasonably well but, after a few laps, it was red flagged when Steve Glynn’s throttle jammed and he had to park the car out on the circuit.
I was getting a lot of understeer at some of the corners, so we tried changing the tyre pressures before we went back out. This just made things worse and then I had a big spin coming out of the chicane as it popped out of gear. The resultant trip across the grass cooled the tyres right down and the resultant pressure drop made the car handle so badly we spent the rest of the morning checking the car over.
It’s amazing the difference a slight pressure change in the tyres can make. Still it wasn’t all bad I still managed to claim class pole almost half a second ahead of Tim Broughton with Marc coming in an unusual third on the grid.
At the sharp end Tim Hood in the Sagaris topped the time sheets ahead of Darren Dowling and Andy Holden.
Racing again
With parts sourced from a local Land Rover dealer, Iain almost made the grid for the race but, in the end, needed about another 20 minutes to get the car running and had to sit out the race. As the lights went out and the racing started I got a good start and launched ahead of two of the class A Tuscans in front. Tim Hood only managed a few hundred yards before the undertray parted company from the Sagaris and started dragging on the road. Unsure what had happened, Tim was forced to pull off the track before the first corner.
Darren Dowling then took the lead ahead of Andy Holden. With the extra 100 or so bhp, Dean Cook made his way past me on Revett Straight. I managed to hold Steve Glynn off for a couple of laps before he too came past on the straight.
While sparring with Steve, I kept a weather eye on the chasing pack behind me. At first there was Marc, but probably about six seconds down, although after a few laps, he disappeared to be replaced by Tim Broughton.
A couple of laps later, I spotted Marc parked up at the Esses. Apparently the retaining nut had come of the end of his throttle cable, giving him no throttle action. With the car running on tick-over only Marc tried to limp back to the pits but when he came to the slight uphill section the car wouldn’t pull up it so he had to park up off the track. Andy Holden had also pulled off the track as a head gasket blew, and watched the race from one of the marshal’s points.
Pressing hard
The rest of Class B trailed behind me as I pressed on hard for about seven laps chasing Steve Glynn. Ultimately I decided the chase was futile: I could easily live with him around the twisty part of the circuit, and could have got past on a couple of occasions, but even if I had got passed the power deficit on the long Revett Straight was too much to make up. In the end I backed off to save throwing it off and to rest the tyres and engine.
With over half a lap advantage over Tim Broughton, I went into cruise mode. Cruise mode can be just as risky as trying too hard as its easy to either go off though lack of concentration or go too slowly and get gobbled up by the chasing pack. In this instance I controlled it well, keeping to about the same pace as the chasing pack.
As the race came to a close, I saw Darren Dowling the Class A leading car coming up behind me. Not wanting to be lapped, I put the hammer back down, which caused a few interesting moments on the now slightly cooler tyres. I ended up lapping Tim while trying to stay ahead of Darren as we crossed the line for my second win of the season.
We crept ahead of Marc in the points too -- with no dropped rounds this season, every finish counts. Our season has now been totally transformed. After the two poor rounds at the beginning of the season with gearbox and ecu problems, with Marc just needing to finish in the top two to take the tile, we were now a nose in front with everything to fight for.
We'll bring you a report of Graham's campaign at Rockingham on Monday
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