We missed out on rounds 5&6 at Brands Hatch, It clashed with Le Mans and we had already agreed to go there with some friends.
SO our next outing would be Mallory Park.
mallory park is our local circuit, although I was surprised to see that I hadnt raced there since 2007.
In qualifying I got straight down to business blasting past everyone on the out lap to get some clear track, at the end of the first lap it started raining, but i kept pressing on hard, and a lap later was into teh back of the pack. Another lap and the car once again coasted to a halt in the pits.
I sat in the pits watching the qualifying, hoping the rain would stay. unfortunetly the rain stopped and the circuit dried up, We managed to keep pole position right up until the last lap of the session when a couple of cars went faaster than our 2nd lap in the rain!
Out final grid position would see us in 4th place on the second row. Pole was taken by a Chevy LS1 powered Marcos Mantis GT car entered in the invitation class.
The problem with the car was a failed crank sensor, a brand new solid state ford part, that simply stopped working. Thankfully i had an old spare and that was quickly pressed back into service
A good start would see me in second behind the marcos with the pair of us pulling away from the rest of the pack, with the exception of Dean Cook in his class A tuscan.
With the extra power of its chevy engine, The marcos was slowing me into the corners, but could pull away out of them. This allowed Dean to catchup behind the pair of us. I decided to let Dean through, in the hope that he would then slow up the marcos, as in a straight fight with Dean’s class A car we would almost certainly lose and I would risk falling too far behind the marcos to take it.
Dean quickly dispatched the marcos, but Doug in the marcos then concentrated on me allowing Dean to get away. I had just about worked out a way to get passed Doug for 2nd on the road, again well ahead of any class B competition, when a major engine problem would see me having to turn it off and once again coast to a halt, with just a few laps remaining.
Back inthe paddock the diagnosis wasnt good. A core plug had come out of the engine allowing all of the coolant to escape, under tha car with no sign in the cockpit. I did get a high temp warning but this quickly went back down. Unfortunetly it went back down as there was no coolant around the sensor. This left the car on oil cooling only. when the oil got so hot it stopped working I got a zero oil pressure warning which was when i shut the engine down.
This is a big problem to our season, as a major engine rebuild is expensive. possibly up to around £6000 depending on what is damaged internally. The engine is now back with out engine builder and we wait the diagnosis.
Its a real pity as up to that point we had had a fantastic race, but thats racing if it was easy there would be no challenge.
