Following the front end judder issues during the race at Oulton, we spent some time re-specifying the front suspension components to eliminate any risk that these parts were the root cause. Due to parts availability problems (and work commitments!), we didn’t get to fit the new parts until the Friday afternoon before the Saturday race. With dinner and a few beers arranged that evening chez Muwander in Peasmore, we bolted everything together, put the car on its wheels, and set the suspension geometry. Everything looked to be on schedule until we tried to move the car out of the workshop. To our dismay we found that the front wheels were rubbing on the bodykit when steering lock was applied and there was no way that we could race in this condition. Bugger!
With our travel schedule rapidly going out of the window and tempers rising, we set about trying to dig ourselves out of the s**t. With the new front lower arms, upper mounts, ride heights and geometry settings the wheel position was now very different than expected (nobody to blame but me!). After lots of trimming of kit and a couple of goes at rebuilding the suspension with reduced camber and increased ride height the car made its way onto the trailer. We arrived at our destination a few hours behind schedule. 6 hours to be precise!
An early start and a welcome return to the fast and exciting Thruxton circuit. The atmosphere in the paddock was good with some of my PBMW friends joining us for this meeting. Despite the issues of the previous evening, we were still on a high and quite confident following our win at Oulton in the last round. Exiting the pitlane on the first lap of qualifying and I was taking it very steady. Turning into Church for the first time there was suddenly an awful grinding/rubbing noise, the steering was awful and the car was pulling left. I backed the speed off and completed 3 laps in order to qualify and taking a huge amount of care to watch my mirrors and stay out of the way.
Qualifying position 12th
Following the disaster that was qualifying the team gathered together to weigh up the situation and decide on a course of action. It was evident from the marks on the sidewall of the outside front tyre that it had been rubbing on the wheel arch when the suspension was under compression during cornering. Fortunately Duncan Laycock (RML) and Charles Hodge (Prodrive & Soldberg) were on hand to lend some assistance. Charles helped me with increasing the ride height and reducing the negative camber even further. Duncan removed the bodykit and then did a fantastic job of rolling the front arches using nothing but a rubber mallet with minimal paint cracking – absolutely stunning bit of work. We quickly dropped the car back on its wheels, corrected the front wheel alignment and headed off to the assembly area. Charles said to me that he thought I could win from 12th and I had to laugh!
The lights went out and I had a reasonable start making up 2-3 places on the run up to Campbell. There was a big moment when a BMW lost control on the grass and slid through the middle of the pack. By some miracle the field managed to miss him, but this cost some time because we virtually came to a standstill as we worked our way around him. By the exit of the complex I was up to the rear of Ryan in the BMW 325. I worked my way past Ryan on the inside at Church and in the distance I could see David Howard in the Jaguar. Despite the reasonable start and now running in 8th position, I knew I was going to struggle to make up further positions because the field was now well spread out.
Again, I put my head down and chased after David. Again, with the car now feeling good I managed to catch and pass him without too much trouble, although I do think he was holding back saving himself for the Group 1 race. Next to catch was Steve Moore in the Saab 9000, which was extremely fast in a straight line. The only places I was catching Steve was in the corners (of which there are not too many at Thruxton), but despite his pace I managed to reel him in after a few laps and in the process set a new lap record! Steve had now caught the back of a small group of cars including the Jim McLoughlin Group 1 Championship winning Capri driven by David Hickton and the E36 M3 of Tony Gorman.
Eventually I worked my way past Steve, yet it still took some time to break away from him. Then after a few laps I worked my way past David, despite some very clever and defensive driving on his part. He must be a very hard competitor to beat in Group 1 in his normal Opel Ascona racecar. I was now up behind Tony who was in 3rd position and with the pace I was going I dared to dream about a podium place. At this point my progress came to an abrupt halt as Tony used every trick in his locker to defend his position. After 2-3 laps of trying to get past Tony I decided that it might be time to give up when I was pushed towards the grass while flat out round the back of the circuit. I decided on the very last lap to have one more go coming towards the Club chicane, but as Tony blocked my move, he slowed to such an extent that David managed to run round the outside of both of us. At the same time this allowed Steve to get a run out of the chicane and overtake me on the run up to the finishing line.
To say I was a little disappointed would be an understatement, but after a little reflection it could have been so much worse. I wasn’t too happy with some of the blocking that was going on and felt that we put ourselves in unnecessary danger, but by the same token I certainly don’t expect people to just move out my way. Highlight of the weekend was to see that Anthony Wright had won the race in his Tomcat. He is a bloody nice bloke and deserved a good result after all the hard work he and his brother have put into the car.
Race Result – 6th with new Pre-93 lap record for Thruxton.
By Craig Jamieson
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