356 Race Car

[john ruston]

Steven and Sanjay head to head today in practise for Pre63 at Silverstone Festival.

Your aim is. 3 49 gang.

[neilbardsley]

Steven and Sanjay head to head today in practise for Pre63 at Silverstone Festival.

Your aim is. 3 49 gang.

Give Sanjay a break this is his first race in the 356?

[one-two]

All three cars putting in good times in quali. Dawson/Talwar on a 2.50

[john ruston]

He will do a 49 in race you of little faith.

[neilbardsley]

I was about to say I might pop long to watch but at 2 x £57 + 5 x £5 per I think I will give it a miss

[one-two]

I don't doubt it John, make sure Gareth and Michael adjust the mirrors

[sanjay]

[john ruston]

Sanjay and gang have been studying the video all afternoon and if they sort it all out and weather holds should do 48's .

The Sanjay gang along with Gareth Burnett and Pace have sorted the race car in fourteen days after it has not raced for eighteen years and stood for last ten.Pretty clever!

Gareth has difficulties with the 2 litre rally car as it definitely is not sorted for out and out racing.

Hell of a rally/road car.

It can improved hopefully for Sunday.Need to nail that second in class place as can get no where near the 2 litreish Morgan of the Kramers.

Let's see what happens!

[jury]

Looking good Sanjay.....Sorry I didn't come through with the Bahama stripes, just got really busy with the day job. Let me know if you still want some ideas ( when I have time )

Have a good weekend, hope all goes well.


Chris

[steve wright]

Well 2.54 was all we could manage in qualifying but it was enough to put us in front of the two 356A's from Germany. Just need to find a couple of seconds to play with Sanjay and Adam, but having chased Gareth hard for two laps there was no way I could stay with him. Certainly a lot to learn about car control from the lad

Day off tomorrow and race day Sunday

[john ruston]

Impressed with the description 'lad'

Middle aged 'Mr Grumpy' yes!

[sanjay]

Well done to Team DDK 'A' Steve and Ian, a pleasure to share the grid with you guys and thanks for making us so welcome, they found their 2 seconds and came home ahead of our German rivals upholding DDK honour. What these guys have done on their own over the Winter is not to be under estimated credit where its due. Here they are collecting honours for first drum brake car, not an easy thing to do at Silverstone in a 356 !



Thanks to JR for all is wise words and guidance, taking time to give Adam and me help much appreciated Sir !, without G G Burnett and his Pace Superstars we would have packed our bags by Thursday 9.05 am ( although we would have never got that far on our own) after the old girl blew an oil pipe dumping its contents onto the left rear sending Adam into a 720 and then promptly catching fire on his first flying lap. The quality will be remembered long after the price is forgotten ! ( I hope ! G G has found a new car he quite)


We started the morning like this :



After a couple unscheduled pit stops she finally ended like this :



It took 50 ham fisted minutes though not bad for car that has not turned a wheel in anger since the 90's and not until 6 weeks ago at all for circa 10 years. A credit to Mr Barry Curtis who built her in the first place, i'm sure those who know him would agree.

A not looking forward to work tomorrow

Sanjay

BTW GG didn't come 2nd he won his class - no surprise there then !!

[john ruston]

Not a bad weekend

Steve's Team won the Drum brake prize after Ben Cussins had sorted the finishers.

They did a 2 52 giving them a two second improvement so all good although car seemed down one side.

Sanjay and Adam surpassed all expectation as official finished despite parking at the 50th minute.

Set the 2 49 lap time although the magic timer at our pit had them in 2 48's.

Gareth Burnett did a 2 45 which is probably 3 secs slower than Pre A and shows the difference between a rally prepared car and a proper race car.

At least Gareth won the class so all not lost.

Car will now be retired from racing and probably we should not have made late entry as it was not very smart!

Our next race with a 356 will be Snetterton at the Historic Weekend at end of September rather than Spa.

The Sanjay box of bolts will be much better by then and intend to join us.

[john ruston]

Should have said Steve's car seemed modified on one side but could have been rubbish

[steve wright]

Yes what a weekend. No racing weekend is without anticipation, a few anxious moments, some drama and hopefully a result and a good race with other fellow racers. This is the first time we've raced at the Classic and it's a huge event

Nice to see Mark's GT1 out - watch out for a feature on this in GT magazine shortly…


Bring a bike or scooter unless you want to cover serious mileage on foot when not in the car. Because of the 800+ race cars and 100,000 spectators over the weekend it's also a logistical nightmare, with passes for this and that, separate parking for trailers, cars and campsites, and two (yes two) paddocks, race controls, etc. But what a weekend - if you've not been I highly recommend it.

We were racing in the RAC Tourist Trophy under the Pre63 GT race series run by Carol Spragg. What a great series it is - lovely original cars (no hotrods…) and I hadn't appreciated the significance of the race: It is the oldest continuously competed for race in the world, first run in 1905. It was immortalised in the early 1960's when Sir Sterling Moss won it twice in Rob Walker's Ferrari SWB. The format is a 50 minute race with un-timed pitstop (a rarity these days) which is a great duration as it begins to test driver and machine.

We had finally sorted the poor running issues that had plagued us over the past two races: the baffling foam was breaking down in the old fuel tank that came with the car, and pre-detonation we sorted with a little less advance, new coil and fresh plugs. The car goes on the rolling road recommended by John Aug 9th so we know more hp and torque is there for the taking as Ian has deliberately set the fuel rich to be conservative until the rolling road could optimise settings.

The grid was packed with the best cars from (in my opinion) the best era of the late 50's/early 60's, from Ferraris, Astons, Ginettas, Turners, Morgans, Jaguars and Lotus. So out of a starting grid of 43 cars we qualified 36th with a 2:54.7 lap time, in front of the two other 356A's (both German cars), but four seconds off Sanjay and Adam in their B, and a chasm of a gap to John's Carrera driven by Gareth, who qualified at 2:45. I have to say it was fantastic to share the weekend and race with Sanjay, Adam, John and Gareth, as well as the German's 356's, who we shared the garage with, which both seemed to be well prepared and well raced A's.

And so to the actual race. The start was the usual madness with three abreast through Abbey, a white E-Type with red strips suddenly lost all power in front of the packed grid and everyone had to take pretty drastic action to avoid running into him. I managed to drive round the outside of a green Turner Climax who lost momentum after Sanjay's throttle linkage came loose at Aintree which was definitely a brave move as I had nowhere to go if he shut the door on me by running wide and I was therefore completely committed, half on the track, half on the kerb. It paid off as our drift angles didn't coincide!



It was sad seeing Sanjay go into the pits to fix the linkage as it would've been great to dice with them, and the German 356's never got under 3 minute laps so we never saw them in the rear view mirror. Gareth obviously started further up the grid and simply drove away into the distance! The main competition in the drum brake class was the Aston Martin DB2 Le Mans which out-qualified us but took a long pit stop and then had the gear knob come away, leaving the car stuck in 3rd gear! They finished just 50 seconds behind us though as the power of the Aston suited the long, fast circuit that is Silverstone. My main pre-occupation was racing a white Elan and green Aston Martin DB4 - in trying to overtake both I managed to pull my time down from a best of 2:54.7 to 2:52.09, so it was very satisfying to bring down my personal best by over 2.5 seconds. Both were quicker on the straights as one would expect, but the Aston braked early and the Elan was uncharacteristically slower through some of the corners than our 356 so we had a proper gentlemanly fight for the whole of my stint. I finally managed to get past the Aston by going round the outside of him at Club, having forced him to take a tighter defensive line on the corner by having feigned going inside him as we came out of Vale.

A good quick pit stop and a drag racing start saw Ian on his was and he was immediately on the pace - the white Elan exited the pits at the same time Ian passed another one on the inside so he literally was a Porsche in a Lotus sandwich through Copse! Thankfully no-one touched and Ian managed to make both stick. Two laps later though Ian was the first car to come upon oil dropped on the racing line at Chapel which the marshals hadn't spotted. As he accelerated out of the corner the back snapped round and he was instantly a passenger. Watching the footage it could've been a LOT worse than it was given he spun at over 80mph… the car pirouetted backwards in a large arc before touching the grass, bumping the wall and brushing momentarily down it before coming to a halt on the grass in a cloud of dust and whitewash from the wall. There was no obvious mechanical damage and he was straight back out racing, but was obviously annoyed by the off. I can tell you that from the pit wall it's the worst experience, looking at the lap time and seeing the expected lap time go past and the car not appear…. 34 seconds passed before he came past, our main concern being holding the place as we knew we had clawed our way up the order as there had been a number of retirements and crashes as you unfortunately expect in a race of this length. Fortunately the damage is nothing that won't polish out other than the Reutter badge which stands 2mm proud of the bodywork and which now looks like a sander has been taken over the leading edge of it. It will be left as a reminder of a precision crash and a great race!


We finally crossed the line in 27th place overall (from 43 starters), finishing fourth in the under 2 litre class, but as John and Sanjay have already highlighted, in first place in the drum-brake class which was a tremendous feeling and a lovely way to end a great weekend. My family had joined me for the first time so it was great to be able to show the kids a trophy after having raced for three seasons with no hardware to show for it. When you're six it's not easy to understand why your Dad doesn't win and gets overtaken lots.


All three of them are well versed in the primary racing excuses of oldest car, smallest engine GT, and drum-brakes so it was nice to finally win a class!


As always a huge thank you to Mav (and his wife Wendy) for crewing. It's amazing the amount of time and effort this chap puts in and what a difference he makes to our weekends. The result is as much his as mine and Ian's.


I couldn't help getting team t-shirts done… a bit cheesy but it made everyone smile!


And obviously to Ian for preparing the car, for which he also does a fantastic job. After the rolling road (and a bit of spit and polish!) we'll look at the calendar to figure out which race is next.