A bit miffed about this race TBH, but I can only blame myself. As Clive noticed I was OK for the early laps, but...............
On Wed evening I had 30 mins to try the cars. Immediately dropped the Elan as being very driveable but, for me, lacking in raw pace. Likewise the Porker, it was a nice drive but needed some very aggressive and "on the ragged edge" cornering to extract times anywhere near those that I could get from the Escort 1800,.
So it was Capri or Escort??. Eventually settled for the Capri because I found that I could run that on hard tyres and be almost as quick as the Escort that needed mediums to make it work in my hands. There was no way that the mediums would last the race distance under my right foot. That left the Capri.
I fiddled with the setup and gradually chipped away at my pace with race fuel. PB was a low 1:23 on full tanks but unlikely that I could maintain that pace and survive. But a steady 1:24-25 was quite realistic.
The start was confusing as I could see the front cars leap away and no-one else moved!! So I paused.. just long enough for about 27 cars to pass me on the run to T1!!! Ok, wait for some heat in the tyres before pushing too hard. I think it was Frex in front of me with his Elan in the early laps and I was able to nail the exit from the chicane and use the extra grunt from the Capri to pick up a place. Then the fast boys went into the pits and couple of others went haymaking and I was running 4th?? with Mr Loynes recovering in my mirrors.
I got distracted and ran slightly wide at St Mary's, ending up sideways across the tarmac. Worried that I would impeded the following pack I nailed it and T boned the barrier on the inside. That damaged the suspension and from then on the car was not handling as well. Although I caught and passed a clearly struggling Mark in his Porker I was losing time to the rest of the field and could manage only a 1:27 at best....so I parked it and wandered off muttering curses under my breath
It might have been better, it could not have been worse.