Thanks to Paul for a great fun event.
I guessed that it was going to be a close fight at the front even before the qually times showed HOW close!! Tim pipped me for pole when all I needed was someone to give me about 0.3secs with a tow to get back to the front....but no-one volunteered!!
The start at Castle Coombe is always risky as the wide track sort of encourages drivers to go for a pass on the approach to Avon Rise, which unfortunately really has only 1 racing line through it on the approach to Quarry..as someone found out last night.
Tim had taken the lead from pole and was as quick as I had expected with Tom watching us from behind. I found it easy to close on Tim with the help of the slipstream in the first couple of laps and started to press for an opening, fully expecting to have to work hard for a great many laps to get past. But then Tim went a bit too far sideways at Old Paddock, slid a wheel onto the grass and I grabbed the chance and nailed it down towards Tower.
That was when the hard work began!! Just 2 laps into the race and I was in the lead, but I had Tom on my tail and he was quick.
the rest of the race was as maximum attack trying to keep things as clean as I could and not too much sideways action ( a whole new concept for me
)
The slipstream balanced out the slight power advantage that the BRM had and Tom was clearly looking for a way through. He was definitely quicker through Tower and Camp but I had the advantage through Quarry and Old Paddock. When I say advantage we are talking maybe a tenth of a second either way!!
For 27 laps we were glued together and I knew that just one small mistake would give Tom the race win. He got alongside once exiting Tower but the extra grunt of the BRM just saved me.
The backmarkers made life really stressful, not in any way their fault and I have no complaints, but when you are racing at 100% against someone as good as Tom the last thing you want to do is back off and lose momentum. Easing off to avoid catching the backmarker at the next corner is not really an option either
.
As a result I passed Bernie on the grass exiting Old paddock and I think it was FragFritz that I passed in the braking zone for Camp with the whole car twitching left and right but I just held on.
Last lap and Tom got a run out of Camp and was slipstreaming me up towards Quarry. I tried to leave enough room over Avon Rise but at those speeds there is not much room for error and we touched...(sorry I Tom have not looked at the replay so not sure exactly who was at fault ) I escaped unscathed but Tom lost a wheel and was out of the race.
A shame to end a thrilling race that way but it was very intense for almost 30 laps.
Grats to all finishers and to the Rockers for a points victory, and to the Mods for a moral victory with one car less!!
