Willhire 6 hour Endurance

It was at a very sunny Snetterton that the 6 hour Willhire endurance race was being run with 20 cars starting in 3 classes. Luckily there was a cool breeze blowing through the garages but inside the car it was very hot as the pilots Steve Woods, Stuart Scott and owner Alan Sawyer soon found out.

Qualifying was at 9:30am but it was already hot. Half way through the session Steve took the car from Alan and started on his laps. As he passed through the bomb hole he was dismayed to see his front wheel overtake him and the car ended up in the tyre barrier. 'The wheel bolts had sheered off and from then on I was a passenger', said Steve. The car was returned on the back of a truck with the front nearside corner smashed. Luckily the frame was undamaged and the team rushed around getting parts from Norwich and repairing the car and succeeded in getting it out on track for the race with 15 seconds to spare. 'That was probably the worst accident I have ever had'.

oops	Bomb Hole	Esses (Alan in the car)

Steve started very well from a rolling start from 7th and by the end of the first lap he had got up to 3rd. At one point he was running in 2nd place overall until the BMW's and Marcos's settled down and started running faster. After an hour he pitted and Stuart (ex Porsche and now VW Cup driver) took over. As Stuart said later, 'I enjoyed that. I started in 4th, lost it down to 6th but managed to regain the places'. Alan then took over for the third hour which kept the team comfortably in 4th with a 2 lap lead over the Bates/Palmer BMW. In the meantime the Bennet/George/Wadsley Integra was starting it's session with Phil Bennet in the driving seat and he started to catch up. Steve took over again but had trouble with the turbo pipe coming away. Twice he had to pit losing time and then a place to Bennet while the pipe was fixed. Very little other work had to be performed on the car during the race except for some re-engineering of the bumper to allow more cooling air in.

Russells	Changeover	Problem with the turbo pipe being filmed

A Marcos had crashed into the barrier at Russell's and mistakenly the pit exit marshal would not allow Steve to rejoin the race before the safety car came out. 'That probably cost me two laps as I had to wait for the safety car to pass the pits and rejoin at the end'. From the restart though Steve soon left most of the field behind and was overtaking a Marcos Mantis easily. Stuart took over again and consolidated their 2nd in class, 5th overall place and then Steve took over for the last hour. He was lapping 2 second quicker than John George in the Integra and overtook him but was unable to catch up 4 laps.
It was to rapturous applause that he took the car over the line after it had raced 239 laps.

Alan Sawyer	Stuart Scott	Steve
Russells	Sponsor	The whole team
	The boys