October 9th - 10th Spa Porsche Open

Next step up for Stuart

Stuart was back in action last weekend at the glorious but very demanding Belgium F1- hosting circuit of Spa to try his luck at bettering his two third place finishes at the previous Porsche Open round at Brands Hatch a fortnight ago.
Last year, Steve,Stuart and Mark Sumpter had retired from the Spa 1000km race, but only after the Golf GTI had been one of the stars of the event, especially in qualifying when it posted a time better than the winning Porsche GT3 of Tom Shrimpton and Liz Halliday to place them fourth on the grid.
"Spa is a very hard circuit for both car and driver " and with that in mind Stuart decided to go for a good result when he knew that reliability was going to be an issue, rather than spend a lot of time in testing and qualifying.

Friday's free practice saw Stuart comfortably set third quickest time in class 1 and sixth overall. His friend and race rival Henry Firman was one place better on the road but only by less than a second. There were 5 cars in class one this weekend, all of which should be quicker than the Dunlop shod GT3 and if Stuart couldn't beat them on the track with speed, he knew that with the support of Jordan Warnock Racing he had a fair chance of outlasting them in either the first race of thirty minutes on Saturday or the longer race of 45 minutes on the Sunday.

Saturday saw a very early start of 08.30 am for the first qualifying session. As it was cloudy and damp and with another 45 minute session later in the day Stuart decided to give the first session a miss to save the car.
"The weather forecast for Saturday was good and as the track conditions would be better in the afternoon, we prayed that it didn't rain and that the best times would be found in the afternoon." A time of 2.46.408 was achieved with 5th in class and 9th overall. "A little disappointed" remarked Stuart, " but at the end of the day you have to finish the race to be classified and that was the plan for the weekend."

Taking the car down to line up on the grid, Stuart found the gear indicator on the dash jumping around and was registering anything from reverse to 6th when he was doing 20 mph. On the green flag lap, it didn't improve and as he lined up on the grid to start the race, and with the 5 second board showing, the dash indicated that he was in reverse.
"I knew that I had rounded the hairpin in 1st and hadn't changed gear so was praying that it was still in first!! The lights went green and the car went forward. The standing start was much better than at Brands and on a downhill slope without a hand break too. Martin Harvey in a 911 Turbo was the only car to get the better of me but as the race progressed I caught him back and finished 3 tenths behind him and 4th in class as the 996GT2R of Rupert Lewin had to pit due to damage from contact at the start."

Sunday morning was spent trying to sort out the gear indicator problem on the dash as it had meant that every gear change had to be counted up or down, because, with the sequential box and gear stick, you can't tell what gear you are in by looking.
"I was lying awake Saturday night and, instead of counting sheep to get me to sleep, it was gears", remarked Stuart.

Sunday's race would be over 45 minutes and, with starting 4th in class, it only needed Stuart to finish and one of his class rivals to have a problem and he would be on the podium!

Stuart takes up the story, "Again on the green flag lap, the gear indicator played up so it was going to be a guessing game to know what gear I would be in. This time, I made a Brands Hatch start and dropped four places but soon made them back on the first lap with the GT3s speed coming good on the long straights. Henry spun in front of me, which gained me a place on the road, although two laps later I allowed him to take it back as I had been shown a P4 from the pit crew of Kevin and John and didn't want to get caught up in a battle with cars in a different class. By lap 10, I was shown P3 from the lads as Paul Daniels in his 993GT2 had problems and retired and here I was in a podium position and at Spa."

It was about this time that the car started jumping out of gear in 2nd and the thoughts of a DNF started racing through his mind. At lap 12, he was shown P2 by the crew and and the next 5 laps were, or appeared, much longer than the 2.49 minutes per lap which were being shown on the dash. The Richard Chamberlain 935 had retired and another place gained. Finally, after 49 minutes, the chequered flag was shown and P2 in class it was with 5th overall.

" I am sure as I crossed the start/finish line the dash was showing I was still in reverse. To go back to Spa and record a 2nd was a dream come true."

"I would like to thank Mike (Jordan) and his crew for doing a fantastic job this year in looking after me in both British GTs and Porsche Open and it has been such a privilege to have been part of an excellent team. Thanks to all the mechanics at Jordan Warnock Racing and to our supporters and most importantly to Steve for being a great team mate."