Two races on Stuart's home circuit with a strong but lonely
finish in 5th on the Saturday. Round 6 started well with Steve
running in 4th until - well I'll Steve explain...
“I made
a bit of a boo boo and got spanked up the rear by Aaron (Scott)
in the Morgan. The impact turned me around and onto the grass.
then as I was coming in to hand over to Stuart I got tagged
by the Tech 9 Porsche, which pushed me off the racing line
and onto the muck and rubber pick-up."
A
quick tyre change while Stuart climbed aboard, but the car
seemed to have suffered somewhat from Steve’s adventures.
“It
just wasn’t pulling well at the top end at all and there seemed
to be fumes in the cockpit,” said Stuart. It later emerged
that the exhausts had been compressed, the symptons Stuart
was describing being the obvious result.
Despite
the difficulties though, birthday boy Stuart brought the car
home strongly to get seventh place for the team. art
on Sunday.
Picture from David Lord
This
was a tale of a starting stint from Stuart spoilt by a muffed
start procedure: “I got a message to abort the start (the
race officials had set the lights incorrectly) but was totally
swamped as the rest of the field decided to go for it. Suffice
to say, I ended up running last.
“Then
the Safety Car came out early on and I ended up spending almost
all of the rest of my stint cruising round in the train behind
it.”
Steve took over with the opportunity of battling for a podium
position, but then……….. “I
got a call over the radio that there was fluid leaking from
the rear of the car. The instruments all looked fine but then
suddenly the temperature went through the roof. Race over.
Steve
came around at the end of lap 1 of race 2 right behind the
red Chambers JWR car and the plan went into operation of not
battling between themselves. It worked fairly well, with time
to battle away with the very rapid (and very yellow) ABG Motorsport
Porsche, before it was time to hand over to Stuart.
“We
passed Pete and Graeme’s car in the pits and I was holding
my own out there,” said Stuart later, “and then the rain came
right at the end of the race. The car was all but undriveable,
it was very, very slippy out there: a greasy track on slicks
is a deeply unpleasant experience, it won’t accelerate, brake
or handle properly. I was relieved when they red flagged the
race with few minutes still to go, but I was kicking myself
for taking it so carefully in the wet, it lost me a couple
of places but at least the car came home in one piece.”
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It was Stuart's birthday on
the 6th June with cake, candles and loads of cards.
Mark Sumpter (teammate at JW
Racing) asked Stuart and Steve to take the 944 to Castle Comber
for some of his customers to have hot laps in. It didn't quite
end up that way...
Read all about it on the web site here
Dates for your diary and other information.
We will keep you informed of any track days of other non-racing
events in this section along with the race dates.
The current timetable for Oulton Park is not available but
should follow the normal format of:-
17th July (Saturday)
09:00 - 10:30 practice
14:25 - 15:05 qualifying
16:40 Race 1 60 minutes
18th July (Sunday)
13:10 Race 2 60 minutes
please check for latest timings on the GT website
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