Sports 2000 End of Term Report

This second instalment to my season racing in the Kwikpower Sports 2000 Championship covers the last four races in the series. As you will have read in the earlier article things hadn’t got off to a terribly auspicious start, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Well most of the time anyway!
We had had a two-month gap since the previous championship race, which allowed us to compete at the Nurburgring in a non-championship race. Unfortunately it proved to be a rather abortive trip as my troublesome engine from this season went bang in a very big way just after the start of our second race that weekend. There was a very large hole in the sidewall of the block and the number 3 connecting rod was nowhere to be seen. Presumably it’s still lying by the side of the track somewhere near Turn 1! On a more positive front, it did finally resolve any question of wasting more time and money trying to get the latest engine working better!
Races 5 and 6 were held at the newly opened Rockingham Motor Speedway on the 2.45-mile ‘International Short’ circuit. This uses part of the 1.5 mile Indy car oval between Turns 3 and 4 around to Turn 1. It then turns left through a very fast chicane onto the Pit lane exit road down towards Turn 2 where it then turns left onto the infield part of the circuit. All the infield corners are either second or third gear corners in my Lola.
Practice went reasonably well with everyone trying to learn this totally new track as quickly as possible. I was rather disappointed to only qualify eleventh for our first race, but later in the day managed to improve slightly and qualified eighth for the second race.
Just to add a little bit of extra spice to our baptism at this new circuit, the organisers had decided that we should miss out the chicane at Turn 1 on the first lap of the race. I made a good start and was able to make up a few places on the long run down to the first corner, which was a first-gear hairpin. Luckily we all managed to get around the corner without any body-contact taking place! Later on in the first lap one of the leaders had gone off at a fast left-hand corner and left a huge dust cloud lingering over the track. Fortunately there were no cars hidden by the dust when we all came barrelling over the blind brow through the dust! The remainder of the race was much less eventful, but I still managed to make up a few more places and finish a respectable sixth.
Race 6 proved to be more interesting than the earlier race. At the start I managed to make up a couple of places on the run down to the first corner. However, halfway around the first lap one of my rivals managed to regain the place that I had taken from him at the start. Then just after the exit from the final hairpin that leads onto the banking I lost yet another place with one of my rivals just pulling out and driving away down the straight. The move was a clear demonstration that my season long lack of horsepower was still an issue, despite a different engine now installed in the car.
The remainder of the race was spent in close company with two other competitors battling for sixth place. After a race long battle I managed to get past both of them and pull away slightly to secure another sixth place.
For Race 7 of the championship we moved to the Silverstone club circuit. Practice took place on the Saturday morning and during the second lap of practice I had a problem with the nosecone of the car that was causing it to porpoise up and down at high speed, bashing the nose on the ground. I called into the pits to see whether we could fix the problem. Unfortunately we couldn’t, so I had to go out once more to complete one more slow lap, in order to qualify for the race. After practice I discovered that I had qualified twenty-seventh for the race. Clearly I was going to have to pass an awful lot of cars during the race, if I was going to get a respectable result! That afternoon a quick trip into Northampton to both Homebase and Halfords provided the necessary materials to repair the nosecone.
The following day we all formed up for the race on a bright, but cold day. At the green light I made a good start and managed to out brake a few cars into the first corner. But then things got even more interesting as someone had a spin in front of me and the gap that opened up allowed me to pass a few others. By the time I came around at the end of lap one I was up to sixteenth place! I was into the top ten by lap nine and a caution period for two laps helped me by closing up the field. On the restart of racing I was able to make up a few more places and eventually got up to fifth place. However, two of my championship rivals had had problems earlier in the race and came through during the last few laps of the race to demote me to seventh overall. Despite that it was a thoroughly enjoyable race and the in-car video that I carried for the race has proved to be interesting viewing, particularly at the first corner!
Race 8 was held at Brands Hatch on the Indy Circuit during the Formula Ford Festival. The format for the weekend was; practice on the Saturday, with the race early on the Sunday afternoon. All of this was made much more bearable by being allocated the comfort of the Pit Garages for the weekend!
Practice proved to be one of the most interesting of the season. Overnight rain had left the track very wet and we were faced with a damp but drying track for practice. We put the car onto wet settings and ran it with wet tyres knowing however, that the quickest times were likely to come from the dying seconds of the session. I was immediately on the pace and in the top three from the start. Brands has a display on the Control Tower that shows the top five competitors numbers, so I was able to see how I was doing relative to everyone else by watching that in conjunction with my Pit-board. Twelve minutes into the session it was red flagged and we all retired to the Pit Lane for a few minutes with me still holding third place. On the restart I held back in the Pit Lane to give myself some room on the track and then put in my quickest lap of the day on my first flying lap.
The time was initially seven tenths of a second quicker than anyone else and it put me on pole for the race. Despite my willing the Start Line Marshall to signal the end of the session by waving the chequered flag, it frustratingly did not appear for another few laps! By which time I was pushed back into third place, but being temporary Pole-sitter was fun whilst it lasted.
Race day was a total contrast; it proved to be one of the wettest races that I have ever driven in. We were given two familiarisation laps behind a Pace Car before the race was started. There were four or five rivers running across the track at various places on the lap making the whole race a complete lottery! The race was started under full course yellow flags. On the second lap I tried to take a different line through Surtees to avoid the worst of the river running across the track and yes you’ve guessed it, promptly spun onto the infield! I eventually regained the track having lost loads of places and was then stuck due to the yellow flags. Eventually they started the race proper and pulled in all the flags. I don’t believe that there was one car out on the circuit that didn’t have spin that day. Even the race winner had a spin! Fortunately for everybody the race was stopped at three-quarters distance before too much damage was done! I finished a distant and disappointed seventeenth.
Despite all the disappointment at the race result, all was not doom and gloom. At the final reckoning I had done enough to secure third place in Class A for the championship by just one point! So third was probably the best that I could have hoped for with my problematic season, which was not helped by poor engine performance. A better engine for next year is now a must.

Overall Mark: A- (3rd in Class A of the championship, could go better with a good engine)
Dear Santa……………..

Colin Rodger

The Acorn : January Edition