Cadwell Park, a beautiful and challenging circuit – with a beautiful and challenging paddock area, known locally as … a field. We arrived at Cadwell Park on the Saturday evening (16th) ready for an evening test session, the journey had been fairly clear and we were all looking forward to another great weekend of racing. Evening testing passed pretty quickly and without any major incidents to report.
The following morning met us with rain. Lots of rain, and big northern rain drops at that. With a good soaking issued all around, Qualifying for A class was deemed a little risky with the sheer volume of surface water on the circuit, so the A grid went out behind the safety car to perform a sighting session as opposed to a fully qualifying round. Actual race starting positions were instead determined by the previous rounds finishing places – by the end of the A qualifying the rain had pretty much stopped and the sky was starting to clear. By the time B/C and 211’s rolled out to qualify, the circuit was starting to clear of excess standing water. The session went well and ended with traction-control equipped Martin Donnelly on pole, a truly stonking Ben Pitch (Class B!) in second place just ahead of our driver Andrew Walsh sitting third, with Chris Headlam and Steve Willams in forth and fifth respectively.
The first race to deal with was the class A, our man Vitthal was starting from the back of the grid (only his second round of racing!) and appeared to have an enjoyable race darting around at the back of the field with the other A class regulars, showing some real promise Vitthal set a fastest lap a good few tenths quicker than many of those ahead of him – just that consistency to work on now! This was the debut round for his new datalogging systems and just as with our own class C car, much learning came from the data gathered.
With the first class A race out of the way it was onto B/C/211 class. The meat of the day for us. With a mostly dried track, our interests in this race turned to a two-way battle between our own driver Andrew Walsh and Martin Donnelly, near constantly battling and exchanging places between first and second. A superb overtaking move by Andrew saw us into first at about the mid-point of the race, but a few laps later Martin regained the lead after a little tangle with back markers left Andrew lagging for a few moments. Martin never gave up the lead again, and despite some serious charging from Andrew to catch up, Martin took the flag in well deserved style. Congratulations that man! Ben Pitch bought in a superb third place with fastest lap times only a tenth or so clear of the C class cars. Man of the match that time around for sure.
Two races down, and two to go. We moved on to the second A class race with Vitthal starting one row clear of the back with Gary Broad and Hans Baumhardt bringing up the rear of the field for various technical reasons. Green lights on and Vitthal immediately transfers himself to the back of the pack so he can use the race as his own test session – a wise move as he would be the first to admit he is on a learning exercise at every round! Sadly in this second race Vitthal was unable to repeat the pace of his first, but still managed to be on the pace with the other back field runners, just a matter of confidence and consistency to keep the improvements coming and get him moving up the field. Another Sinclaire customer, Stuart Kirkbride put in a truly sterling performance and finished 2nd overall with an inspired and consistent drive – excellent work Stuart – and some silverware to show for it!
Time soon came around for the second B/C/211 race. Andrew was fired up to try and claim a victory after his second place in the first race of the day. Starting from the front row, next to arch nemesis Martin Donnelly, the first few seconds of the race promised to be pretty nervous for the Sinclaire crew as we watched on wondering who’d make the first corner, in first place. Logically Martin’s launch control should see him pulling ahead, but this system had given him a few issues earlier in the day and so it was in the hands of the racing gods… Green light came and Andrew tore out a magnificent start, back rotating the planet on its axis as he left the line with only a minor chirp of the rear wheels, and stormed off into the first corner a good car length of Martins 211. Phew. It wasnt long before Martin pulled that gap back and was starting to give Andrew some work to do, the two cars swapped places a good few times during the race, and it would be fair to say that a little BTCC style body contact took place, resulting in a slightly bent rear diffuser for us, and a burnt nose for Martin’s car. The battle raged for almost the entire race with places going back and forth between the two – eventually the finish came with Andrew crossing the line just under a second ahead of Martin to take the first place! Ben Pitch yet again put in a class defying performance in his B class car to finish a brilliant third place, with Rob Beves and Andrew Waters padding out the top five places.
All in all a good weekend, great data gathering exercise as always, and an interesting (if quirky) circuit to be at!
