2016 Race dates, reports & results

9th - 10th April 2016 - Snetterton 300 - CSCC Swinging Sixties & CSCC Classic K  TVR Tuscan and TVR Grantura

Norfolk in April is like the winter has started all over again. It's bloody cold and miserable...actually I think might be miserable all the time so I'll change that to reporting that it was cold. In fact it's often cold, so basically Norfolk was totally Norfolky.

Two races over two days and two of Blackpool's finest...well two TVRs anyway. Despite how it may seem we actually quite like our TVRs (in the same way that David Cameron quite likes the Cabinet...they serve a purpose) and we have decided to have a proper two-driver go at CSCC Swinging Sixties this year. Last time out was Brands Hatch at the end of the 2015 season where it all went wrong with the weather...and this time it wasn't looking too clever on Saturday morning for Swinging Sixties practice.

Because of a change of plan in the CSCC secret bunker, we had Swingers on Saturday in the Tuscan and Classic K on Sunday in the Grantura; normally both races are on the same day so it meant an extra overnight stay from the norm. It was very, very wet as Dave ventured out in the fat white duck of a Tuscan. It had just tipped 1000kg (fully fueled up) on the scales in scrutineering which is a bit disappointing but that is the nature of cars with big, iron V8 engines. Also road-going TVR bodies have very thick fibre glass when compared to any Lotus for example which also makes it hefty despite the fact we have tried to shed weight from it everywhere we can. Lotus added lightness, TVR added more chassis and more bodywork!

The track looked terrible and the previous session had been stopped a couple of times because of cars stuck in Armco, gravel traps or the mud; all went well in our session however and Dave did 10 minutes and came in reporting that there was very little front end grip but loads of traction. I went out and 100% concurred! We qualified in 13th slot, way down from where we would have been in the dry but happy to have survived and confident that we could do better in the afternoon.

By race time the weather was no better and there was much moistness on the track surface. It was a rolling start (which seems to be becoming the norm) and I have to say it worked out rather well for us. I had a clean get away any made at least one place by turn one, Riches, and another into the Montreal hairpin. It was then a tippy toed trip round the round the track for twenty minutes keeping out of trouble and away from the known nutter-drivers. There are quite a few drivers who race in our series who would actually do better in the results if they drove a bit slower.

I saw a couple of cars parked in or by the barriers including the TVR Griffith which went straight on at Riches, Chris Edwards' TR6, and even Mark Campbell's TR5, though I was told later that was the result of an engine failure. I handed over to Dave just as the rain started more heavily and as Gail Hill in the Shelby 350 Mustang parked it across the Bentley Straight. Her spin caused a safety car to be deployed so I dived into the pits a lap earlier than scheduled to try to capitalise on the situation. We did and suddenly we were in 4th place. After the safety car came in and everyone had pitted we were 6th again and Dave managed to hold on despite the car being punted off by the Keevill Elan just before the end of the race. Dave managed to rejoin quickly and although nearly collecting a lapped Falcon managed to hold on to the position easily.

6th overall and 2nd in Class G was an excellent outcome and gained us our first trophy of the year. The car Just needs a new rear light and a bit of bodywork for Silverstone.

Classic K on Sunday was amazingly different. The weather was bright and sunny although Dave's car was absolutely covered in a thick lumpy frost. The track was great for my stint in practice although Dave had suffered from reduced grip due to an Austin Healey dropping oil (surely that's normal for one of those?). The blue duck car is so much easier to drive than mine. It's lighter and has much narrower tyres and feels really different.

We qualified in 15th place behind a hoard of Lotus Elans but also behind a couple of cars we absolutely should have out qualified. Annoyingly the alternator packed up in the session so we had to fit the one from the Tuscan over the lunch break but that was all had to do to the car.

Dave had a great start and we soon saw how the race was panning out. Daughter Natasha and her newish bf did pit signalling duties which was great. I had a good hand over after 30 minutes and was immediately into a 30 minute race to the flag! It was one of the most intense races I have ever had with three cars dicing for position for the whole time; me, a Lotus Cortina and an MGB. At one stage I was behind both but by being more consistent I was able to get back in front of both for the finish line. No contact just super-close racing. Loved it.

9th overall and another 2nd in class, brilliant.

1st May 2016 - Silverstone National - CSCC Swinging Sixties TVR Tuscan

While not the most exciting circuit in the UK (in fact far from it) the Silverstone National is fast and wide. It uses the old pits and elements of the modern GP circuit and with a lap length of 1.64 miles it gives lap times for our cars between 1:05 and 1:25 depending on class, tyres and driver etc. It's always a nice place for us because it's only 40 miles away (about 60km) so only an hour to get there even with the RV and trailer. It was just the one race for us this weekend, the CSCC Swinging Sixties Group 2 in the white duck and we were praying for dry weather following the Snetterdownpour of three weeks previously. I had made just one change to the car and that was resetting the steering arms to try to improve the Ackerman angle (go look it up if you want to be bored rigid) to reduce tyre scrub on low speed corners and I was pretty hopeful it was going to work.

Practice was good. Dave did the warm-up stint (as usual when we do two-driver races) and reported pretty nasty understeer and he was right. It wasn't appalling but was more that we'd like and we adjusted the steering again for the race. Other than that however, the car was ace and we planted it in 3rd position from 27 cars after being pipped by one place right at the ed of the 30 minute session. The car was 6 seconds a lap quicker than in 2015 but it's pretty meaningless because the track was damp/wet a year ago and we were sidelined back then by a failed front wheel bearing.

I took the rolling-start of the race and narrowly avoided a spinning Lotus Elan (who had been in grid slot 2) at turn 1 to slot into 3rd place behind the Halstead/Macpherson Ginetta G4 and Ray Barrow's Chevrolet Camaro which had sneaked (?) through on the inside. The chase was on for about 5 laps resulting in me performing a minor spin at Becketts losing me a place to a super rapid FIA spec AC Cobra. I lost about 10 seconds and was determined to catch and pass the Cobra again before the pitstop which I managed to do. Really annoyingly I came in for the pitstop right behind a pair of Lotus Elans which both drove down the pit entry lane at 60 KMH before actually reaching the speed limit marker....you can honk down that first bit and brake at the board! That cost me about 5 seconds I reckon.

Anyway we did a pretty good stop and Dave went out in second place overall. By comparison, Ray's pitstop in the Camaro had been a minor disaster, he spun the wheels pulling away which gained him a drive through penalty! Just what we needed to get in front of him and stay there. Dave drove really safely and well to bring the Tuscan home in 2nd overall; definitely one of our best results ever against such stiff competition.

We were duly awarded 2nd overall and a class G win; recognised by a cheese-board trophy.

The mighty '67 Tuscan into the complex at Silverstone during the Swinging Sixties Group 2 race     (Photo Nick Holland)

Thanks to Tash and Jarad for performing pitlane duties and to Noreen, Lisa, Penny and Frank for cheering loudly from the BRDC grandstand.

See the start of the Silverstone race here

4th June 2016 - Brands Hatch Indy - Classic K and Swinging Sixties Group 2  TVR Grantura and TVR Tuscan

Should you actually be following this bloggy thing you'll know that last time we came to Kent it was so foggy that the meeting was abandoned and we all went home with just our grid positions as the race result. We hoped this time it would be different, and it was. We had high hoped for the Grantura with it's rebuilt engine whereas the Tuscan opposition looked like it could well give us a hard time. As it turned out we came away with two class wins and two cheese-boards to prove it but with yet another blown head gasket in the Granny.

Top, pre-race happiness on display at Brand Hatch for the CSCC Saturday races in June 2016

Classic K practice; we were second group out and a slightly damp track lead to Dave doing more sliding that usual although it was much gripper as I joined the track and I was able to shave off a good bit of time to move up the grid to class pole position and 11th overall. The car seemed OK although Dave was a bit concerned that there was rather too much pressure in the header tank. The session was pretty uneventful other than a leaky E-Type Jaguar spraying something wet all over the track at Graham Hill bend which ruined 3 or 4 of my laps mid-session.

For the race, as usual, Dave took the start and did a great job keeping us in the class lead and extended a good gap between us and the next cars in the class; it wasn't overly exciting from what we could see in the pit lane and when I took over I just had to keep circulating acceptably quickly to maintain our class position (in general, it's more important to us than overall position) and make sure that the pesky blue BMW didn't sneak past us. As the race came to the final few laps I had a very near miss with a wayward, race-leading TVR Griffith that spun right in front of me and I had no alternative but to brake heavily and actually come to a stop! Two laps later I had a huge spin as the back of the car just suddenly broke away at Clearways; that's a sure sign of head gasket failure because the catch tank just can't contain all the hot, cooly juice and it spashes out and ends up on the back left tyre. I backed right off with a keen eye on the rear view mirrors and whilst I lost a couple of places maintained the all-important class lead. After the race, the engine boiled as I made my way back to the paddock and left a big wet patch on the tarmac. Dave not happy with the car but delighted with the class win.

13th August 2016 -Thruxton - Classic K and Swinging Sixties  TVR Tuscan and TVR Grantura

A rare but very welcome visit to this place, the fastest circuit in the UK. Never had its layout modified since it opened, very wide and still an active airfield it has just 5 race meetings per year due to planning restrictions. The CSCC had somehow secured a full weekend with the older stuff on Saturday and the newer cars on Sunday. There was even a pretty decent crowd watching the proceedings! It was also recorded by Motors TV for later broadcast.

Getting the White Duck ready for practice...well, Stack is, Roger is clearly distracted by something shiny

As per normal it was double-shares in our duck shaped TVRs. Classic K was race 1 and Swinging Sixties (with both groups combined) was race 3 so plenty to keep us busy all day. There was a near full pit crew turnout this time with Stack, Jared, Lisa and Roger all making it there for the weekend. Alas the kids and Noreen were off at the Air Cadets 75th anniversary celebration which does sound like it was very good with Spitfires, RAF parachutists and the ever-popular Red Arrows.

Roger, Jared and Stack on the pit wall at Thruxton in August 2016

It was an ideal race day, slightly overcast but warm and dry with a nice breeze to keep us all cool. Dave went out first in the blue car and went really well; neither of us have very much experience at this place and actually I have always done very, very badly. I have been 3 times before with mechanical failures twice and illness the final time. I think I had actually only done about 10 laps in total. Anyway, the Grantura was on form and the gearing was truly spot-on and we managed to get to 17th on the grid for the Classic K race. The other Grantura (Joe Ward and Richard Bull) suffered some serious problems and was not able to start unfortunately.

Dave had a good start and was really consistent stint to 30 minutes when I took over; I had a really good session racing against a few cars, some of which were actually a lap down but it was really good fun however. We crossed the line in 10th place overall and 1st in class; another good result and another CSCC cheeseboard trophy each. I missed the prize giving because I was out on track in the white car...

Speaking of which I decided to qualify the Tuscan first (normally Dave goes out first) because we had just completed a pretty major rebuild following the Spa/concrete wall incident and it didn't think it was fair to ask him to test that we had bolted everything back on properly. As it transpired we had and despite the engine being slightly off beat it was bloody quick. There were 46 cars taking part in the practice session and it did feel terribly busy the whole time especially as we all got bunched up when a car (an Elan I think) lost its bonnet and the safety car came out while it was collected from the middle of the fastest part of the track. Dave was able to get very close to my times which boded well for a good result.

We were gridded into 5th from 40 starters (the most that can start at Thruxton) with the 2 Chevrolet Camaros, a Lotus Elan and an E-Type Jaguar in front of us. I had a fabulous start (see first couple of laps here) and was up to second place. I was soon dropped to 3rd but managed to hold on until after about 12 minutes there was a pretty huge crash at the back end of the circuit involving an Elan and an Mike McBride's MGC. I don't think they hit each other, I think they both went off on oil which I had also experienced the lap before! The smash was pretty bad and the race was red flagged and then abandoned because of the time taken to clear the mess. Annoyingly, just before the race was red flagged, I had a coming together with a Lotus Elan that decided to go for the pit lane when I was already there...I think he didn't look and totally underestimated how fast a Tuscan accelerates...it's the same Lotus you can see getting a bit wrong at the end of the first lap on the in-car video. No result was declared at that stage and a decision was made to run the remaining part of the race as a new race after the final scheduled race of the day. That meant hanging around for a few hours but I was happy to do that. Dave decided he did not want to do the race and had some beer instead.

For part two of the race we gridded up in Part 1 finishing order (minus the people who decided to go home or who were out...) so I was in 3rd slot. Another cracking start and I was in the lead by turn 1, but then 2nd by turn 3 and back to 3rd by turn 4! The same yellow Lotus Elan that had bumped in to me in part 1 was away in the lead with its second driver who is rather better than the the first driver and he was long gone. Ray (the white Camaro) and I then had a great dice for 20 minutes to the end of the race; he beat me to 2nd place by about a second. Another pair of CSCC cheesboards for being 2nd in class and a nice interview with the Motors TV crew.

 
Swinging Sixties at Thruxton in 2016 - 3rd overall in the white duck

The car is great, the brakes are better than ever because we found a slight problem with them during the repair/rebuild but we do need to sort out the slight roughness in the engine; it probably just needs a new set of spark plugs which is not as simple as it sounds because the exhaust manifolds really restrict access....special tools on the way!

3rd September 2016 - Donington Park - CSCC Swinging Sixties Group 2 and Classic K  TVR Grantura and TVR Tuscan

Donington was great and terrible all on the same day. It was dry for Swingers practice but it was like I had forgotten how to drive and Dave was way quicker than me. We ended up 5th on the grid for a rolling start in torrential rain. For Classic K we practiced in heavy rain and raced in the dry!

Swinging Sixties practice The weather looked really changeable for the entire day and following our success at Thruxton was really looking forward to it. Dave went out and was running really well but that all went to pot when I got in it. I just couldn't get in the groove and was truly awful. The car felt terrible and I was all over the place, locking the wheels under braking and getting all my lines wrong. I hated it and was way off Dave's pace.

Classic K practice The rain had come and we switched to L section tyres (slightly narrower). Dave went out first and did some good laps; I took over and spun off on the very first corner! I was hopeless again and came in after ten minutes having not improved on Dave's times. It was very wet, incredibly slippery and most unpleasant. We were 16th on the grid.

Swinging Sixties race Torrential rain. I took the rolling start and managed to drop us from 5th to 9th by the end of lap 1 and 15th by lap 2 having locked up and slid off at the chicane. I then managed to claw back up a couple of places as the race went on but couldn't wait to get out of the car and hand it over to Dave; everything felt wrong. It's normally pretty good in the wet but I was just all over the place, Stack even warned Dave to get ready early in case I just came in before the scheduled pit stop. We finally finished 8th overall and 3rd in class G after a truly great drive from Dave. Very exciting.

Classic K race Dry track and Dave went out first; basically Dave was great and I suddenly remembered how to drive. The car was fab and we had a brilliant race, Dave took us way up the order and I managed to get several places near the end of the one hour race bringing us up to an amazing 5th overall and a class win. Passing Brian Lambert's MGB on the penultimate lap and then out braking Mark Dunn's Austin Healey into the chicane at the end of the last lap was really exciting and made up for an otherwise sub-standard day for me.   Final two laps of Classic K at Donington; me driving Dave's TVR Grantura https://youtu.be/7LwNVSa_xnE

Angouleme in the GT6 next!

18th September 2016 - Angoulême - FISC Legendary Circuits  Triumph GT6

Angoulême is such a beautiful city and how it has continued the Circuit des Remparts meeting is a complete mystery. There cannot be any similar meeting and to take part in the weekend is a real privilege. The overall organisation of the racing is a bit haphazard and it's not really that great for spectating because of the huge amount of catch netting all round the track but it's still a great event.

Also for this year Noreen rented us a house for a few days rather than using hotels; this worked out really well because we were able to get all of us in, including Noreen and me, Dave, Richard, Penny and Frank.

As per two years ago, Dave and I had entered the FISC Legendary Circuits series which caters for a wide range of sports cars with a practice session early on Sunday morning and then two races it would be a busy afternoon. I had done quite a lot to the GT6 since the last race (which was this meeting two years ago!) including a strip and refit of the final drive/diff unit, repair and repaint of the o/s rear wing, new Lexan polycarbonate in the rear hatch and reconstruction of the front bonnet mount frame which had suffered heavily from the vibrations causes by the terribly bumpy circuit last time out.

The car was immediately really good! The brakes were as sharp as I recall and then engine was on form following a spark plug change which I tend to do on this car every meeting. I had selected the best four tyres from my pile of ten and it was all working well. I qualified in 8th from 22 cars and managed to avoid hitting the overly-aggressively driven white Morgan that ultimately crashed heavily causing the session to be red flagged. Also in the session, Ian Bankhurst managed to strike the Armco at turn one which broke the rear upright on his Lotus Elan, so he was out too. Dave was in 12th position and very happy that he had a car that was actually working well; two years ago his gear ratios were all wrong and he ended up breaking the gearbox by forcing it into first gear lap after lap. Chris Conoley was flying in Allen Tice's 1800cc Marcos and was on pole position quite nicely!

Race 1 was great apart from an abortive start. The organisers thought it was another practice session and we were not gridded up after the out lap; it was all very confusing but Pieter Bakker was soon at the paddock exit on his phone sorting it out. We were all called back into the paddock and the race was delayed half an hour while another race was run! Come our race, all was good. Good start (especially compared to two years ago where I missed the flag and dropped four places off the grid...see YouTube) and was able to get up to 5th by mid race. I then lost three places again when the engine jammed on fully open throttle. I was able to shut off the engine on the master switch and restart the car which was then OK for the rest of the race although I avoided using full power. I was amazed it restarted because it was a real sod to start for the race because the battery was flat; not sure why but I suspect it's not working to its peak performance being 10 years old now. Thanks to the Matrix Motorsport team for the push start out of the paddock! It was a good fun race and it's on YouTube here https://youtu.be/XJCpjP5QSI4

My 300th race start and what a terrible weekend...Just one car for a change and Dave's practice session was cut short by a safety car; I did a few laps but it was really damp and the car was a real pig to drive.  We were way down the grid and I nearly stacked it up off the line (see the video) and then again coming through Druids...I didn't survive much longer however and was out by half way round lap 2. See the end of the video. Enough said. Annoying.

Jon's TVR Tuscan being recovered after the crash at Oulton Park in 2016

Oulton Park in 2 minutes  https://youtu.be/wAOv_W_E6Oo

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