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Uniroyal Team Challenge - Race 3

Brands Hatch 13^th June 2004

Car 41 - Team Prestige Motorsport: Trevor Gibbs, Heather Darwin, Alistair Stenhouse.

by Christopher Darwin

After the good result at Silverstone on 15^th May – seventh out of eighteen starters – we were looking forward to Brands Hatch. Like Donington, it is a far more interesting circuit for the drivers than featureless Silverstone and for the pit crew there is a good view from the rear of the pits over most of the short Indy circuit (1.22 miles.)

Our domestic arrangements were easy as all seven of us were able to stay in the perfectly adequate Thistle hotel beside the main gate for a reduced rate. Heather and I arrived late on Friday evening and joined the rest of the team for a few beers in the bar before a reasonably early night.

A four hour race takes up a surprisingly large amount of the day. After a maximum breakfast in the hotel, we proceeded the few yards to the circuit. Signing on at 0915 was followed by scrutineering between 0930 and 1000 and then from 1025 one hour on the track for qualifying. Theoretically this gave each driver twenty minutes, but early over-exuberance by other cars caused red flags and reduced our first driver Trevor Gibbs to 11 minutes. Due to races for other series scheduled over the weekend there was no extra time, so qualifying ended at 1125 and was followed by the drivers’ briefing at 1145. Grid places are always a draw based on two leagues – slow cars and fast cars – and again we qualified for the rear of the eighteen cars. An hour or so for lunch – provided in one of the very smart upstairs hospitality suites overlooking all of the circuit – and time for final calculations about fuel, using the consumption figures from the qualifying laps. I fretted over my calculator and mental arithmetic; the pit crew tried not to fiddle with the car. The Plan was our standard:- stay on track, avoid collisions, keep the car in one piece.

The race started on schedule at 1345. Pitstops and driver changes were scheduled every forty minutes. Trevor was soon going well – within 20 minutes he was 12^th. Then disaster – yellow flags, safety car out - and from the back of the pits we could see Car 41 in the Paddock Bend gravel trap. Trevor was towed out and drove into the pits for a quick check over; fortunately, there was no damage so he continued. We had lost seven minutes, about four laps and were back to 16^th.

After the first pitstop Heather took over, then after her stint Alistair - and the team basically stuck to the Plan. Car 41 moved up to 15^th after one hour. Then other cars started breaking and spending time in the pits, and another faster car explored the tyre wall at Clearways corner at speed – after three hours we were tenth. We tried to add too much fuel at the fourth pitstop – I had not allowed for the fuel saved during a total of 23 minutes of safety car - and this led to an overflow which had to be mopped up before a watching marshal would allow us to restart; this cost us about two minutes, but the eleventh car was still about 4 laps behind. At 1745 the chequered flag came out; the winner had covered 223 laps, we had completed 209 and we were tenth out of the eleven finishers.

Once again, our lap times were about four seconds slower than the winner (59seconds), and once again several faster cars finished (or did not finish) behind us. There are always What Ifs; our two mistakes cost us 6 laps and we could have finished sixth – but equally the faster cars that broke might have remained serviceable.

The next race for the series was the 25 hour event at Spa on 10^th/11^th July; we did not take part as it is both very expensive and time-consuming (quite apart from exhausting). Our next event will be a modest six hours at Snetterton on 26^th September, followed by the final four hour race at Rockingham on 10^th October.

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