AWS Racing Race Report: Oulton Park 6/10/12
Just being at Oulton Park on Friday evening was a minor miracle! The damage from Donington fixed and the car re prepped, the team met up at the workshop Friday lunchtime.
All was well until we hit traffic coming out of Stoke on Trent just before joining the M6. All call from Matt who was riding shotgun in the car transporter rang me to report the clutch had gone on the Transporter! The clutch had been changed the week before, so this came as a bit of a surprise. The next hour provided its fair share of stop start motoring, all done by Mark, driving the Transporter with no clutch and crashing the box. Well done Mark as I coudn't tell following behind in my car.
It seems this incident was a sign of things to come.
Race day dawned very cold and wet. Overnight rain had left the circuit soaked and the cold, along with a lack of any sun early on, meant qualifying was treacherous.
Everyone went out onto the circuit tentatively, but after a few laps, some brave souls decided to up the pace, with predictable results! After a few minor spins, a major off resulted in the safety car coming out for several laps. I was trying to learn the circuit and put in some kind of time. As the safety car went in, I got my pit board to change driver and so tried to get round as quickly as I could. This resulted in a huge slide around Druids which I managed to hold. Back safely into pit lane, Stuart went out, but fared no better than I had and we qualified 22.
We made some adjustments to the suspension between qualifying and the race and then checked the fuel level which didn't appear to have moved. Probably because of the lack of full throttle driving! It was at this point that we decided to start the car and take it around the padock to allow the guage to settle. The car wouldn't start. I thought the old immobiliser problem had reared its head or that the white block connector in the engine bay had got damp. Much messing and reconnecting later and nothing. We could, however, start the car with a bump start. This then led us to the starter motor, where it was found that the low tension connection had fallen off! Matt did his best to get the connector to go back on, but as I'm sure you will all appreciate, not an easy job from under the car!
The engine bay was then hurriedly re-assembled and the car made ready for the race as we had been called to assembly.
The track had now dried, although drivers from the previous race reported the circuit greasy in places under the trees. I took the first stint and lined up toward the back of the grid from where I could just see the 30 second board.
I made a clean get away and made up several places on the pit straight. A coming together between a Clio Cup, Purple Alfa and Citroen Saxo at Old Hall saw me pick up 3 more places and a Focus went wide at the Shell hairpin which put me into 12th by the end of the first lap.
I then settled into learning the circuit and tried to push on a bit. On lap 4 I was caught by a Puma and decided to follow their lines for a while. It was on the next lap when, exiting the first chicane after Shell, (Brittens) the car suddenly lost all power and the orange light of death appeared on the dash. I tried re starting the car which worked for a second, then nothng again. I was almost collected by a Fiesta and Pug 106 as I suddenly slowed going up the hill. I couldn't believe my luck after such a good start to the race.
The next minute passed very slowly as I crawled back to pit lane just as the pit window opened. Stuart jumped into the car and I went under the bonnet to check various connections. It turned out to be the white block connector, which hadn't been pushed firmly back into its holder. This done the dash lit up again, but the starter refused to turn. The low tension wire had come off the starter again! Agggghhhh
The team pushed the car down pit lane and Stuart popped the clutch. The car roared into life and off he went.
The next 20 odd minutes went by with us anxiously awaiting the car on each lap. Stuart continued to make progress through the field, but the time lost crawling back to the pits and routing under the bonnet meant that in the end we were 2 laps down on the winners. Stuart had managed to get the Clio back up to 22nd place which is where we had started.
Car in one piece, another signature on my upgrade card and another great days motorsport.
Really looking forward to getting the car back to the workshop and stripping it down fully. We have a plan for upgrades to improved both performance and reliability over the winter, but have to have work completed by Autosport in January, as the car will be on a stand there. Not sure when the car will be back at the workshop as it, and the car transporter, were recovered from the circuit by the company that had recently replaced the clutch in the transporter!
Qualifying footage and race footage will be posted as soon as I get chance to edit it.
Thanks for all the support we got at the circuit, it was nice to start putting faces to names.
Can't wait for next season.
Andrew
AWS Racing
