Race Report Tricolore Trophy Silverstone National 15th August 2015
Qualifying
The less said about quali the better!
Having not driven Silverstone since last year I was looking forward to getting a few laps under my belt, but the car had other ideas.
The car just died after half a lap while I was just warming up. Turned out the fuel connector to the rail had popped off! This was all a bit dramatic as when I pulled off the circuit I naturally tried to restart the car, the marshals came running over waving their arms and shouting fuel leak! They pulled my electrical cut off pull cord and that was that, quali over and no time set! We towed the car back to the scrutineering bay, confirmed the fault, fixed it, and they were happy I could go out again if the clark of the course agreed.
So I wandered over to race control and had a chat to the clark. He said as I had raced at Silverstone once before they were happy for me to race, but I would have to start at the very back of the grid!
Race 1
So I started at the very back, 30th place I think.
What a first lap I had, not sure how many cars I passed but it was quite a few, then the safety car came out. I had a car overtake me under safety car conditions that I had just passed before hand, so I reclaimed that place straight away. Having watched the video back the safety car board did just flick out a split second before I passed it and I just didn't see it, so technically I passed him illegally first and I hold my hand up to that one. The safety car was out for quite a while, 3 laps I think. After the restart Sonny decided to spin off in front of me which, was nice of him. So I tried to aim for where he was spinning thinking he wouldn't be there when I got there, and luckily he wasn't.
Then I started having problems. The car was just overheating massively; Oil and water temps were off the scale. Because of this the car just kept loosing power the longer the race went on. It’s the same issue I was having at Thruxton but was even worse this time. Very strange considering I have fitted an up rated rad as well now.
My oil gauge goes up to 150 degrees C and it was bottomed out! The factory coolant gauge needle was also buried in the red! I think I was probably down a good 30bhp by the end of the race. If you listen to the video at the end you can hear my oil temp alarm going off. This did not bode well for race 2…..
Cooling issues aside though what a race. I went form 30th to 6th in one race! Don’t think I will forget that for a while. Also picked up a 1st in class trophy.
Race 2
I got a pretty bad start spinning the wheels in first and second, but this was also a really good race. I had a good battle with Tony and Andrew Mitchell. Tony did give me a little tap at one point but it was nothing really and he did apologise after the race.
However I had cooling issues right from the off again and I was just loosing power throughout the race. Again both oil and coolant gauges were off the scale, they didn’t even come down on the cool down lap. My oil temp alarm was still beeping when I got back to the pits!
Coolant had boiled out all over the engine bay as well. I really need to get this sorted before the next race.
I did make it up to 4th at one point, and I tried to defend against Tony and Andrew but with the back markers getting in the way and my overheating problems it was a tough challenge and they both made it back past in the end.
So I started 6th and finished 6th overall, and 1st in class again.
Summary
I need to seriously address the cooling issues with the car but overall a great weekend. I had an epic first race making up 24 places, and a really good second race managing to retain my position despite carrying an engine issue. Some good close racing, very close at times, and I even managed to bag the very last burger at the bbq.
