Castle Combe Race Report - 18th & 19th July 2009

Stringfellow & Humphrey steal double class honours!

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Well, how about that for a varied race weekend. Having had a pretty awful week of weather we might have expected at least some sunshine. The weekend’s weather was changeable to say the least. A 20 minute period of sunshine would’ve changed to heavy showers within seconds, leaving tyre choice to the very very last minute.

As 11.35 approached, the 8 cars lined up in assembly for Qualifying. We had been expected a 10 car grid with the additions of Colin Hays in Geoff Steel’s Invitation Class E46 4-Door and Duncan White in standard class. Following Geoff’s engine failure at Donington the team were unable to repair the car in time for Castle Combe. Duncan White was also unable to get his car ready.

Qualifying was miraculously, 80% dry with lap times falling as low as 1:12. Thorne put his Thorney Motorsport Modified Class CSL on pole by nearly 1 second ahead of Martin. The top 5 cars were separated by just 1.9 seconds with Steward, Hays & Stringfellow just behind respectively. In standard class, the cars seemed evenly matched in the dry conditions, for Race 1 the grid was as follows:

Race 1
With mid morning in progress, we’d had sunshine, storms, showers and just about every type of rain there is. Sheltering in the CSL Cup lounge for breakfast many competitors had the weather open on their phones / laptops or anything with a web connection trying to guess what conditions would be at 10.45am. At around 10.30 the heavens opened and all competitors lined up on the wet tyres.

Off the line Thorne seemed to struggle, giving way to Stringfellow and Martin down to Quarry. Gill then stuck to Thorne for Lap 1, passing him on Lap 2 to take 3rd place. Steward was also off the pace in the torrential rain. Observing from the pits, the drivers were barely visible through their windscreen thanks to the mist developing on them. After 5 laps, the visibility was too much of an issue for Steward who pulled into the pits for retirement. Back in the race, Martin was leading from Stringfellow and a few seconds back Gill was still keeping Thorne at bay.

John Harrison was falling back from Darren Humphrey, who was taking out a vast lead on his Class B competitor. Coming into camp corner on lap 7 Stringfellow locked his brakes on the treacherous conditions and contact occurred to the rear of Martin’s #5 car. Both cars then made their way up the pit straight side by side. At folly Stringfellow had made the move for the lead and held it. Meanwhile, back in 4th – Thorne had started to claw back at Gill in 3rd. At the end of Lap 8 the gap was just .2 of a second. With Thorne gaining into folly, Gill made the move to protect his line. With the briefest of contact, Thorne had to settle back to a 1 second deficit. On lap 10, Stringfellow had opened a 1 second lead to Martin whose lap times had taken an extension after the collision. Lap 12 saw Gill spin chasing down Martin, allowing Thorne through to take 3rd. The following 2 laps saw no change to the positions and Stringfellow went on to win his 4th race of the series from Martin and Thorne. In standard class, Darren Humphrey took his 3rd class win of the 2009 series.

Classification

In the aftermath of the Race, drivers 3,5,99 and 23 were called to the Race Officials office. The only point worth noting was Stringfellow’s verbal warning for the contact made to Martin’s car. We very much like this non-contact racing. ;-)

Race 2
With further spells of rain, drizzle, bright sunshine, and near darkness it was still very much a guessing game for tyres. For the 30 mins before the race we had had bright sunshine, and all competitors assembled on slick tyres. Then just as the stewards’ whistles blew, we had what can only be described as a monsoon.

With only the standard class cars out there on wet tyres, the rest of the grid returned to the pits. (The standard class guys followed suit so that the race could be started properly – many thanks!) In the next 3.5 minutes, 6 cars had their wheels and tyres swapped for wets in the pits. The Thorney Motorsport guys were helping out others in just their t-shirts during the heavy rain.

Race clerk David Cartwright delayed the start so that the teams could collate themselves and ensure the cars weren’t rushed. After the 5-minute delay we were given a 15-minute race. The grid was as per the end of Race 1 and off the start Thorne struggled again while Stringfellow demonstrated class in the wet conditions and set off into the lead. Thorne crept up to folly and pulled to the side of the road, only to reappear to the track moments later, the water appeared to be playing havoc with his electrics. Thorne’s team-mate Foster seemed to be having similar difficulties and retired on lap 1 also. The order remained unchanged until lap 6, where at camp corner Colin Hays span and brushed the tyre wall. The race was then red flagged, as it was over 75% race distance the points and standings were counted as follows:

Classification:

Series Standings after Rounds 7 & 8