I had a weekend of mixed fortunes with the hysterics. On Saturday it was suggested to me that, because there were some fearsome fast cars entered in the pre-84 category where I was entered, that I should move to the pre-66. Timekeepers don’t care if you move your entry, so that was easy. I checked with the head honcho at Killarney and he was happy. “Do I need to speak to anybody else?” I asked.
“No.” Quoth he.
An hour before my race is due to start I go and check the grid, which has the word “Revised” across the top. And I had been revised out of it. By this time any other race that I could have run in has been and gone. It turns out that the head of the pre-66 crowd didn’t want any car which did not have a HTP competing. All of which is fine, but it would have been nice if I had been asked to check with him, and even nicer if somebody could have let me know. I was furious.
On Sunday I ran with the pre-84 where I was originally entered, and got lapped by a Porsche 956 as well as the crazy fast rotary powered 7’s that usually lap me in club events. In that race I was gridded at the back, because I didn’t have a result from Saturday’s race, which was fine. I snuck past a GT40 on the second corner and then had an almighty dice with a similar spec car to mine. It took me three attempts to put him away properly. On all three I got past him going into the last corner, and on two of the three he managed to get past me on the following straight. After that I was reeling in another road legal seven who subsequently had an oops and went off, and then Craig’s car had a lose and I left him too. So, job done! I got past everybody that I could possibly have expected to catch. My wife and son came to watch that race, and I had a big lump in my throat when I saw them in the stands on my warm up lap.
I also went out with the pre-74 cars, again gridded last. I went out with the pre-74’s mostly so that I could share the track with a Ferrari P312PB, which is basically an early 70’s Ferrari F1 car with a 2 seater body, owned and driven by Lord Irvine Laidlaw. On the first lap I got past an MGB GT, then got past a Lola (which was a bit poorly) and had another dice with the same 7 that had kept me so busy in the pre 84. The Ferrari was something else. I saw the blue flags and the headlights in my mirrors at about the same time and gave lots of space up the back straight. “Fucking hell!” was what I said when it came past. It was that loud that there was a sensation of pressure on my eardrum closest as it went by. Some laps later it came past again, this time on the start/finish straight, but this time I was ready for the noise. He came past me, shortly before turn 1 and then I realised that he didn’t make much ground on me through the corner. Cool, I thought, I’ll keep him in the video, but I couldn’t believe I was keeping up through the corner. When I found myself keeping up on the short straight to turn 2 I realised what had happened. The Ferrari had lapped me just after the start/finish line, so he had taken the checkered, but I was still racing. At his cool down speeds, he was not a lot slower than my racing speed. So I can say that while racing, I was given a point-by from a Ferrari. It also meant that although I did not finish last, I was the last person out there racing. Again, job done, I got past all the cars that I could have hoped to. In fact, this was an even better one, because somebody had dumped a whole slick of oil on the racing line going into turn 2, so I used a weird line through there all race, and managed to overtake the other road legal 7 by driving around the outside of him, which was very, very satisfying indeed.
Pre 84 Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbPgbcM6TEg overtaking 2 competitors who have spun out, and being monstered by a pair of 911’s
Pre 74 Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUu4-ES9QVE this clip ends with me being lapped by a fearsome F1-based Ferrari sports racer
Pre 74 Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk-bTJc5uZ8 me “racing” the Ferrari – his race has ended, mine still has a lap to go!
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