Practice | The Race | Results

The weather reports were not looking good for Saturday, however luck was with us as Silverstone was enjoying a pleasant sunny day. The heavy showers had left the circuit very slippery in many places, which meant taking things very carefully through the complex approaching Woodcote. The rest of the circuit was drying out however, which gave a strange combination of normal dry levels of grip around some corners and no grip on others. This took some getting used to, and was complicated further by the wet corners drying out during the session. These difficult conditions caught lots of people out, and left several cars damaged.

I was taking things fairly easily, as I was looking forward to being able to spend some weekends away from my garage, and didn't fancy having to rebuild the car over the winter break, so was slightly surprised to find myself in 8th place on the grid, out of 29 starters! Also on the grid were Martin Smith and Ian Creba who had missed several races due to mechanical problems, but were determined to make the last race of the season. Martin had in fact fitted an engine straight from a scrapyard - bought for the princely sum of £50! It was also good to see Richard Welch on the grid, who's race car had been damaged in an accident on the way to Cadwell Park at the start of September. Repairing the car meant stripping it down and having a new section of the chassis replaced - putting the car back together meant Richard working on the car until 1am every night for a week, and he finally finished at 4am on Saturday morning! It just shows that it's not just the Formula 1 teams that put huge levels of effort and commitment into motor racing.

The Race | Results | Practice

The sunshine had continued through the day, and the circuit was now completely dry. I was slightly nervous about starting in front of so many people - especially with my habit of entering the first corner in last place... As the lights went green, I actually managed a decent start, and was still in 8th place as we came out of Copse. Mark Owen went off at the second corner, which put me up into 7th, but I had Andrew Ward close behind me as we went down the Club straight. My flat spot was losing me power, which was making it difficult to keep up with Tim Harmer and Paul Gill, so I tried to go around Brooklands a bit too quickly. I ran a bit wide, got onto the dirty bit of the track, and just understeered off onto the grass. I flew through the gravel trap, splashed through a couple of big puddles, and eventually came to a halt just before the edge of the circuit. I had to wait for what seemed like hours while the rest of the field passed by so that I could rejoin safely, but I was now in last place. I was pretty annoyed with myself, as I had thrown away a good result, and I had been looking forward to racing near the front for the first time. I then spent the rest of the race trying to catch and pass as many people as I could - despite the large numbers of yellow flags, and the contents of Clive Hudson's expired engine on the circuit I managed to get up into 15th place, which was some consolation. Unfortunately for Andy Sterling, he was judged to have overtaken someone under a yellow flag, and was disqualified from 1st place.

Results | Practice | The Race

Qualifying Times

Race Results