Donington Park 8th August Race         

...and victory in the second (and wet!) race...

I was lulled into a false sense of security over the weather as Saturday was supposed to be worse than Sunday…..Sure enough the drizzle "escalated" an hour before the race and our beautiful new slicks were quietly put away. This really was going to be our first wet race.

Fortunately we were starting from the position we finished in yesterday so I was confident the spray would be minimized once the GT1 cars disappeared. I was concerned however to learn over the radio that the Sintura (the car directly in front of me) was starting on intermediate tyres!

It was too wet for intermediates at that stage so they were obviously gambling on the rain stopping. This would not help my cause however as everyone else at the front was on wets and I was likely to be impeded by either Luby or Dean struggling to tame 700bhp in the wet…

The Lotus was along side me on the grid and its lack of horsepower was unlikely to be a disadvantage in the early wet conditions. Sure enough it was quick away from the lights and was able to get ahead of the Mclaren and Sintura on the first lap. I did not despite my superior speed through the corners. I was no match for them in a straight line and the way the Sintura was struggling in front of me did not fill me with confidence….I waited patiently……

All this gave Charlie Cox  the chance to close up on my tail. He looked really stable under braking and was driving the car well. I let him through at Coppice to see if he would have any joy with the Sintura and the Mclaren. My heart was in my mouth (he was driving our own Porsche) as he dived up the inside of the Sintura (they had already had a coming together in Race One.)

He made it though and I went for it on the next lap getting past both GT1 cars on the same tour. I was not making any impression on the Lotus however which had a clean run – time for a pitstop….

We made another first class stop and Rob hit the track. He remained in 3^rd place until the Cirtek Porsche stopped. We then moved to second and when the Lotus stopped we were only 9 seconds behind them.

Rob caught this up quickly and passed Mike Youles with 10 minutes to go, although he was unclear of his track position!! He was being shown the gap to the Marcos and thought he was lapping the Lotus……nearly a big oooops!!!!

Great finish – another brilliant race for us and the team, the GT1 boys also performing the double!!

Last Updated: 21 September 2001