Brands Hatch ? Race 4
Despite 80 reasonably event free laps on Monday one tour of the indy circuit during qualifying was enough to tell me that we had a problem. The 74 car now sounded like a raspberry being shot out of a canon and despite being normally aspirated had developed a chronic turbo lag. Coming out of Graham Hill bend I took a bit more kerb than normal resulting in a minor tank slapper however a missile appeared in front of my head and without the time or possibility to duck (you try ducking in a six point harness!) I was struck in the head by the only survivable component of a locost, the air filter. Without the air filter the car was now devouring air like student at an all you can drink buffet and sounding like orgasmic death throes of a blow up doll, not good.
Qualifying was a wash out for me with a 62sec lap and 20th on the grid. The remaining question was could we find the problem and the air filter and fix both of them in the three or so hours before the race? My air filter last seen by me at Graham Hill bend, and was rumoured round the paddock to have made it all the way round the lap to Clearways, which was a lot further than Matt had in the belligerent black beast. Quoting from his excellent circuit guide Matt had declared that Paddock Hill bend was ?quicker than it looked?. He went about demonstrating this by chucking it backwards into the kitty litter on his first lap. Whilst no doubt fuming to himself in the gravel Matt was rapidly joined by another locoster, pointing forwards this time with the steering wheel in one hand and the other fully engaged in a titanic struggle to deviate the car from a potentially ankle snapping nose first entry into the tyres.
My errant air filter was finally recovered somewhere around Maclarens but was, even for Locost, in pretty poor repair. Tony called in a couple of the, perhaps, millions of favours he had performed over the years and found us another. A quick check of the engine compression and spark plugs found a bizarrely damaged plug and the 74 car, resplendent in her new mud guards was once again ready to race.
I?m yet to get anything like a good start and this is something that I should definitely practice, I thought as the field inched away from me down to Paddock Hill bend. No sign of the black beast as yet as we all dived into Druids (spoke too soon below) and I managed a rare pass down the hill into Graham Hill bend. Right were on here I thought as two white Locosts (you know who you are) touched and started spinning in front me of me. A gap appeared between the revolving obstacles and it was only at the very last minute that I realised that by the time I made the ten meters up to the gap it was going to be firmly shut. I took to the kerb and the grass on the right easily avoiding the spins however with the rest of the field, including the black beast disappearing up the road, I pointed the car back down to the track and nailed it. Bad move. I was at the centre of the world for a what seemed like ages, as brand hatch gyrated round me a few times and the engine coughed and died. I was now sitting in my own little crop circle, dead last, whilst the motor race whined on somewhere out of my sight. Bugger.
Back on track and giving it more than was sensible or quick I managed to catch up some of the back markers after a couple of laps and a few hairy moments. Finally with someone to race, I charged up the inside of Druids hoping that the car, who thought he had the inside line, would recognise the hopelessness of his position and give me some room. A micro second later that car was sideways in front me at the apex, after being tapped, and my nose cone was under his front wheels with the two of us locked in an L shaped tangle. I could hear sniggering from the boys in orange as I reversed out of the lovers clutch and roared back down the hill looking for black flags that would tell me that I was depositing fluid on the track from a surely gashed radiator. No black flags and the rest of the race was a lonely struggle with two bent lower front wishbones that converted the normally predictable little car into a end swapping monster and quite the biggest armful of understeer I?ve ever had to contend with. Finished next to last but with a number of cars lining the Armco and looking like a locost showroom I?d only lost 2 places on my qualifying back to 22nd and got my couple of points for showing up.
