I like the Croft circuit. The Alfa Championship visited Croft in my first season in 1999. The track was wet for the qualifying practice and a Porsche had dropped oil around most of the circuit. All classes were out together and we all slithered around for 15minutes in the ridiculously slippery conditions with everyone just trying to keep their cars on the black stuff. Much to my surprise I got my first class F pole just ahead of Dave Ashford. In the dry race Dave beat me to the first corner and I chased him hard till the end of the race but didn't manage to get past him.
Unfortunately my first visit to Croft in the 156 was not so successful and blighted with mechanical gremlins. The failed scavenger pump from Mondello was replaced with a dual pump arrangement providing a redundant back up in the event of failure. But unfortuantely I was to be let down with Engine and gearbox problems.
I drove reasonably well in the practice sessions slotting into my familiar 6th position or there abouts. In second practice I was fourth quickest with a time just over a second slower than Gavin right up until the last lap when Mark Fullalove beat my time by 100th of a second. Gary was furious saying I had towed Mark round and made jokes at my expense for the rest of the day about ' lets all just follow Graham'.
One of the aspects of BTC I have struggled to get to terms with is that in the dry the slick tyres deliver their best for just one or two laps, typically after two laps to warm them up. To get a good grid position in qualifying you have to drive a perfect lap on the 3rd lap and avoid all traffic. This is extremely difficult even if you are lucky enough to have a clear piece of track and virtually impossible when a Super Tourer pops out of the pits in front to start their warm up laps. Where the new slicks give their advantage is at the apex and exits of the corners. The skill is in using this extra grip without over driving the car and this comes down to concentration. I drive at my best when I am using the subconscious driver and not the interfering conscious mind which moves braking points around and thinks the car can still turn into the corner with all that extra speed. This is where Gavin is excellent. He seems to be able to put in very quick laps on demand and so always seems to do well in qualifying.
Qualifying never seems to go to plan and I am starting to think that having a plan is simply a waste of time. In the first session I headed out to do the usual tyre warming. I put on the new front slicks and headed out to do my 'hot laps'. A car had been through the gravel at turn 1 and dragged shingle all over the track. The marshalls took a long time to red flag the session which left only 4 minutes at the re-start for me to clock a time. Of course everybody else was trying to do the same so I was fairly pleased to end up my usual 6th ahead of Alan. I then went into the pits for new tyres to start the second half of the qualifying session. I warmed up the front tyres and started a hot lap. I encountered some traffic but managed to get past with only a small delay. The engine had been slightly off song all weekend. It would get to 8000rpm and then start to back fire as if the soft rev limiter was cutting in early. I started another 'hot' lap, my 4th lap on the new tyres and so my final chance to exploit the extra grip. The lap was going very well but as I changed from fourth to fifth through the fast section at the back of the circuit, the engine died and I coasted to a halt. The lap time put me in 7th place, this time just behind Alan. Once we got the car back to the pits the team also noticed that the rear anti-roll bar had snapped. Rather embarrassingly for me I hadn't noticed but definitely preferred the handling of the car without it. We decided to try running without a rear roll bar in the first race.
On Sunday the weather was superb and so a large crowd started to cover the many viewing banks around the Croft Circuit. The team had worked hard the previous evening to install the spare engine ready for the days racing. The lights changed to green for the sprint race and we were off. Gavin lead initially but a weld failed on the cooling system and his engine over heated eventually blowing the head gasket bringing an end to Gavin's racing for the weekend. I made a decent start finding a good balance between aggression and survival. Tom Boardman blasted past me off the line. As is often the case in the ETCC the BMW's rear wheel drive provides far more grip off the line than the Alfa's flailing front wheels even with a limited slip differential. Tom made a mistake at Turn 1 and I tried to slip through on the inside of turn 2 but Tom then sliced back across to take the line for the chicane causing me to brake. This gave Alan Blencowe who was following behind a huge speed advantage onto the back straight and he slipped past me and almost Tom as well, though Tom was able to hold him off into Tower. Tom can be difficult to overtake as he defends very firmly but he also tends to make mistakes under pressure. Eventually Tom lost the rear of the BMW at turn 1 and crashed into one of the tyre stacks protecting the entry to turn 2. He recovered but only after losing several places. Paul O'Neal in the Egg Astra ripped his sump open on the curbs in turn 1 and dropped oil all the way into turn 2. Following cars then visited the gravel traps and added shingle to the already slippery surface. The safety car came out while they dressed the oil but the track remained slippery for the rest of the race catching out many drivers. I was one of the many to have a huge sideways moment at this corner but I found that without the rear anti-roll bar the car is much easier to balance in a slide and so I managed to keep the car on the track losing just one place to Dave Allan's Honda Civic. I retook the place a couple of laps later and went in pursuit of my team mate Alan. I crossed the line in 4th place after my best BTC race yet. Alan finished 3rd so it was a good showing for the team despite Gavin's retirement.
The feature race was something of an anti climax for the whole team. Gavin didn't start because of the engine damage from the sprint race. Alan lost his clutch master cylinder and my differential failed leaving me with a one wheel drive car. I tried to limp round just to get to the finish but the car was just too slow and one of the Peugeot Super Tourers almost went into the back of me on the exit of tower.
The second half of the season takes us to circuits which I know. I didn't think learning new circuits like Thruxton and Mondello would be a problem given the two 40 minute practice sessions before qualifying. This seems like a huge amount of track time compared with the fifteen minutes of learn and qualify in the Alfa Championship. However, when running my 33 I would use the same basic set-up everywhere we went and just change the tyres pressures to suit the circuit layout. The touring cars really do need setting up for the circuit, or even specific corners on the circuit. For example at Croft during the first practice session the car was tail happy through the ultra fast Clark Esses, perfectly balanced through Sunny-in and Sunny-out (one of my favourite corners!) and then under-steered through the complex. We lowered the rear ride height to get more grip at the rear and increased the front re-bound damping to try and keep the front loaded into the tight complex section. This did improve stability through Clark but caused under-steer through Sunny-out and didn't really help in the complex. For qualifying we put the front damping back to the original setting and at some point the anti-roll bar snapped. The result was actually quite good. I had to straighten the Clark Esses as much as possible as without the rear roll bar you can feel the weight transfer. A small lift on the entry to Sunny-out was enough to set the rear into a slight slide to counter the power under-steer and then for some reason the car seemed to turn into the hairpin better allowing me to get on the power nice and early for the start finish straight.
Great weather and an enthusiastic crowd made for one of the best BTC weekends yet.