Over the last weekend in September Team Slap My Top were racing
at Croft near Darlington. This was the last round of the MG Cockshoot
cup and I had to finish both races in front of Alan Bates to finish
second in class behind Mike Peters.
Unfortunatly Alan had blown his engine up in practice on Friday but there were other rivals.
If you are not a regular listener to the Alex Lester show, there was a marshal who told us of the basic rule, if they are eating a scotch egg the car spins, if it's a pork pie the car crashes. Well I don't know what they were eating at Tower corner but it worked.
We arrived Saturday morning in order to practice last thing
on Saturday and have two races on Sunday. Having got the car prepared
I went for a snooze in the camper to be woken about five minutes before
I was due on the track the team thought it was most amusing seeing me
get changed in a panic.
The practice session went well with no food moments and I was placed 3rd on the grid behind two Midgets.
Soon it was time to race, as we were going around the track
on the green flag lap, it was noticed that there was oil coming from
the car that was on pole position, Oh dear I thought what bad luck or
words to that effect, he pulled in and I was up one place. I had a
clear run in front of me and I had a good start, I was level with the
car in front of me but could not pass him, I carried on slipstreaming
him up to Tower and through the Jim Clark esses, as we approached the
complex I dived in the inside, drew level but could not pass. Back
behind him and as we were going into Tower for the second time I saw
in my mirror white smoke coming from my car, and before I could react to add insult to injury it sent me into a spin and I was half on the
track in a dangerous position as the engine had died on me. My first
thought was that it was oil but in fact it was coolant that had hit the
exhaust and sent out the white smoke. I wish I knew what the
marshalls had been eating.
Back in the paddock after changing all the hoses we
discovered it was in fact the rear core plug. The only one that is
near impossible to reach without taking the engine out. With the clock
ticking before our second race, and my position in the championship. We
glued a plug in but that leaked, so we put another one on top of it
with more glue then hammered some wooden wedges behind it and the
backplate. we were still refueling the car as the tannoy called us
out to race.
Because I didn't finish the first race I was placed at the back of the grid. As the lights went out I had a excellent start and had passed several cars before the end of the first straight. I was flying through the pack picking off the cars one by one, the best one overtaking a E type Jaguar at the hairpin where nobody else tries to overtake. I eventually finished 2nd and 2nd in class.
I had secured my second place in the class championship 3 points ahead of my nearest rival John Wreghitt, and several points behind the class winner and overall champion Mike Peters.
We have one more race left and that is in the Peter Best championship at Snetterton.