Championship Round 1
 Silverstone National 12th April 2004                           Back to Calendar & Report

Round 1 of the MGXpower Clubmans Cup was held at Silverstone on Easter Monday and with 20 cars it was an excellent start to the season.

I had made several changes to the car over the winter and most of them were untested as they were only completed during the week befor the race. This meant I had to bed new brakes in and learn how to drive the car with a totally different setup from that used last year. I got off to a slow start in practice as I gave the brakes a chance to bed in befor I started to push for a time. At this point the car felt very alien and I started to think I was going to need to change a few things befor the race. When I did start to push harder the car leapt to the right under braking for brooklands, so I did another lap with hard braking to settle the pads a bit more. Then it all started to come together and the lap times just kept dropping and by the end of the session my lap timer was showing 1:02.7. My previous personal best was a 1:04.08 so something was working well. In fact the harder I pushed the better the car felt. I think the biggest improvement was the change of dampers on the back of the car, my old AVOs were obviously not up to it. 

This put be 4th on the grid my best ever qualifying position. It was very close all around me though with only a second separating the top 9 so an interesting race was looking likely.

The Race

It was quite strange sitting on the second row of the grid for the first time but as I had been starting well last year I was confident of a good start. As it happened it wasn't one of my best but it was good enough to get ahead of Adrian Lester and to bring me partially alongside with Guy Woodward as we all entered Copse corner for the first time. I was forced to back of as Guy closed the door and befor I knew it I was swamped with cars. Adrian Lester, Marcus Bicknell and Mike Evans got past and what had looked promising at the start had begun to go pear shaped. I then got my head down and concentrated on getting back the places I had lost, first I got past Guy after Copse and when both Marcus and Mike Evans went wide at Luffield I took my chance and took them on the inside. Mike and I were side my side on the run down to Copse where I managed to get in front. I was now back in Third place.

Adrian Lester was not too far ahead and after a couple of laps we were locked together. Adrian was faster down the straights but I was better under braking and in most of the corners. Whatever I tried I was unable to get a clean shot at getting past but was very pleased to take the chaquered flag in THIRD place my first Podium. I had also got the fastest lap, again a first.

Other notable performances of the race came from Ian Crombie who got the second fastest lap and his best finish in 7th, and Barry Webb who took the first win of 2004.