Rollcentre at the Nurburgring 1000 Kms – Saturday
A Splendid Sixth

Saturday Morning – Second Qualifying Session

With time on track, particularly in the dry, having been at a premium, Saturday morning’s second qualifying session took on particular importance for the X-Markets backed Rollcentre Racing squad.

Despite a session which saw Joao Barbosa improve the car’s best time by some 3.5 seconds, and pull the car up to ninth place on the starting grid, there were long faces in the Rollcentre garage.

“We’re not at all happy really, we’ve gone in the wrong direction on tyres,” said Martin Short. “The Dunlops we’ve chosen are really too hard for the job in hand. What makes it worse is that it’s our fault, it was our choice.”

The team must now start the race on the harder Dunlops before changing to a softer compound at the first tyre change “In effect we’ll be testing them.”

All three drivers took part in the session, the Dallara lapping quickly - but not quickly enough to put a smile on the faces of the team. “We’re still playing catch-up,” said Joao Barbosa, “it’s frustrating rather than disastrous. We know the car is quick but we just have no time to get it to the point where it needs to be.”

There’s a long, long race ahead though and with the weather at the Nurburgring moving seamlessly from heavy rain to bright sunshine, almost anything might happen.

Race Report – The 1000 kms of the Nurburgring

What a race, and what a journey for Rollcentre Racing.

A sixth place finish could so easily have been fifth, or even fourth, as the cars ahead had troubles involving gravel, truly evil track conditions and an accident with a backmarker that could easily have finished the race for the Team Goh Audi.

As it turned out, both the Audi and the long-beached Pescarolo would survive. The Rollcentre Dallara meanwhile would close to almost within touching distance before a rain storm and a ‘from the gut’ judgement call left the #6 car being towed out of the gravel twice in almost as many laps.

Again though the St. Ives team had shown the world what can be done with a limited budget spent on the right equipment and the right talent, both behind the wheel and in the pitlane. 2004 continues to be a magical year Martin Short and his merry band.

For Patrick Pearce it had been, “a real baptism of fire. I was out there in the dry but the engine started to lose power. It was turning itself off periodically and seemed really flat.

“I started it again on the bump and brought it back to the pits but then when they sent me out again, I had selected second and with the rev limiter set I broke the pitlane speed limit and got a stop/go. It was only after that was done that I got down to a sensible pace. It might have been a short stint but it was packed with drama!”

Joao Barbosa was typically laid back: “Considering the problems we’ve had this week the result was great. The car has proved again that it is a really strong and reliable package. Now we just need to find a bit more luck.”

X-Market’s Chris East was beaming widely and proclaimed “an unbelievable event, a fantastic race and the boys all did a fabulous job. I’m absolutely delighted. Sure we could have finished a place or so higher but as a race it was utterly gripping, and we were a big part of the story.”

Last word (or several dozen words!) to Martin Short: his race finishing stint had enough drama to fill several seasons of Formula One.

“The car was mega. It was really flying, the track was drying and we were on slicks while others were really struggling. I passed the Pescarolo like it was standing still. I gave him a wave, as you do, (memories of Le Mans still fresh in the minds of all at Rollcentre!) and was reeling in an Audi R8 hand over fist. I could see him checking his mirrors and just blew by, it was a white helmet, I think it was McNish (we think it was Jamie Davies Martin but hey, that’s payback for the 2002 British GT Championship too).

“I was going quicker than everything else out there – I was even quicker than our very own Portuguese Wonder Horse, it was a great run. And then I made the worst call I think I can ever remember, to stay out on slicks when I could see the rain coming.

“I cannot believe I opted to do it, what was I thinking?

"I went past Allan just as the final rain storm came down. I was doing 51s and I think Alan had been told to back off in retrospect, but whatever, it was a great moment buzzing the Pescarolo and Audi in consecutive laps......if only I had come in on that lap for the inters as was the plan, we would probably now have a fourth place to our credit. I think I was so thrilled at my pace and how the car felt that I really did believe that I could drive the rapidly flooding track on slicks, oh how my talent bag suddenly became empty!"

The decision resulted in a couple of gravelly trips and a radio channel that suddenly turned into anything but family listening.

“****,****, ****, ****, ****.” You get the basic picture! Eventually though there was no harm done, the car came home in one piece and in a highly creditable sixth position, so another notch was carved in the LMES bedpost.