Trackspeed – British GT Mondello Park – 24 / 25 June 2006
A Win And Two Thirds

Less than three weeks after packing up and leaving the sunny climes of Pau in the Pyrenees, the Trackspeed team and drivers found themselves unpacking their three cars in the very different surroundings of Mondello Park, to the south of Dublin. As it would turn out, while the track, weather and ambience of the Irish meeting were certainly different, the actual course of events for the three cars would have many similarities to those of France.

Car #3 – Ryan Hooker / Damian Faulkner

Having already partnered David Ashburn and Danny Watts this season, Ryan Hooker found himself sharing the car with another new team mate; this time, local hero and Porsche ace, Damian Faulkner. Originally slated to drive with David Ashburn in the latter’s 997 in the GT3 class, Faulkner was switched to the 996 when business commitments prevented Ashburn from competing in Ireland.

For the car’s regular driver, this was an excellent opportunity to get to know the tight and very technical circuit; “I was here for a Porsche race in 2004, but problems during testing meant that I didn’t get to actually race,” said Hooker, “so having Damian in the car is great as the download from him is excellent. He knows the circuit so well that he is the perfect benchmark for my time.”

An untimed test session on Friday afternoon took place in glorious sunshine and very warm conditions; but the clouds rolled in overnight and Saturday morning arrived just after the rain did, meaning that the 75 minute free practice session would be wet.

Both drivers would make the most of the session on the Avon intermediates and would emerge as the fastest of the GTC runners, Damian Faulkner enlivening the proceedings at the end of the session by trading fastest times with the GT2 LNT Panoz. His fastest time of 1:55.274 was actually the best of the session, but the time disappeared off of the timing screens shortly before the end (for reasons unknown). Nevertheless, his fastest official time of 1:55.974 was still just 0.266 off the pace of the V8 American super car.

In between travelling back from France and travelling to Ireland, the team had tracked down the cause of the misfire that hobbled the car in both Pau races and the drivers were confident that it wouldn’t reappear during the present meeting. Next up were the two qualifying sessions - Ryan Hooker qualifying first for that afternoon’s race before Damian Faulkner would take over and see what he could do ahead of Sunday’s encounter.

With just 15 minutes per session, a third of the time had gone before Ryan’s first opportunity to even begin to set a reasonable time; but when he did, the #3 sat at the top of the timing screens. As expected, the Panoz went quicker shortly afterwards, but the expected demotion to third never materialised, as the only other GT2 car in the field, the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari 430, was struggling with a lack of grip. The fastest of his nine laps, a 1:56.958, was almost a full second faster than the nearest challenger. “We’re fortunate to have inters,” said the driver, “and I needed some clear laps; but I’m very happy with the time.”

By now the track was drying and some teams were gambling with slicks for the second session. Faulkner, however, would be staying on inters. As with his team mate’s session, the Irishman’s faster laps didn’t start appearing until five minutes had elapsed; and a time of 1:55.185 was fastest of the field at that point by 1.6 seconds. Tom Kimber-Smith lowered the bar considerably to 1:53.396 in the Panoz at the mid-way point and Tim Mullen in the GT2 Ferrari moved into second place shortly afterwards.

But again Faulkner was starting to demonstrate in some style how to drive Mondello and immediately set a time a hundredth faster than Mullen. This was again beaten by the Ferrari and it looked as though that was how it would stay. With two minutes to go, however, the sector times indicated that Damian Faulkner was the fastest man out there and when he crossed the line this was confirmed with a hugely impressive 1:53.416; two hundredths off the Panoz’s best.

Faulkner couldn’t improve on his time on his next lap, but the now slicks-shod Panoz put things beyond doubt with a mighty 1:49.003 at the death. The conditions had changed now to the point that inters were no longer the rubber to have; those cars that had gambled were finding their times improving rapidly towards the end of the session. But only the Panoz had bettered the #3 in either session and things were looking good for the racing later that afternoon.

The cloud cover hung around for the rest of the afternoon, but no more rain was forthcoming and shortly before the first race began, the threat had gone and it was a lot brighter. This meant that the teams would not have to gamble on tyre choice and all cars would start on slicks.

The car’s good day continued as the race began when Ryan Hooker successfully defended his GTC lead throughout the crucial first lap. He had been overtaken by a storming move at Honda (the first corner) by the Lotus Exige of Gavan Kershaw, but that car was in the GT3 class and so not a direct competitor of the #3.

Hooker’s stint was to last for 14 laps and he again drove faultlessly, never looking like losing the lead to the pursuing Jonny Lang. When he pitted to hand over to his partner, the expectation was that the Irishman would put his local knowledge to full effect and pull out a big lead.

But all was not well with the car; “About eight or nine laps in, I reported a noise from the drive area,” recalled Ryan Hooker (left). “I couldn’t pinpoint it and the gear selection was okay, so it didn’t affect anything; but five laps into Damian’s stint the gearbox started to smoke and lose oil.” The smoke was clearly visible and it was obvious that the car was in serious trouble, but Faulkner kept going despite obviously badly hampered. His efforts to clear the problem were unfortunately in vain and shortly afterwards the gearbox seized and the car was out of the race. Ryan Hooker had just seen yet another potential victory snatched away from him.

A late night followed for the team and an H-pattern box was fitted in the place of the faulty sequential unit. For Hooker, his only opportunity to get some practice with the unfamiliar box before the race would be during the ten minute warm-up session on Sunday morning. The driver reported that he was happy after that session, however, and it was now a case of relaxing in the five hours before the second GT race of the weekend began.

It was now Damian Faulkner’s turn to defend the GTC lead through the first corner and he did this successfully. For the next seven laps, the Irishman started to pull out a lead and it was looking likely that Hooker would inherit a nice cushion when driving duties were passed on. But yet again, the car’s plans were about to awry.

A coming together between Miles Hulford’s #4 Porsche and Phil Glew’s #17 RPM car resulted in a safety car being called as the two afflicted vehicles were retrieved from the first corner gravel. This instantly negated Faulkner’s lead and the safety car was still out when the pit window opened. In common with all but one team leader, Piers Masarati called his drivers in without delay. A very efficient stop meant that Ryan Hooker kept the lead, but he was still behind the safety car; 26 minutes remained of the race when green flags were eventually waved once more.

Ryan began to build up a lead over the chasing Team Tiger Marcos Mantis, but the orange car managed to peg the gap to below five seconds. Despite this, there was no indication of any mechanical ailments for the #3 and the driver could defend with a healthy car.

Things were looking good for a win, but the gap began to come down once Gavan Kershaw overtook in his Exige and in doing so removed the buffer that had existed between the two lead GTC cars. Ryan Hooker defended, but as the minutes ticked away the Marcos, driven by Chris Beighton, was all over the yellow car.

On the penultimate lap, Beighton made a move at the last corner (Dunlop) when Hooker briefly allowed a gap to show on the approach. The two cars drag-raced each other down the start/finish straight, but the Marcos got to Honda first. Ryan responded, but just could not get close enough to try an overtaking move and the Team Tiger car was able to hold on for its fourth victory of the year.

But Hooker’s misfortune was not over just yet. Oliver Bryant had followed the Marcos in his Morgan and was also in a position to attack on the last corner of the race. His move was a brave one, but Hooker had a better exit from the corner. Sadly for the Trackspeed driver, his unfamiliarity with the H-pattern manifested itself at exactly the wrong time and he missed a shift, robbing himself of momentum and allowing the Morgan to reach the line an agonising 0.027s ahead of the Porsche.

One third place finish from two races was not a true reflection of the car’s competitiveness, and Ryan Hooker was still without a victory after seven rounds of the championship. “He’ll learn from today,” said Piers Masarati, “and his luck will change soon, I’m sure.”

Car #4 – Miles Hulford / Matt Harris

Things started well for the young pairing in the #4 car with them being the fastest of the Trackspeed drivers in the Friday test session. “I won here in Formula BMW last year in the dry,” said Matt Harris, “so it’s a circuit I know and like. I’m looking forward to it.”

Not even a bizarre curtailment to his free practice session after just four laps could dull enthusiasm. Having just set a time that was third fastest at that point (and would still be the sixth fastest at the end of the session), the car picked up a piece of tyre debris that managed to hit the car’s extinguisher. The resulting mess caused Matt Harris to pull over and brought out the red flag. The car was recovered to the pits and the clean up took the best part of an hour. When Miles Hulford rejoined with only about 18 minutes remaining, he found himself unable to improve on Harris’ time; “I’ve not driven here before,” said the 18 year old, “and the car was set up for the dry conditions we had yesterday.” But the car was fine and Matt Harris was looking forward to qualifying; “I’ll be out first and I’ll be giving it absolute death,” was his unusual comment.

Harris’ attempt at absolute death would have to be made on wets, which as it transpired put him at a disadvantage to the two other team cars, both of which were on inters. He certainly had a good go, though, ending up third in class only to those two other Trackspeed cars. “I was trying to make space for a last lap banzai effort, but it didn’t quite come together. It’s strange to be starting right behind the other guys, though.”

Five minutes after Harris’ session ended, it was Miles Hulford’s turn, but he was to find the grip rapidly disappearing on the drying track; “The tyres were cooked at the end,” said Hulford. “It was dry on one side of the circuit and damp on the other; I just couldn’t carry the speed round. I changed my line through a couple of corners to find some time and that made a big difference; mind you, I was on full opposite lock in several places.”

The car would be starting from the sixth row on Sunday, seventh in class.

At the start of the race at twenty past five that afternoon, the first thing on Matt Harris’ mind was not getting involved in anything silly with the two other Trackspeed cars and incurring the wrath of Piers Masarati and Rory Fordyce. In the event, there was no danger of this happening as the #4 found itself delayed behind the already-overheating GT2 Ferrari through the first couple of corners. This allowed Bradley Ellis to get by in the #96 RPM Porsche.

Once by the Scuderia Ecosse machine, Harris concentrated on recovering his position; but he soon found he had a charging Oliver Bryant in close proximity.

The Morgan was on the Porsche’s tail by the sixth lap; but Matt Harris would not yield. He upped his pace and began to reduce the gap to Ellis even as he was fending off Bryant. The gap from third to fifth was, at this point, just 1.3 seconds. This was an impressive piece of defensive driving from the Trackspeed man and he weathered the storm well; so well, in fact that the Morgan began to drop back slightly by the eleventh lap.

With the immediate pressure now off, Harris started to get after Ellis’s Porsche and his race position. Exiting Devaney’s on that lap, Harris was alongside the RPM car, but just failed to make the move stick. He lost momentum and fell back; almost into Bryant’s clutches. But he regrouped and once more reduced the gap. Finally, on lap 13, he was past and the RPM car was briefly forming a barrier between the Trackspeed 911 and the Morgan. Ellis pitted on the next lap, but Harris kept the Morgan behind him all the way to his own stop. His excellent stint ended at the halfway mark and now Miles Hulford took up the reins.

As the usual pitstop confusion cleared, it became apparent that the Morgan, now in the hands of Keith Ahlers, had managed to get ahead of the #4 car at the changeover. This meant that Miles Hulford was now in fourth place and would have his work cut out to get back a podium place. His task was made considerably easier however when Damian Faulkner’s Porsche retired, followed shortly afterwards by the Morgan’s oily and spectacular exit at Turn 7b.

Hulford took the Morgan’s demise (right in front of him) in his stride and pressed on. Unfortunately for him, however, Alex Mortimer found that his #96 Porsche was suddenly feeling very strong and the RPM car began to lap up to two seconds faster than all of the other leading cars. The gap came gradually down until the two Porsches were together with just three minutes remaining; “The Morgan put loads of oil down which meant that I had understeer if I went on to the oil at the exit; and that I slowed down if I tried to avoid it. Mind you, it must have been the same for Alex, so he was driving very well,” said Miles. “In the end I had a sideways moment round the back of the circuit trying to defend and he got through.”

Losing second place so near to the end was disappointing, but Hulford was still delighted with the podium finish. “After all the bad luck we’ve had, it’s great. I just want to thank Mum and Dad for all their support and Arinso, Spofforths and my other sponsors for their backing.”

The #4’s first silverware of the season was a long time coming, but made up for a lot of heartache earlier in the season and was richly deserved.

Things wouldn’t go so well on Sunday, alas.

A good start in the second race saw Miles Hulford take revenge on Alex Mortimer as he went round the outside of the RPM car on the first lap. He also managed to depose the GT3 Lotus of Sam Blogg on the first lap also. Soon, though, he found Mortimer on his tail and behind him was the second RPM car of Phil Glew.

Hulford tried some unusual tactics to try and keep the cars behind him; slowing down almost to a crawl at Dunlop Corner in order to rob the pursuers of momentum and then pulling away. This worked a couple of times, but he was caught again by the time he reached Honda.

On the seventh lap disaster struck. As Hulford and Mortimer braked for Honda, Phil Glew tried a wildly optimistic move and was on the grass in his attempts to get through on the inside. As Hulford turned in, Glew ploughed into the side of the yellow car and both ended up in the gravel.

With the rear right wheel jammed, there was no chance of rejoining and the car’s race was run. The damage was considerable, with Piers Masarati guessing that the car would end up on the jig back at the workshops.

But despite the shunt, the weekend had been an encouraging one for the two young drivers. Both had shown what they were capable of and this now included podium finishes; auguring well for the second half of the season.

Car #5 – Matt Allison / Jonny Lang

All three Trackspeed cars contained just one driver with previous race experience at the Irish track and in the #5’s case it was Matt Allison; “I’ve been here once before in ’02, I think, in Formula Ford,” he recalled. “I didn’t do too well, so I’ve no particularly happy memories.”

Jonny Lang’s attempts to learn the circuit were cut short during Friday testing with a minor off, but free practice went better for both drivers in the wet conditions.

While Damian Faulkner was duelling with the Panoz, the #5 pilots were getting to grips with the many corners of this compact circuit, ending up third overall and second in class on 1:57.144. While being 1.2s off Faulkner’s time was thoroughly respectable given the Irish driver’s local knowledge, the fact that they were a second ahead of the GT2 Ferrari and, more importantly, 1.6s ahead of the next GTC car was hugely encouraging. But the important work would start with the afternoon’s qualifying sessions and Jonny Lang would be first up.

If Lang felt unsure of the track, he displayed no outward signs of it, moving straight to the top end of the timing screen and staying there for the whole session. In his nine laps, he set a best time of 1:57.816; 0.9s off GTC pole and a second ahead of Matt Harris. The inters were good and he handed a healthy car over to Matt Allison for his qualifying.

The second qualifying session was similarly incident free and the car again would start second in class, having bettered the slicks-shod Team Tiger Mantis by half a second. “Damian’s data helps a lot,” said Allison, “and we qualified a second faster for both races.”

After a stress free day for the drivers and mechanics, Jonny Lang lined up alongside the GT2 Ferrari and immediately behind the Panoz. With its superior grunt, the orange car had no trouble getting to the first corner in the lead, but the Ferrari was struggling badly and would soon be out, leaving the door open for the Trackspeed car. However, Gavan Kershaw’s dive down the inside (into second overall) put paid to any thoughts that Lang may have had about challenging Ryan Hooker for the lead; at least for now. “I made a slow start,” said the Lancashire driver, “but then banged in three quick laps and then stuck to a constant pace.”

Those three laps allowed Lang to establish himself in second place in class and he concentrated on keeping Ryan Hooker in his sights; “We knew that Damian was a lot faster than us around here and that we wouldn’t be able to keep pace with him, so there was no point in challenging for the lead. Instead I just concentrated on giving Matt as much chance as possible.”

When Lang handed over to Matt Allison, he had done just that. Damian Faulkner, as expected, started to pull out the gap; but suddenly his times slowed and he came back into Allison’s view. Soon he was in the #5’s rear view mirror and heading for retirement. This meant that Allison now led the race.

With the Morgan’s demise soon after that, the immediate threat looked over; but as the battle hotted up for second place, the #5 seemed unable to pull away and the gap stayed at around the eleven second mark. Was the car in trouble?

“Not at all,” clarified Allison. “We had just seen the #3’s gearbox fall apart, so I wanted to make sure that I nursed the car as much as possible; staying off the kerbs, short-shifting and generally going as slowly as I could. You don’t have to win by thirty seconds; one will do.”

The strategy worked and the car sailed to its second win in three races, to the delight of drivers and crew. “The team did a very good job, and my sponsors (Jarrett Plumbing & Heating, Alan Boswell and Aston Ventures) are happy,” said Matt Allison, “but to be fair, we inherited the win.” That may be true, but they had to be in second place in order to be able to do that and both drivers fully deserved the victor’s laurels.

After an early morning warm-up that saw the #5 complete six laps - and with no major work required on any car - the team spent the intervening time watching the support races (and at lunchtime watching a clearly insane stunt pilot defy the laws of physics) or kicking a football around the paddock.

At two o’clock Matt Allison found himself following Damian Faulkner through Honda while repelling the advances of a back-on-the-pace Team Tiger Marcos Mantis. Safely ensconced in second place, he did what he could to stay in Faulkner’s contrails; no easy task given the Irishman’s extraordinary speed.

But before a pattern could emerge, the field was bunched up once more by the safety car and Matt Allison’s race was almost over. Once the pit window was open, the Trackspeed car pitted. Jonny Lang clambered aboard and managed to get out still in second.

The racing resumed several minutes later, but the Trackspeed driver was beginning to notice a lack of grip; “It was really frustrating,” said Lang. “We had new tyres on that were good to start with but went off very quickly. I couldn’t keep up with Ryan’s car, so decided to try and hold the other GTC cars back to give him as much chance as possible.”

Alas, this plan was soon thwarted. Gavan Kershaw was carving through the field in his GT3 Exige, but got things wrong as he made a move on the #5 at Devaney’s. The Lotus clipped the Porsche as he tried to overtake, spinning before hitting the car again. The Lotus came off worse but the damage had been done in terms of the race as the Mantis was through and into second (and would ultimately win). With fading grip, Lang was unable to hold the Morgan back, but was able to hang on for fourth at the end.

As proceedings came to a close, Piers Masarati was more positive than might have been expected in the circumstances. “It’s disappointing, certainly,” began the team manager. “Ryan should perhaps have defended better, but somehow that Marcos can find two seconds a lap with five laps to go; we don’t understand it as a team. But Phil Glew’s mistake really cost us the race. Without the safety car, Damian would have been able to build up a big lead. Never mind; he’s a good lad and I’ll still be having a drink with him next week.

“The important thing is that we didn’t lose any ground in the Teams’ Championship.”

Indeed, despite Sunday’s problems, the team extended its lead by a point and now led Team Tiger by five points. Matt Allison and Jonny Lang were the highest placed of the Trackspeed sextet in the Drivers’ Championship with 38 points; eight behind Beighton and Finnemore.

With two wins now in the bag, the team head back to the UK for the next round; Snetterton in three weeks time. Surely Ryan Hooker’s luck must change soon?
Mark Howson