The impressive sight of two brightly coloured Chevrolet Corvettes in the Xero awning was a first for the season, with the by now almost famous number 50 yellow car being joined by the new upstart – orange no. 53. The orange Corvette arrived to compete in the Cup Class of the championship, being less modified than its ‘big’ brother, but it certainly looks the part nonetheless. Two new drivers were welcomed to the team as well – Formula Palmer Audi campaigners German Sascha Wiets and Scotsman Alan Bonner. Unfortunately, for this pair, the weekend was ultimately to be shortlived and disappointing. A blow-out for Alan Bonner on Friday was added to by a headlight deciding it was surplus to requirements and throwing itself off the car. Gearbox gremlins meant only the first four ratios were available – and they were being rather reluctant too. “It’s not surprising seeing as the car has been sitting still for some time,” said team boss Dave Beecroft. “We’ve got a new ‘box but we’ll have to fit it after qualifying ready for tomorrow. Power steering will have to wait until Spa…”
As it panned out, there would be no point fitting the gearbox to the car after qualifying as there was no engine left to power it. Being stuck in fourth gear on the limiter round the back half of this very fast circuit had not done the motor any favours whatsoever. On the very first qualifying lap the cloud of oil smoke from the chicane heralded the early demise of number 53 which trundled into the pitlane to sit out the rest of the weekend. “I think my popularity in the pitlane just took a major downturn,” muttered a despondent Bonner. Dave Beecroft was philosophical however – it all boiled down to the problems stemming from the car sitting still for so long. Things should be looking up for Spa, if the car can be fettled in time.
So, back to the star of the show – and despite the disappointment of not seeing two Corvettes exploding out of the chicane in qualifying, the yellow car was in very rude health: sixth fastest in practice with a 1:16.460 translated to fourth in terms of the regular runners. The series had been joined for Thruxton by Veloqx, with their exquisitely prepared Ferrari 360 - from the FIA GT series - and by DeWalt Racesports with their ex-Le Mans TVR400R. It was no surprise to see these two big budget cars at the top of the timesheets. Things were looking even more positive though as Peter Le Bas reckoned the car could be made faster – “it is pushing wide at the front at high speed – it’s fine through the twisty stuff but when it gets going you can just feel the tyre wearing away – the track is like sandpaper, so abrasive – in fact I can hear the tyre scrubbing across the track.” With just minor tweaks needed to the car the drivers were then free to entertain themselves and passing punters – many a child or pretty girl being invited into the drivers seat and being belted up for the full experience. The ‘fear nothing’ guys feared nothing – including even jealous boyfriends, who not only didn’t get to sit in the car but probably rarely put smiles as big on their girlfriends faces as the Xero boys were managing! The main team talk was about fuel strategy and this continued through until race day. Some meaningful data was needed and it was therefore no great surprise to see Xero slip back a few places in qualifying to eighth with a 1:17.061. “We’re happy with that. That’s an easy pace we can run all race and I really don’t think a lot of those cars ahead of us can run at the times they set,” summed up Beecroft. So it was quite a relaxing evening in all as Dave and the crew got a barbecue going and the drivers set out to a local pub with the Cole family to attack battered whales and Desperate Dan cow pies. Hungry work this motor racing. Sunday warm up, back to work and Ricky’s orders were to go out and set some 1:19 laps which with great maturity he did. Four consecutive laps within half a second of the target was proof enough that Dave Beecroft was getting the tactical message home. The race itself could have been made or broken with tactics, and the fuel situation was decided upon shortly before the 75 minute event. “It’s just impossible to be accurate enough, it’s too marginal whether we can run the whole race without refuelling so we are going to have to make a stop. This will allow Ricky and Peter to race. If there’s a safety car, we’ll fill up then, if not we’ll fill up when we change the left front tyre. They are scrubbing so hard it’s best to be safe. It also means we can hopefully push those teams who aren’t intending to stop just that bit harder to force them to make a fuel stop.”
The blue Ultima in the hands of Steven Brady seemed to be working well with the Corvette, as they both hunted down and took the scalp of the CDL TVR. Progress was most definitely in the right direction. By lap 10 Ricky was challenging the Ultima (right and below) as well, but there is a lot of respect between these two teams and in a 75 minute race, Ricky thought it best to leave plenty of racing room and on many an occasion gave best to the leading car after getting alongside.
Ignoring the two ‘non-championship’ cars, on lap 14 Ricky was only three seconds behind the leader and having the drive of his season, which was made even more impressive when he passed Tom Herridge in the Rollcentre Mosler. That car was shortly afterwards struck by Gareth Evans in the CDL car as he attempted to regain the track after a mistake at the chicane - both cars thumped the tyre wall on the exit of the chicane hard and were out on the spot. Cue that Safety Car… “We put the message out at that point but the radio wasn’t working and Ricky came in the lap after,” explained Aiden Cole, Ricky’s father. The refuel complete, Ricky took to the track again as the driver change must be entirely separate to any fuel stop under the championship rules.
By the time Peter Le Bas took over at the second stop, anxiety was beginning to creep in – was that fuel stop really necessary?
No one else had stopped for fuel, so the Corvette was effectively running two minutes behind where it could have been – but at least the car had stopped under the Safety Car. Peter had to go out and drive the only way he knows how – very hard. But with two Cup class cars quickly despatched, the gap to the next GTO car was over a minute and with only 30 minutes remaining, it was too big a gap, assuming they all had enough fuel. No one knew the answer to that question however, so on he pressed. The hopeful sign was that all the cars in the top six could realistically make or lose a place – could this mean they were pressing on harder than their initial fuel strategies had allowed?
The tension certainly mounted until a harmless spin beached the little RML Elise in the complex and a second Safety Car was called out. The resultant slow laps meant that other teams could cruise around conserving fuel at a highly crucial time, and could have meant the difference between them pitting and losing two and a half minutes or simply staying out until the end. The bad news was that no-one else had to stop and the only hope was that the two non-championship cars, and indeed the three cars behind them, were involved in tough battles which might have led to a mistake whilst number 50 kept on thrashing around. “I was trying to catch the TVR but didn’t realise it was a lap ahead,” explained Peter Le Bas. No surprises then that he was setting the Corvette’s fastest laps of the race – dipping into the 1:16s on worn tyres and actually posting the best time of 1:16.486 on the last lap, fourth quickest car in the race. Despite Ricky’s great drive, he couldn’t see past what that fuel stop. “It all seemed to be going very much to plan, apart from Jamie Derbyshire braking in very strange places in front of me and holding me up, but then the fuel stop just seemed to throw everything upside down. If you take two and a half minutes off our finishing time we’d have won.” Whilst in reality the maths may not be that simple, Ricky had a very valid point. And it is a very positive one for the future. Aiden Cole took his son’s side. “We have to look at the fuel situation very seriously, it doesn’t seem right that we should be the only car that needed fuel in a 75 minute race.” This was of course ignoring the second safety car period – and the fact that had it not occurred, several front-runners may have needed a top-up. A seasoned campaigner, Dave Beecroft was “disappointed, but we took a gamble. If I had to do it again, I still would because it seemed the right thing to do. The second safety car did it for us and our strategy. But the car was competitive, Ricky was bomb on, the best he’s been all year – in fact I’m really pleased with both drivers.” Peter was also very complimentary about Ricky’s drive: “He was right there – and that’s great news for Spa. The car was great, its just a shame about the pitstop, but we don’t know yet whether we needed that fuel or not.” So it is easy to be philosophical
about this race – again ‘what if’ is not going
to help. What Xero can take from this however is that the drivers
can perform well whilst sticking to a given strategy and if that
strategy comes good, the car is now competitive enough to be on
the podium. This all bodes very well indeed for the next round at
Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium at the end of the month. Read all about
Xero’s exploits in a fortnight’s time. Paul will be joining the Xero crew - from workshop to Spa and back - for the full “Fear Nothing Abroad” experience…
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Paul
Slinger tells the story……
The
tactic swung into full effect from the off as a charged up Ricky
Cole got straight to business battling with John Hartshorne in the
Peninsula TVR and once through on lap three, he pulled away convincingly.
Next time through the chicane came a welcome sight – Jamie
Derbyshire in the Balfe Mosler facing the wrong way on the kerbs
and consequently dropping to last in class. 
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