Xero On Tour – 2004 – Castle Combe– Rounds 7And 8
“What a Belter”

“What a belting race,” was the conclusion of Aidan Cole on Saturday evening. He was justifiably proud of his son’s hard charging efforts, Peter Le Bas’ blistering conclusion to the race and his revitalised Chevrolet Corvette.

With only three laps completed in practice due to a coming together with the Cup class Noble, qualifying on Saturday was set to be something of an unknown quantity, especially for Peter Le Bas who hasn’t raced at the oldy worldy, but awe-inspiring, Wiltshire circuit “for hundreds of years”. A pair of sevenths in class were perhaps a fair reflection on the lack of running so far, but Ricky could certainly have gone faster on his last shot had he not come across the Holden at the end. “Short of punting him off there was no way I could improve the time.” Ricky had a tricky session with a drying track throughout - “rain sucks” was his verdict.

Pete actually topped the time sheets momentarily during his session, his tactic of “going flat out at the start when I really didn’t have a clue where I was going,” seemed to be paying dividends – “I didn’t know which were the scary bits, so at least I couldn’t be scared that way and if you do scare yourself on the first lap then everything is easy after that!” was the Irishman’s somewhat unorthodox approach. He would eventually have netted sixth spot on the rolling grid but for a last-gasp effort from Mark Sumpter in the JWR Porsche. “To be honest, having not done any laps round here, going straight into qualifying against Sugden and Co. is a pretty traumatic experience. If only I’d had another two laps I reckon I could easily have found another second.” Still, a 1:07.042 wasn’t bad for a disorientated Irishman. That other second would appear soon enough…

The arrival of the car on the tight grid saw a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to manoeuvre it into place. At least it had turned out dry for Ricky. Wheel-nut torques were checked one last time – as “run-off area” is not a phrase you would find in the Castle Combe circuit guide glossary, it is best to make double-sure.

There was some post-race controversy over the start procedure, but not as far as Xero’s starting driver Ricky Cole was concerned. “It was all explained to us in the driver’s briefing this morning. They have ‘F1 style’ lights at Combe, a series of reds that go out, there aren’t any greens so I wasn’t expecting to see any lights at all when I crossed the line – so I just started racing.”

“That’s what racers do – if you are doubtful, you will drop behind – it has to be about the instinct,” were the approving words of Le Bas. Instinctive should be his middle name: Peter Instinctive Le Bas. It hasn’t got a certain ring to it though, has it?

Such was Ricky’s jump on the others that he was second overall, behind only an even more reactive and experienced Phil Hindley in the dailysportscar.com Cup class Porsche. The power of the mighty ‘Vette was more than a match though and Ricky found himself leading outright as the cars completed the second lap. Jonathon Cocker and Mike Jordan were on an almighty Porsche charge behind though – Jordan barrelling up the inside of Cocker into Camp Corner and then trying the same move on Ricky on two consecutive laps. But Ricky was certainly on form, closing the door on both occasions.

Into lap 5 though Mike Jordan held the nose of his Porsche just inside the rear corner of the Corvette and as they drifted onto the start/finish straight it was a drag-race to the next corner. Stuttgart won by virtue of Jordan maintaining the inside line, and the Corvette’s V8 hitting the rev-limiter in top gear just as the Porsche nipped ahead. Ricky’s quote at this point remains unprintable.

It would have been interesting to watch Ricky pursuing rather than being pursued, but at this point the safety car joined the track to allow the recovery of a heavily shunted Ferrari. Lessons learned there about trying to run a 360 GTC with no rear wing around a track like Combe no doubt…

The Safety Car unfortunately was scrambled a little too late and picked Ricky up as the leader. This was wishful thinking as Jordan powered on ahead unhindered. After what seemed a lifetime, the field was finally released so that Jordan – now almost a lap ahead of everyone – could take his rightful spot behind the safety car.

Cole now had the unusual task of powering round at nearly race pace to ensure he wasn’t caught out if the safety car were to peel off. Fortunately the Clerk of the Course saw sense, and allowed the pack to latch back onto Jordan’s tail before getting the race underway again.

The top six made a clear break-away and the signs were all there already for Xero’s best result of the season. Just as a tussle began to develop between Cole and Godfrey Jones’ third-placed Porsche, Ricky headed for the pits and a swap to Pete.

The Corvette thundered back out onto the circuit, seemingly in fourth position, but of course the lead trio hadn’t stopped yet, so were just over a lap ahead. Tim Sugden had stopped already though, so the fact the Championship favourite was right behind Pete was no doubt another thing his therapist will be hearing all about!

Pete coped well with the trauma – he was the quickest man on the track at this point and you didn’t need to look at the timing screens to work that one out. The Corvette was gaining on Godfrey Jones and pulling away from Tim Sugden – this looked very good indeed!

Fortunately Pete did not have to dice with the Jones’ Porsche to unlap himself, as Godfrey Jones duly peeled off into the pits. The lead Porsche also came in and as everyone slotted back onto the same lap with mandatory driver changes completed, Xero led the race outright again. The drivers, the mechanics and the car were all performing towards the top of their game and the position on tracked showed it.

23 minutes to go and Le Bas was two seconds ahead of Sugden and six ahead of third placed Sumpter, who drifted back away from the lead duo as if he didn’t want to detract any attention from the almighty battle at the top. It was a battle that raged for the rest of the race, as they cut through back-markers with the gap only ever bouncing around between one second and two. This was as close as you’d like, too close in fact!

With 11 minutes to go the gap fell below a second for the first time, and by the next lap was down to a wafer-thin 0.475 seconds. Still Le Bas pushed on though, lurid trade-mark tail slides were a manifestation of how hard he was trying. Tim Sugden was enjoying the spectacle! The timing screens showed that Pete’s efforts were being rewarded, as the gap crept slowly up again lap by lap – 0.5, 0.6, then Peter’s fastest lap of the race so far – just shy of Jordan’s 1:06.839 at 1:06.991. It was a furious pace, so with only four minutes to go even the mightily experienced Tim Sugden was probably not surprised to see the gap back up to two seconds.

Xero would undoubtedly have won this one, Sugden himself admitting there was nowhere on the circuit he would have been able to put a clean move on the Corvette. Unfortunately, he didn’t have to. As the front-runners came to lap an almighty scrap amongst dsc Cup class cars, the ABG Porsche got out of shape on the exit of Camp Corner. “I could see him coming right and I thought immediately about Shane Lynch’s big accident at Brands. So I decided to take right to the grass and go off deep. There was no way I was lifting though – I just had to keep on it, foot to the floor all the way back to the track.” Gasps (and expletives) from the press room were the soundtrack to the yellow Corvette bouncing and snapping this way and that over the grass, with clippings been thrown up in its wake. This was dramatic entertainment of the highest order – great driving!

The good news was that Pete managed to drag the car back onto the tarmac, the bad news was he was now two seconds down on Sugden, whose two second deficit had actually been an advantage, as he passed the ABG car smoothly once it had straightened itself out again. He later confessed to feeling rather guilty about taking the lead in such a fashion.

Dirt and grass on the tyres didn’t help Pete’s efforts, but he was still going for the win – almost sideways on the grass on the other side of the circuit next time around (“well, it worked last time!”) and just 1.4 seconds down. “There was no way I was giving up on it – it felt a bit loose but I kept saying to myself ‘I am going to catch that car’, all I need to do is get alongside it somewhere.” On the final lap Pete set the fastest lap of the race with a 1:06.832 and crossed the line just a second down on Sugden.

This was Xero’s second runner-up finish with the Corvette, but their first fastest lap. Hopefully, it is a sign of things to come. It may also be the first time in the championship a fastest lap has been set on the last lap? Either way, it led to an excellent quote from Dunlop’s Micky Butler: “I’ve finally worked out what to do with you Peter, we’ll send you out for 42 laps to scrub your tyres in, then they’ll be ready for a quick one.”

“I’m gutted about not winning, but it was a great race, we’re second, we got points and the fastest lap. The Dunlop tyres were fantastic, they just lasted and lasted, even though I was wringing the car’s neck. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

Sadly, that wasn’t to be the case on Sunday. A few tired and perhaps headachy characters forlornly wheeled the car out of the ‘pit’ area halfway through race two. Things had got “rather tight” for Peter Le Bas, “right from the start and I had a nudge with the Holden and went across the grass, breaking a wheel. I pitted for that but something in the suspension had broken as well, I hoped we could change it in the pit-stop window but it couldn’t be fixed.”

Mixed emotions will be taken away from the weekend then, but I think I know which will be the strongest one and yes, it’s the one that comes with a nice bundle of points attached.
Paul Slinger