British GT – Oulton Park – GTO Report
Eclipse For The Second Time

In the end it was a comfortable, second 2003 win for the sole surviving (healthy) TVR, the Eclipse version of Shane Lynch and Piers Johnson – at the end of a race reduced to 60 minutes, which in the circumstances (the heat and the fact that nothing much was likely to change in terms of positions) was probably a blessing. Martin Short clearly felt that second place was a blessing, particularly as the rival Mosler didn’t make the finish – and also as the rival Mosler had really dominated the first 40 minutes. Third and fourth in GTO were a long way back.

Shaun Balfe took the lead into Old Hall, leaving Lynch and Steven Brady to squabble over second place. These two handled the situation with aplomb, Brady – such a quiet unassuming chap off the track – barrelling up the inside, and exiting the corner just ahead – but only just. Shane Lynch later had some very kind words to say about the Master Motorsport Ultima effort: “It’s great to see them up there at the front of the race, and it was great too to see them up there on the grid. That car had a lot of power and pace early on, but perhaps his tyres went off as mine came in.”

Two things we did expect were that Brady would bring his Ultima’s Dunlop tyres in gently – we seemed to have got that one wrong – and that Martin Short would be getting into the blue Rollcentre Mosler as soon as he could, which would be just after 20 minutes into the shortened race. We got that one right. The Rollcentre crew never seemed to have a handle on their car this weekend, and Tom Herridge gradually dropped back in fourth place during the opening period.

So it was Balfe away on his own, lapping in the 1:42s, Brady and Lynch in the low 1:44s, and Herridge in the high 1:44s. Lynch wanted second place, but he’d have to wait a while for his chance.

Gareth Evans and Phil Hindley were also dropping away in fifth and sixth, with Marco Attard making a slowish getaway but soon moving past the very fast starting Pat Pearce in the Cup leader to take a strong seventh. Ricky Cole had slipped to ninth on lap 1, but also passed Pearce quickly enough to move to eighth, but would then slip back as the F40 got a move on in Richard Jones’ hands.

Cole then took up the challenge of Tom Shrimpton in the Eagling Marcos and Peter Cook in what had been the troubled Point Preparation Porsche: Cook and Franck Pelle would enjoy the benefits of sticking at it until the end of the weekend.

And so Balfe piled on the laps in the Balfe Motorsport Mosler, seven seconds up on the duelling pair after five laps, 13 after 10. To emphasis his command of this one he came upon five duelling Cup cars on lap 9, and passed them all in one lap – and maintained exactly the same margin by the end of it, leaving Brady and Lynch to tackle the Elises etc., and drop further back.

We’d lost Phil Hindley’s new addition to the series already, Bob Berridge pitting with a detached intercooler pipe. Marco Attard lost out to the powerful F40 at about the same point, Jones up to an excellent sixth, Attard seventh, Cole eighth, Shrimpton ninth, Cook tenth and Graeme Mundy up to eleventh from the back of the grid in the Racesports TVR.

Starting the twelfth lap, Shane Lynch made his move, powering past the Ultima out of Deer Leap and up the inside at Old Hall: he didn’t exactly march off into the distance though, Brady hanging on very well, this pair pitting on the same lap – the end of the 14th – which did finally give Eclipse some breathing space.

Before this, there was a good old sort out for a few laps between the seventh to eleventh group, which coincided with pit stops starting, beginning with Herridge. We also lost the CDL TVR at this point, Gareth Evans pulling off with no drive. The Xero Corvette pitted early too, but lost three laps, having the splitter fixed. Had Ricky Cole got mixed up with some more action involving his charging group?

His problem seemed to come about before now sixth to tenth group caught the battling ‘Cuppers’. Graeme Mundy was now challenging Peter Cook for seventh, with Attard and the already stopped Short just ahead. Jeff Wyatt unwittingly became the other victim, besides Mundy, as these two made contact at Knickerbrook, both spun, both rejoined and somehow managed to drive back onto the track aiming at the same point. Mundy received the most damage, the bonnet coming off and there being considerable front end damage too. He pitted for attention, but the Racesports TVR did make the finish. Dennis Leech attached no blame to his driver, but was fed up with more damage to the JCB stickered end of the #23 TVR, not even painted after Castle Combe’s accident.

So at 14 laps, we had second and third pitting together, Short at this point 66 seconds behind the other Mosler, and just ahead of the not-yet-pitted F40 / 360 / turbo Porsche / Eagling Mantis group.

But Eclipse had Piers Johnson out much quicker than Master Motorspot did Aaron Scott, who also seemed to have a slow out lap, such that the gap between these two was all of 16 seconds next time round. Martin Short was only two and a bit further back, and soon caught the Ultima – but had to follow for three laps. An Ultima holding off a Mosler on merit? Interesting. The MT900R did get by though, at Shell, Shorty even offering an apology for the slight contact that occurred in the manoeuvre. Scot treated it as just one of those things, and got on with hanging on to a very solid fourth – for a while.

It was between these four, but Balfe carried on lapping faster than anyone, and it was looking like he and Jamie Derbyshire’s fifth of the season….

Attard and Shrimpton pitted two laps before Jones and Cook, these four cars all going a lap down – but Dan Eagling stopped with an over-rev after the gearbox of the #21 Mantis selected third instead of fifth. No oil pressure puts financial pressure on this excellent effort, Tom Shrimpton having raced hard against potentially quicker machinery. The other three were in the order Robin Ward (ex-MSB Ferrari), Sebastiani in the F40 and Franck Pelle in the red turbo 996. The F40 slipped away, eventually slipping off the track near the end, at Lodge, when the brakes ran out, and with the 360 stopping on the circuit with nine minutes left (well, off the circuit actually, after a moment at Druids with third looking secure), the Porsche kept moving up, without actually having to pass competitive cars.

Back to the front: Balfe pitted at 19 laps, just over half way, leaving Jamie Derbyshire 27 minutes of racing to defend a 20 second lead. It didn’t look as though he would do it: Piers Johnson was closing in at up to (and more than) two seconds a lap. What was the problem? “I was struggling to find the gears on the down change, so I wasn’t entering corners at the proper speed because I couldn’t use the engine braking,” explained Derbyshire.

24 laps gone and it was ten seconds between them, with what turned out to be 11 laps to go: next time by and the red and white Mosler was trickling past the pits, with the throttle pedal on the floor. Derbyshire parked it at Old Hall, and after a run of four wins, the bad luck has extended to three races.

Piers Johnson kept hammering in the laps, despite no challenge coming from behind. “Damage limitation,” said Short, “I could see I wasn’t making any ground, so I settled for second.”

And with the exception of the Ultima, that was just about it. Could Aaron Scott hang on to third? On pace yes, but he pitted at 24 laps, losing time to have a loose rear wheel tightened. He dropped behind the Cup leader in seventh, but it got worse than that. Scott then thought he had a puncture, but it was the same wheel come loose again. “When it came loose the first time, we think it damaged the hub,” explained Steven Brady. “It wasn’t safe to carry on.”

So third was the Cook / Pelle Porsche: after almost going home after the car was so bad on Saturday. OK, technically they had moved up a class, so with the F40 technically finishing, with 31 laps – but in the gravel – we did have one GTO class car ahead of the damaged Mundy / Hartshorne TVR. That was the Corvette. After some very quick laps by Peter Le Bas after the first delay, he then found himself stuck in fourth – but brought it home in ninth on the road, third in GTO.

With a Johnson-Derbyshire scrap for the lead, it would have been a very good race, but it was still an interesting one, if a touch unlucky for several entries…..none more so than the Balfe Mosler.

“Damage limitation,” indeed Mr Short – as his man Herridge increases his Championship lead, and the Eclipse pair move into second place. Oddly, the blue and white Mosler has still yet to win a race, but it has finished them all, and that might be the secret to this year’s GTO honours.
MC