British GT – Thruxton – Saturday Morning
Cool Runnings

There’s all sorts of news and gossip here today, only some of it revolving around this particular meeting. The good news is that the high temperatures of the past fortnight are gone: it’s cool and overcast – what a pleasant change. It’s quite windy too.

In the half hour free practice session at 10.50, the Veloqx Ferrari was convincingly quickest – just as it was yesterday. Tim Mullen set a 1:13.135, two seconds quicker than Mike Jordan (partnering Richard Stanton this weekend, in place of Richard Hay) and Piers Johnson in the DeWalt and Eclipse TVRs.

The Balfe Mosler didn’t seem to be in any trouble in fourth place on the list, but Martin Short was (see below). The blue and white MT900R was only ninth fastest.

The Cup Class looks nicely set up for the race: Porsche, Morgan, Morgan, Porsche – and then Paul Whight in his RML Elise – with Peter Snowdon likely to go quicker still in qualifying, in his first British GT outing.

The orange Xero Competition Corvette of Alan Bonner and Sascha Viets had gearbox trouble yesterday, and with a fresh ‘box arriving this morning and not enough time to fit it, this pair are struggling with first to fourth and no fifth or sixth. Expect them to go quicker on raceday. The yellow and orange Corvettes do look a wonderful pair.

There were some hard triers out there at this fast old circuit: Tim Mullen had a big sideways moment at Church – “I don’t brake anywhere round the back, just a slight lift” – while Pat Pearce and Matt Griffin were both on the grass at the same corner.

Neil Cunningham in the #66 Richard Thorne Morgan saw Pearce have a big sideways moment at Goodwood, and was half expecting to find the Aero 8 buried in the Porsche’s door, the 911 was so sideways – but Pearce controlled it....something like this.

Cunningham and Henry Taylor didn’t run yesterday (“budget”), but the Kiwi (Australian) was kind enough to tow the #46 Morgan round to a quicker time than he could manage. “That car’s got different headers and a different airbox: it towed past me from about eight lengths back.”

So how is that the Morgans can split the Porsches here, Neil Cunningham? “Our longer wheelbase helps.” Pat Pearce? “The front end of the 911 skips over the bumps.”

Can Peter Snowdon get among this group with the RML Elise? His unofficial target is a 1:20.5, which would best all four 911s / Aero 8s – but of course they’ll go quicker on fresh rubber in Qualifying.

So what about the Veloqx Ferrari? Two seconds quicker than the rest, what’s the reason for being here, Sam Li? “Well, we’re here to test, but we also want a good result. We’ve got good pace in the FIA Championship, but we don’t finish enough of the races. We’re testing small changes, more for reliability than anything else.”

The Team Owner isn’t expecting an issue with tyres in the 75 minute race, but a race plan will depend on “how the race develops.” Both of the “guests”, the Veloqx Ferrari and DeWalt TVR, are running ballast-free, in sharp contrast to the Moslers and Eclipse TVR.

Eclipse changed the diff on the #69 T400R overnight, after both drivers found the car running out of revs in testing yesterday, but it was a lack of track time which concerned Piers Johnson rather more. “The touring cars testing yesterday were playing silly buggers and falling off, which delayed our session and then when we got a clear run we dropped a cylinder. We’ve changed the sparks and HT leads and the car has been running fine this morning.” Piers was worrying about fuel though.

Ninth position in Saturday morning free practice tells a tale of problems for the Rollcentre Racing Mosler. The virginal white front panel provides some visual evidence of a major shunt suffered by the car on Thursday, while testing at Castle Combe. The bigger problem though was somewhere under the surface as a rather crestfallen Martin Short explained:

“We lost a water pump belt and the water temperature went up by 50 degrees in around two seconds, the pressure cap failed on the header tank - and it dumped around a gallon of fluid onto the rear tyres on the run into Tower. The rear end snapped sideways immediately and we bounced off the barriers with both front and rear ends. We lost one rear corner and had a fair amount of other damage too. The car is still not right and we’re working very hard to find out what the problem is.”

Glenn Eagling Motorsport are struggling on a shoestring budget at present and will miss the Spa 1000kms before rejoining the series for the final round at Brands Hatch. The beautifully prepared #21 Marcos Mantis GTO will be pedalled solo once again by Dan Eagling this weekend.

The #20 Master Motorsport Ultima is another car struggling to find pace this weekend. This car too will miss Spa, after delays in homologation approval for the car. This seems strange considering the relatively large numbers of Ultima road cars which emerge in either fully built-up or kit form from the Hinckley factory. While the popular Ultima won’t compete at Spa the team will. Master Motorsport will enter the DAMAX Ferrari 360 which contested the Oulton Park round but which will be numbered #20 for the Belgian race. Marco Attard will join Steven Brady in the car with a third driver still to be confirmed.

Missing from the paddock is the popular GulfAir VW Golf, but the driving crew of Steve Wood and Stuart Scott are here as frustrated spectators. “We’re not racing this weekend on doctor’s orders as Steve is recovering after being rear-ended in a road accident.” Wood is suffering with back and neck pain but is looking forward to the next adventure for the VW at Spa. “We’ve got Michael Neuhoff joining us for the 1000kms and with the new gearbox we could really fly. I’ve never raced at Spa before but Stuart has run there several times and has won there in a Porsche 944. We’re also putting together plans to finish the season with the Bathurst 24 Hours.”

The talk of the paddock is of fuel and tyres. Most teams are running on a harder compound of Dunlops for this round but there are some furrowed brows looking hard at rubber after the morning practice session and measuring the fuel left in the tanks. Cooler weather should help the rubber. But can they all last 75 minutes on the fuel? These two can.