The team headed up to North Yorkshire late on Thursday evening with high expectations for the weekend’s racing. Pre-season testing at Croft had shown we were on the pace to beat the current lap record and the weather looked favourable with cold but dry conditions forecast.
Friday gave us the opportunity to run four 30-minute test sessions and we were right on pace from the start. With the recent ECU tweaks by Performance Link yielding some additional midrange torque, corner exit was improved and we were looking set for a good weekend of racing ahead.
Scrutineering on Sunday morning highlighted some issues that the team had to spend time fixing before the car could be signed-off to race. This meant there was a bit of a rush to get ready for qualifying and we were unable to run any pitstop drills or fully test the radio kit before heading to the assembly area. Dave went out first in quali and quickly set the fastest time in class, later beating his own time twice with a 1:35.22. 17 minutes into the session we pitted to swap drivers so Alex could attempt to beat Dave’s time. We sat on class pole for two thirds of the session before being toppled by the driver pairing of Ash Moor and Sam Dennis in the Motion Motorsport Civic, with a spectacular 1:33.56. Alex bested Dave’s time by three tenths but we didn’t have an answer for the blistering pace of the #195 Civic.
The break between qualifying and the race gave the team the opportunity to discuss fuel strategy and run some refuelling practices. Club Enduro operates a minimum 3-minute pitstop for all refuelling stops and Croft mandated two such stops. This gave us the chance to try a low-fuel start, a risky strategy as it gave us a very short window in which to conduct our first pit stop, but would give us a car considerably lighter than other strategies for as much of the race as possible. It also meant we would need to execute two perfect pit stops, taking on 30 litres of fuel at each.
Heading into the race we lined up 2nd in class and 24th overall. With 2.5 hours of racing ahead of us, the mission was to finish the race and attempt to secure a podium position. The rolling start was textbook and we got a clean getaway, the low-fuel start allowed us to grow a healthy gap to P3 and keep P1 in sight for as long as possible. Stint one went well, losing minimal time to traffic that was either lapping or being lapped until a slight misjudgement into the hairpin saw Dave taking a somewhat unconventional line across the grass on the start/finish straight. The hairpin at croft is tricky at the best of times - one of the tightest in the UK and the apex kerb isn’t visible from our low seating position in the car. Turn in is mostly from muscle memory and you don’t know you’ve done it wrong until too late! No harm done besides the loss of a few seconds and a bit of embarrassing coverage on the commentary…
A safety car at the end of our first pit window threatened to undo the good work we’d done growing a gap but as the overall race leader was between us and P3 in class we were given the wave-by before the race resumed and we able to get half a lap back before the circuit went green again. A quick flying lap later we boxed for stop 1. The team executed a flawless stop, Olly adjusting tyre pressures, Phil fuelling the car and Sarah manning the stopwatch, Dave was back in and ready for stint 2 within the minimum stop time.
Stint 2 was all about traffic management - trying to lose as little time as possible as cars with double the horsepower dive ahead at the end of a straight before slamming the anchors on at a point where we barely graze the brake pedal. A badly timed overtake from a class A car can cost us as much as 4 seconds in laptime so multi-class racing becomes as much about shepherding the traffic as it is about outright pace. Equally challenging is lapping cars in the same class as us - with similar power levels it becomes about timing overtakes to corner entry or exit. Often a small lift on a straight to time our arrival perfectly can save more time than charging up to the back of a car and trying to drive past on the next straight. We boxed at the start of our fuel window in order to give Alex a decent shift behind the wheel. Again the team executed a perfect stop. We weren’t certain of the fuel burn rate so had elected to carry two extra litres and the safety car meant we hadn’t burnt as much fuel as planned. As a result, the final fuel jug had a couple of litres left in it that wouldn’t fit in the tank. We elected to extend the stop slightly to see if we could get any more in, rather than risking it and having to make a third stop in the closing stages of the race.
Alex’s stint started with targeting a lap time a little slower than we knew the car was capable of but which would reliably see us finish 2nd and on the same lap as P1. As the stint went on and Alex got into the groove, the times started to fall and the team were constantly monitoring the Civic’s times to tell Alex when to push or ease off. With the current power to weight ratio and the car’s excellent chassis setup and aerodynamic package, it is very kind on tyres, allowing Alex to post our fastest lap of the race on lap 74 with a 1:35.09.
On the final lap of the race Alex was passed by the overall race leader which allowed the Civic to complete one more racing lap than us, officially finishing a lap down but having not been passed on the road. We finished the race 11th overall and 2nd in class, an awesome result the whole team is immensely proud of. As an added bonus we also finished 2nd in the Clubman Cup - a separate championship run in tandem across all the power-to-weight classes for cars built before 2010 and still using an H-pattern gearbox.
Focus now shifts to Brands Hatch on the 19th May where we will take to the iconic GP circuit - possibly Dave’s favourite UK track configuration and one that Alex has never driven. Will the more technical nature of the circuit play to the MX-5’s strengths, or will the long drag up from Surtees favour heavier cars with more power? The car is currently with Performance Link for some exciting suspension and engine upgrades to help us close the gap to the front. Watch this space…
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