JEC Saloon & GT Castle Combe 7th May 2018
Castle Combe was host to round 3 of the championship, 21 big Cats joined us at what was a fine but very hot day unlike rounds 1 & 2 at Snetterton in April.
In a change of procedure, this was scheduled as a 30 minute race rather than the usual 20 minutes, necessitating some drivers having to install larger fuel tanks.
Notable absentee was championship stalwart Adam Powderham who, due to business commitments, missed his first race in 6 years but attended as a spectator. Having missed the first 2 rounds David Howard (XJ12), Richard Crossley, Richard Coppock (XJSs) & Guy Connew (XJ6) rejoined the Championship. After a long period working in the USA, Richard Knott dusted off his XJS but experienced gearbox problems during testing. This necessitated a rush job, ably assisted by Sam Clarke, to get the car ready for the race.
CASTLE CLOSE BUT FAR.
With preparation after the issues of Snetterton in full swing it wasn’t long before the new injectors were ordered to replace and upgrade our borrowed ones from last race, and with a beautiful set of injector dynamics freshly installed it was off to the dyno for a new map to get the old girl back up to fighting strength. With impressive results on the dyno from the injectors and lapping up the power increase boost began to leak from the intake manifold and upon investigation found we had blown the welds on the intake (a phrase we have joked about in jest for years), with a quick trip to the welders to repair this we continued to bring up the power to amazing results considering we have lots of development left to still do. With raised spirits from the results we added a larger fuel tank for the longer 30 minute race giving us nearly an hours potential capacity for future races such as the Birkett, with the lead up the race looking promising a test day at Castle Combe we truly saw how promising the car was going to be with no issues and really impressive times in the form 1.18.00 laps the car was ready to sing!
With the temperatures rising across the weekend it was set to be an absolute scorcher and we couldn’t wait to get the most out of the car by truly making her show off her power, Qualifying came early and with a mad dash to the assembly area we managed to get to the front of the pack to be the first car out in the lineup. With the heat rising and the crowds growing the session began and straight away Tom’s new found power and brakes just clicked putting the car further and further ahead of the cars behind him, gaining better and better times Tom all of a sudden lost some of its power and came into the pits. Back in camp a section of manifold was found cleanly blown straight off in the engine bay causing the loss of power, this became a mad rush to take the whole exhaust off while we were waiting to hear the results with baited breath, once removed it was quick rush over to the motorsport collage to kindly ask one of the members of staff there to weld this piece back for us and enable us to continue into the afternoons race. With a newly welded section back on the exhaust and the qualifying news we had been hoping for we attacked the rebuild of the system with something to prove, from how far we had come in the last 6 months of building to testing this new recipe to be affective on the track. 2nd fastest time of the day put us with a great position to pull away from the pack and stretch her legs but with some fast drivers having fixed their cars from the issues in qualifying it would be a challenging race with everything to loose.
The pressure was starting to build with Tom for potentially his best finish ever. As we were minutes from the race start the crowds were crammed into every available space around the track hiding from the ever rising heat which had been causing issues all day for drivers, the warm up lap begun and as the start line approached Tom’s new found power found it ground and surged the car past Alister and into first immediately bringing 25 sets of eyes into the back of his car and the pressure that brings. With a few laps down Alister began to gain some ground and make his way past Tom in the chicane. With what seemed to be a slight loss of power to the XJR Tom relinquished its position to Coin Philpott and James Ramm,only to find the first casualty of Castle Combe with Colin Philpott retiring due to another crank pulley failure. With the battle for 1st and 2nd hotting up Alister overcooked Camp corner and lost a fight with a true wall putting James Ramm into first and Tom second overall. Micheal Holt spinning out as the drivers tyres started to come off as the track temperatures soared made a great recovery not loosing any ground a true testament to the amount of ground he made over the rest of the field.
As the race progressed the lead over the other cars from Tom and James creeped from seconds to half a lap however still loosing power the XJR was loosing ground until 5 minutes from the end the car started to stutter and with no power Tom had to pull off the circuit in order to save the car before any damage to the engine could be done. With the last few laps drawing to a close more and more drivers did not finish the race, thankfully with a race of attrition/ heat and mechanical issues for half of the grid the flag dropped. Massive congratulations to James Ramm 1st, Patrick Doyle 2nd and Micheal Holt 3rd for making it home in one piece. Back at the bat cave we found that the top hose had a small pinprick hole from a rub mark which had sprayed on the supercharger belt causing it to slip and eventually throw the belt off completely, a weekend of massive highs and lows has seen us tackle more development issues but knowing the weak links in.
