Rounds 9 &10 Thruxton 28/29th June 2008

The dry weather at Thruxton was a great start to the weekend after the rain of recent meetings. Oliver was driving the number 1 car this weekend alongside Steve Clarke. Saturday’s practice session was used to run in a new engine on the car and although short-shifting at not using 100% throttle, Oliver posted the 11th quickest time of the session on very old tyres with a 1m.18.075s lap. Steve qualified for race one with a time of 1m.17.312s which lined the car up 3rd on the grid. Oliver qualified in the more competitive session for race two and posted a time of 1m16.933 which put the car 10th for Sunday’s race.

Race 1

Steve made an excellent start and got alongside the pole sitting Ferrari into the first corner. Unfortunately, at the second corner Steve got spun out by the Viper of Craig Wilkin’s which dropped him to the rear of the field. Steve soon recovered and was back up to 10th before disaster struck on lap 5 when the car pulled into the pitlane with a left rear puncture. The stop to change this wheel dropped the car a lap down so when Oliver climbed aboard during a safety car period he was out of contention for a good result. Even so, Oliver’s pace in the second half of the race was rapid and he unlapped himself from the Aston Martin of Michael Bentwood and the Lamborghini of Adam Jones. He finished 4th on the road in the lead battle but of course a lap down in 11th position overall. A great disappointment but very promising pace for Sunday’s race.

Race 2

Oliver made a great start in race two and was soon up to 6th place and catching the cars in front. The race was then red flagged due to the high-speed accident involving Bradley Ellis in the Ginetta G50. After a half-hour stoppage, the race was resumed and Oliver lost ground at the restart as the Ferrari’s of Allen Simonsen and Matt Griffin battled aggressively. After the puncture of Saturday’s race, Oliver did not want to risk being hit or forced wide onto a kerb so he let them fight and waited for them to spread out before making his moves. From laps five to seven, he gained four places and looked set to make further progress; setting the race’s fastest lap on lap eight as he moved into fourth place, right on the tale of the leaders.

One lap later, however, the Viper slowed noticeably on the approach to Club and Oliver immediately pitted. Despite several attempts to sort the problem, it soon became clear that its race was also run. A wire in the loom had shorted and blown the ECU. On the lap pf the failure, Oliver was 3 tenths up in sector one on the previous lap so was likely to set an even faster lap. The mechanical failure cost Oliver and Steve a great result as Oliver was flying with 20 minutes remaining to pick of the few cars that lay between him and the win!

The next circuit on the calendar is the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit where the Dodge Viper claimed two wins last year; hopefully this can be repeated!