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Llandow Test Day
Considering it was March the weather could not have been better. Terry had booked the circuit for an afternoon test session and we arrived at the right time to head into the cafe for some much needed refreshment of the cooked breakfast kind. When we came out ready to go on track we discovered that most of the morning crews had packed up and gone home leaving the circuit to our 4 Marlins and an Endurance Racing Kart. The circuit marshal explained that he would not put us all out together so we had 15mins on track and 15mins off sharing with the kart.
The Marlins were the 2 race 5EXi’s of Mark and Dylan with the 2 road 5EXi’s of Andy Conibear and myself. I had not driven at Llandow for over a year and my car had received some extensive suspension modifications over the winter so this would be an interesting test. The first session was unbelievable, I actually overtook Dylan’s race car and for a few minutes believed that I was quicker than a car weighing over 100Kg less and with more power. My joy was short lived as Dylan’s car had developed a misfire and once this was rectified I could not get keep up with him after that. Both Mark & Dylan appeared to be going extremely well with Adrian Harris timing Mark in the 46 second a lap bracket which believe me is flipping quick! Adrian was also our official photographer for the day and took some excellent pictures as you can see.
The cars performed well all afternoon with no problems and all were 100% reliable. The next step was for the Castle Combe test day working towards the first race of the season.
Castle Combe Test Day
As everyone knows to save weight race cars only have one seat. As Dylan had never driven at Castle Combe before and Mark had not driven there for some time they were in need of some instruction. The answer was for me to allow both Mark & Dylan to drive my car around the circuit with an instructor in the passenger seat. This I did and the instruction was provided by Dave Cooper of Track Developments who is a former F3 race driver and engineer.
The afternoon session was very busy with cars queuing up in the pit lane waiting their turn for a 15 minute session on track. Because of this both Mark & Dylan only managed 2 sessions each, one with instruction and one without. I was watching on the newly built pit wall with my son as the official lap timer. The first sessions with Dave in the passenger seat were naturally cautious finding their way around the circuit and removing some winter rust. In the sessions on their own, Mark did a best lap in the 1m 23sec bracket, which considering he was not pushing it to the limit because it was my car, was very respectable. Now if you have ever watched someone else driving your car around a track with you perched on the side of the circuit believe me it is a test of nerves. Dylan’s session on his own was unfortunately very short as someone had had an off at the infamous Quarry Corner and the session was stopped while they removed his car from the barriers. Despite only having 7 minutes before the end of the day he managed to improve on his morning times and get into the groove of the racing line.
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Castle Combe Race Day
Mark & Dylan arrived at the circuit bright and early ready for the customary drivers briefing at 8.30am along with all of the other drivers in the other races. As the Special GT Championship was the last but one race of the day, the qualifying session was the last but one which meant that they had most of the morning to look around the paddock at the other cars. One thing they noticed immediately was that everyone else appeared to be on slicks. The Marlins were built to run in the 750MC Kit Car Championship where the tyre that must be used is the Yokohama 048R. No one had checked whether slicks could be used so they were at an immediate disadvantage. Also the other cars in Class D (Production Cars) included 3 Ferrari 360’s a highly modified and stripped Mazda RX7 Turbo and various other Turbo cars all of which had a lot more power than both the Marlins 160BHP had from their 1.6 Honda VTEC engines. All things considered this did not appear to bode well for the race.
This seemed also to be borne out by the qualifying times as Mark qualified around 1min22secs with Dylan being half a second quicker. Bearing in mind that Mark had done 1min23secs in my car in which he was taking it easy (so he told me) and is 100Kg heavier, it did not look especially good for the race.
The cars lined up towards the back of a 30 car grid which included much quicker cars such as Jades and Radicals from Classes A, B and C all of which you would expect to be quicker. Dylan got off to a great start only to find himself on the same line as a badly misfiring Radical. With cars going past either side all he could do was sit and wait for the other cars to go past undoing all the good work he had achieved setting off the line so quickly. Mark however had a clear run up to Quarry even though he did not get as good a start as Dylan. As the race unfolded it was clear that Mark had a quicker race pace and soon started overtaking cars in his class. After 3 laps the much modified Mazda RX7 which had been rebuilt over the winter and had only run for the first time 2 days before had a major engine failure and was out. Whilst Dylan had a fairly lonely race unable to match his qualifying pace Mark became involved in a battled with a highly modified Toyota Starlet from another class. With both of them going flat out Mark set a best lap time of 1min18secs and was quicker than the Toyota often drawing alongside. At one point they touched with Mark’s front wheel taking some chunks out of the Toyotas GRP side skirts, but the Toyota driver blocked the line every time Mark tried to pass. Mark was quicker through the corners but the lack of grunt down the long straights at Combe certainly made a difference to getting past. On the last lap as some back markers got in the way of the Toyota, Mark tried to take him around the outside of Camp Corner just before the start/finish straight. Being off line trying to go around the outside on the dirty side of the track is not good. Mark subsequently did a full 360 degree spin but managed to hold it together and cross the line without losing a place to rapturous cheers and applause from the crowd.
The results revealed that Mark was actually 4th in class only beaten by the Ferraris costing over 10 times as much as the Marlin but not finishing 10 times the distance ahead. Dylan was 8th in class D which is a creditable effort considering he had not even driven on the circuit until a few days before.
As soon as the race was over there was talk of fitting turbos to the engines, slick tyres, throttle bodies and lots of other stuff to make the cars go faster as the season progresses. It will be interesting because Mark managed a 1m18sec lap and the class leading Ferraris were only a maximum of 5 seconds a lap quicker. With further development and modification of the Marlins it will be interesting to see if they can be overtaking the Ferraris as the season develops. Now that would be worth seeing.
Watch this Space!!