Will's Diary Page 5: Silverstone National Track 15th July 2006

Like all wannabe racing stars, I had to work on the Friday. The car still being up in Manchester, and running late my kind father and mother drove the camper van up to Manchester to pick the car up after a new cylinder head (the old head had been ground down too much, meaning the proper tension could not be sustained on the cam timing belt) I had never raced at silverstone so was looking forward to learning a new track - people had told me it was featureless and boring (which it was to an extent) but knowing my tyres were going round the same tarmac as legends like Schumacher, Senna, Prost and Mansell was a strange feeling (but good!).


Friday 14th July 2006 - 6.30 pm

I arrived at Silverstone and after speaking kindly with security they let me in without a ticket (my ticket was on its way back from Manchester with the folks). I got to the paddock and met up with everyone. There was a car written off at Snetterton, which meant another car was going to be on the grid that I had never seen before! (I've done well only ever needing one car!)

We had the pit garages for the Saturday's racing so all the cars were in the garages and being checked, cleaned etc etc.. A walk into the pit lane and I was there - silverstone. The painted pit 'stop' boxes from the GP only 3 weeks before hand were still there, with plenty of tyre marks from where the 900bhp monsters left their pits. We were in the Williams ex-pit garage, as there was a sticker on the floor. We soon changed it to what it should say!



With a while to wait before I had a car and a bed for the night i took the time to walk the circuit with fellow 924 racer Alec Fraser. He had raced the circuit some 20 years previous, so he was telling me what they'd changed. I had only ever played silverstone short on Forza Motorsport - a computer game! The track seemed to be modelled perfectly
- not only did I know the turns even the camber had been done well!

Parents arrived at silverstone after a nightmare journey with traffic and roadblocks. Finally got to sleep at about midnight with a car that was ready to go.

Saturday 15th July - Qualifying (20 mins)

After popping the head gasket during qualifying at Mallory, I took the session easy. The engine was running rich (lots of fuel) to try and keep the temperature down on the new components. Got used to the circuit for the first 4 laps not venturing above 4,000 rpm. Took the time to spot the difference between the game and the real track and played about with what felt like a very oversteery car the brookland complex is a playing ground for practicing the drifting. errm any way (not supposed to be
drifting!) Towards the end of the session i had pushed the engine up to 5,500 rpm, 500rpm short of its peak power at 6,000. The results had come out and i was in third place. Will Penrose on pole (after a double win at snet.) Graham Beard (a new comer) on second place (think he's done some racing before) and Gary Duckman in 4th.

Saturday 15th July - Race 1 (20 mins)

Before the race, the engine fueling had been leaned off. (a bit more power than quali) I took my place on the grid and waited for the red lights to come on. The all came on one by one until all 5 lights were on, then they went off and the race was on.

I got a good start, with minimum wheelspin and got past Will on pole and Graham in second, they both had too much wheelspin, I got to the first corner and with no brakes held on to exit the corner with a fair lead of about 5 car lengths. Over the next 4 laps I pulled the gap out to about 3 or 4 seconds from the charging Graham Beard, then a strange vibration started to happen around the right handed corners (4 out of the 5 corners are right handers) and I couldn't get the car turning properly, the vibration got worse and worse - at this point the que of cars behind was backing up.

A yellow flag is all that stopped me getting passed coming into the brookland on a couple of occasions. Graham went into copse on my inside, but out broke himself running wide on the exit and giving me the lead back again. In the end, graham got past under yellows (or so I had thought) - the technical regs of waved yellows state that if the pass has been made before an imaginary line drawn from the marshal waving the flag across the track it is a legit pass, (next time I won't back off for the yellows!) Will got past and Gary got past after me crawling round the hairpin, (a right handed hairpin).

The vibration had got really bad at this point, and just turning right at all was becoming hard, so I went into the pits to look at why I couldn't turn right. The wheel was hanging on with one out of 4 wheel nuts still in place! To change the wheel was hard because the whole rim and wheel hub were smoking with the heat generated. It turns out the metal inserts/spacers to allow different size bolts to be used had come away, effectively undoing the wheel nuts. Race one handed to Graham Beard. Well done matey.



Saturday 15th July - Race 1 (20 mins)

Race two saw me starting at the back of the grid due to the dnf. The wheel had been changed and wheel nuts borrowed of of another competitor whose whole hub had come away from the brake disc. To cut along story short, I had got up to 3rd place before the engine started misbehaving and giving me less power as the heat increased. (if its not a wheel, its the engine - the ambient conditions were hot - 32C(~90F)) I got over taken by 4 people coming down the straight so came into the pits in a bit of a foul mood. Added to the tyre marks from the f1 cars by locking up the brakes just outside the garage and coming to a stop. I didn't talk to anyone for about 10 minutes - just had some time to myself in the camper. When I do get my next win (and I will) this bad spot of mechanical unreliability will really make me appreciate it!

We had hoped to race at Brands this weekend, but it looks like money and time will not facilitate this. Its a shame because the Jeff May memorial trophy is awarded to the winner of Brands and I would have liked to race to defend it. The trophy has only been around for 2 years with only myself and Ryan Hooker's names on it. It looks like there will be another name on it by next Sunday.

For anyone thinking about getting into motorsport (and cheap it ain't!), let this be a lesson that bad times accompany the good. We could have been burning £50 notes and it would be less painful than the added culmination of this season. Character building is, I think, what they call it!

Thanks for reading

Will Disdale

Read more on will's Diary

Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four