Willspin-Racing Diary - Porsche 924 Championship - Pembrey 2006

Willspin-Racing primarily constitutes two people, Will Disdale, and Pete Disdale. Will does the racing and Pete does everything else! We are not mechanics, and we are not blessed millionaires, which goes to show anyone can get into motorsport, and that the 924 championship does what it says on the tin - cheap and cheerful Porsche racing. The rest of the family come along and watch, and cheer on, and sometimes help me get to races financially! We've been in the Porsche 924 Championship now for two years, with some success after never having competed in any sort of motorsport before.

2006 Championship:

Oulton Park hosted round 1, and saw Willspin-Racing DNF (Did Not Finish) due to engine problems. Rounds 2 and 3 were hosted at Croix le Tournois in Northern France, which we didn't go to due to financial difficulty.
You join us as we set off to Pembrey for rounds 4 and 5 of the championship (and Will's 26th birthday) on the 13 and 14th May.

Saturday 9.30 am:

The drive from Reading (near London) to Pembrey (South Wales) took roughly 4 hours. It was spent amongst the 70,000 fans all traveling to watch the FA Cup Final, so there was traffic, and lots of it! Finally getting there at 2.30pm, the rush to get unpacked, signed on and scrutineered was trouble free and we were fueled and ready to go at 4pm.

Qualifying would take place at 5pm on the Saturday 13th, with two races scheduled for 10.30 am and 5.15pm on Sunday 14th. With only a minor fuel leak diagnosed from Oulton a month before and no finances for testing, qualifying would be an unknown.

Saturday 5.00 pm

During the 15 minutes qualifying I was keen to give the engine a beating to uncover any problems that might arise in the race. It turned out that the same Oulton problem persisted and after 3 laps of qualifying I came into the pits significantly down on power. The engine seemed to lose its power when hot. After Ernie Cheetham (Porsche 924 Guru) had looked in the engine bay he said i may aswell keep trying to give the engine stick, as I had lost no coolant, and no oil. Qualifying amazingly saw me get 10th on the grid out of the 17 starters, three seconds off the pole time set by Gary Duckman. The problem was put down to a lean air/fuel mixture (too much air, or not enough fuel) that was aggravated when the engine was at peak temperatures. But we had all night to change bits, and check the air system for leaks.

Sunday 8.00 am:

Sunday morning came after a decent amount of sleep. The evening before we had secured the air system with plenty of rubber sealant (slight overkill, but not pointless), replaced the cold start regulator, replaced the spark plugs, checked the fuel injectors, checked the ignition timing was fluctuating correctly under throttle, along with the normal suspension/tyre/brake checks. The evening had also seen Paul Finn replace a clutch. Easier said than done when there's little light, and the car is on axle stands - the whole rear of the car had to be taken to bits to get the gearbox and prop shaft out of the way of the engine's flywheel. Owed again in part to Ernie Cheetham and also Alec Fraser, another competitor, who happened to have a spare clutch!

Sunday 10.30 am

The 924 gang set off to the assembly area and lined up ready to pull onto the circuit. The assembly area is where everyone waits and wonders whether they should have had that fry up breakfast, or whether they should have one more visit to the toilet. Friendly banter was exchanged with the other drivers and everyone tried to work out how they're going to make some places at the start - the first corner being a tight right handed hairpin - I was starting on the left side of the track, so was pondering how i could work my way to be on the inside for the hairpin - being on the outside could risk what's technically termed as 'being collected' in someone else's accident. The previous race finished and the marshal waved us into our cars ready for our race. Then we set off for the grid.

The 1 minute board came out, then the 30 second board, then the 5 second board, then every drivers eyes focused on the lights on the over head gantry 50 yards down the track. Red lights come on.......... and go!

After having thought i'd go down the middle of the grid and try and work my way over to the right so as to be inside for the hairpin, that plan evaporated as everyone else ahead did the same! I can remember seeing a forming wall of 4 cars all next to each other tussling for space in front of me and I was gaining. With nowhere to go, I put two wheels on the grass and went out wide left and made it 5 cars wide. Amazingly I managed to pass them before the braking zone, and saw a huge gap to my right. Checking my rear quarter was clear of the now passed wall of cars, I came back across to the right yanked the brakes on, took the hairpin tight on the inside and made another place in the process - 10th to 5th in 250 yards!

Richard Mowbray who started in 8th had also had a good start and was in 4th. He got sideways a couple of times in front of me (as you do when racing a 924 on Colway rubber - fun, but scrubs speed and in the 924 its all about carrying speed through the corners) but I refrained from taking 4th place then, as he may well have flicked back the other way and taken me out - he didn't and we entered the back straight. Having the run on him out of the corner and a late brake into honda curve at the end of the back straight put me into 4th after the first lap. There was a ding-dong battle ahead, with both Lee Mcnamara and Will Penrose on identical pace. I gained and tussled for three very close laps. I got round them both on the start finish straight but found myself on the outside in the hairpin, and couldn't hold my position. A very sideways drift ensued.

Avoiding the dreaded spin both cars got back in front of me on the exit. I then got a good run out of debani curve and got past Will into the other hairpin (not the first hairpin) and with Lee sideways on the exit, I managed to pull along side into honda curve and take second place. Engine seeming to still pull well I managed to eek out a 5 second gap back to third place which, from my rear view mirror seemed to still be extremely close!.
The leading Gary Duckman was another 5 seconds down the road, and being reeled in ever so slowly, the car seemed to go a bit flat on power, nothing like during qualify, but enough to warrant me geeing the car up, cursing slightly and trying to add some momentum by rocking my upper body forward willing the car to accelerate. It didn't help, but it felt better! then Gary Spun on the start/finish straight before the hairpin - confused, but elated, I drove past him to take the lead. And drove as hard as possible to the checkered flag for the first win of the season! I was on cloud 9! I could have kissed Ernie on my departure from the car, but was jumping around too much looking like the cat with the cream! The most satisfying win so far - albeit owed in part to Gary's misfortune.

It turns out Gary's brake pedal had disconnected from the master cylinder so he span the car on purpose to avoid a speedy crash into the tyres in the hairpin. He still crawled round (using his gearbox for
brakes) and with Lee and Will both retiring he still managed 2nd place!!

Sunday 5.15 pm

After having the win, I was starting in pole, with Gary on my left. With a bit more pressure on me having more to lose from pole, the heart was beating slightly faster than the last race. The 1 minute board was shown, then the 30 seconds, then the 5 second board, then the lights came on.... and go! Getting a good start, not fantastic, I was watching Gary over my left shoulder gain slightly - but i had the line for the hairpin, so kept the lead out of the first corner. Then it was simple - push push push. With no major errors, it looked like I could be taking the honours again, but Gary was not giving up and was right on my rear.

A couple of over exuberant slides saw me having to go defensive in a few of the corners, to block any late brake moves by Gary, It seemed I could get a slight advantage out of the top bend onto the back straight, so concentrated on being a smooth as possible through it. Its a tricky corner to get right in the 924's, the radius tightens up towards the apex (also known as a 'clipping point') of the corner, and a slight drift is wanted up to the apex, so that the car is pointing out of the corner before the exit. It seemed to work, and over 10 or so laps, I had squeezed out a couple of seconds breathing space, and so started to concentrate on being fast, and not really worrying about driving defensively. About 4 laps from the end of the 20 minute race the car started to develop its over heating problem, and the straight line speed was getting slower and slower. Gary caught back up. Then I thought I was developing a handling problem through the left handed Debani bend under steering wildly, meaning I had to take off all the speed to stay on the black stuff, Gary eventually got past despite my best efforts, and proceeded to pull away quickly.

Then, without warning my engine erupted into a ball off white smoky steam at about 110mph going into the hairpin, with vision impaired enormously, and seeming to have no braking whatsoever I ran wildly wide out of the hairpin, pulled off as far away as possible from the hairpin and jumped out of the smoke ridden car. The Marshal's said I was out of the car before it had even stopped moving! I was ok, and had the bonnet off quick smart to see what had given way, hoping it wasn't oil, and a thrown rod. Before I could see what it could have beenIi was pulled over the tyre wall and had to watch the last lap. A scary moment, but I was more upset about retiring only 1 lap from the end. The handling problem was probably the coolant over flow pipe spraying boiled coolant under the right front wheel. Gary Duckman took the honours, in a similar way I had done the day before.

While speaking with the marshal about the race, the doctor's car pulled up and asked if I was ok. I said I was fine, and not to worry, then he said I'm taking you to the clerk of the course, he wants to see you. Now normally when the clerk of the course wants to see you, you are in trouble, so I ran through what it could have been - had I jumped the start? Had i overtaken under yellows? Had i had a mechanical problem and missed the 'come in - you're a hazard flag'? I didn't think I had done any of the above, so was quite confused. Trying to get my story and defense straight while in the doctors car on route to race control I asked the doctor what it was for. 'Don't know mate - he just wants to see you' came the response.

On getting out of the car and seeing the clerk with a microphone in his hand I was still confused. It turns out that Pembrey Race Circuit have a Driver of the Day award, and they had chosen me for my first race. They must have had a hundred or so racers that weekend racing in their respective classes, series and championships, so was surprised and happy when I realized what it was for. Probably a very rare moment for a racer to be happy when talking to the clerk of the course, but a very sweet ending to a disastrous second race.

It looks like the championship is heavily stacked in Gary's favour as things stand with 4 wins and a second in the first 5 races, just like it was for Chris Milne and Steve Cheetham in 2004 and 2005 respectively. I have the pace, but whether I have the reliability or the finance to get a second wind of momentum toward that elusive championship remains to be seen. The next two rounds are to be contested at Mallory park, and we have a head gasket to somehow replace if we want to be there.

Here concludes Willspin Racing diary. Thanks for reading.

Will Disdale

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