Clubmans Teams Scoop Major Prizes at Silverstone

Mallock Club members helped their Teams to an outright win and a handicap class win in the 750MC annual Birkett 6 Hour Relay Race at Silverstone. This was the 59^th running of the race based on the original idea of Holland Birkett. Teams of up to six cars would race for six hours and a handicap system of credit laps introduced to all but the adjudged fastest team so that any team would be able to win. After the six hours the credit laps are added to the actual laps completed which determines the final result. For the first time ever it was run on the International Circuit which allowed extra teams to take part based on the length of the circuit. In amongst the 55 teams were two teams of Clubmans Cup cars.

The second Clubmans team was the Special K Clubmans with Mallock Club members Chris Burnham and Ian Crombie. The others drivers were Brian Jordan, Neil Bevan, Gareth Salter and Sideshow Bob. Chris was Team Manager but on the day Peter Burnham took over as Chris was driving. The tanks on the Special K team cars were of differing capacity so a different strategy was required to get the best out of the group by predetermining how long each car would run for. It is important to keep the number of pit stops to a minimum. Sideshow Bob’s car had the shortest run of around 20 minutes while others could run 40 – 45 minutes.

 The first couple of hours ran according to plan and then the first safety car period came when someone dropped oil on the racing line when their engine let go. Chris Burnham was on track for the Special Ks and was coming up for a scheduled stop. He was left out for a couple of laps to see how the Pit Lane closure was working. Bearing in mind where Chris was in the line behind the Safety car the manager saw an opportunity to change and so brought him in. Brian Jordan went out and only lost 5 seconds were lost waiting for the pit lane to reopen.  The safety car came in one lap later so Brian was able to start racing again almost immediately.

The Hart Attacks had carried out a similar changeover swapping Chris Hart for Michelle during the safety car period. They had started with Mike Evans running a 25 minute session before Barry Webb was sent out. Unfortunately he suffered an overheating rear hub and received the black and orange flag so had to pit early and Jamie was dispatched hurriedly.

Around the four hour mark the gentle rain that had been threatening for some time started to fall. Being very light rain it took a long time to reach the point of changing tyres. Both teams clearly had the same problem in deciding when to change. It was such that the Special Ks had two cars ready to go, one with wets the other with slicks in case the rain stopped plus back up cars for both in case they hit trouble. Ian Crombie was on track at the time and he made the decision to come in. Ian was four laps from his scheduled stop so it was clear that he was not coping on slicks and Gareth was sent out on wets. Other teams in the pit road did not have the same quality management as was evident in many poor pit stops and car changes. As the rain eased the teams had the same problem with changing back to slicks. When was the right time to do it? It had been planned to run Brian and Neil on long stints to the end of the race when Gareth was due in so there would only be two more stops. Brian went out on wets but after only half a dozen laps came in complaining that it was drying out quickly, and Chris who had been waiting patiently in his car on slicks for a long time was sent out. So the plan to run only two stops to the end had to be modified.

For the Hart Attacks Jamie had done a sterling job and as the track dried Michelle was sent out on slicks to do battle. Running a good stint Mike Evans took over for what should have been a run to the flag but a flat battery brought him in with 15 minutes to run and Jamie finished the session for the team.

 The Special Ks had Neil Bevan on slicks waiting to go and quickly changed Brian to slicks as a back up. The quickly revised plan was for Chris to run for 25 minutes and then send out Neil to run to the end but Chris came in after ten minutes thinking he had a puncture when actually he was lapping quite quickly. Neil was sent out and being the fasted of our team he needed to run as long as possible and so his run was stretched to 45 minutes which was a bit nerve wracking as it was not known if his tank would run that long! It did and during that run he put up the fastest lap for the team and just before five o’clock he was called in. During this time Gareth had been waiting on wets and Chris on slicks just in case. When Neil came in Brian went out for the 15 minutes left to run to the flag. As usual there was much cheering and people climbing on the fence to welcome the cars across the finish line which continued as they came down the pit road to the garages.

The result was a win on the road for the Hart Attacks and  the Special K Clubmans beating them on handicap by one lap to take the class win. The winners overall on handicap were the Help for Heroes a team from the RAF who were also collecting money for the Help the Heroes servicemen’s charity. A tremendous day’s racing, very competitive and very friendly.

 We must not forget though it would not be possible to achieve these results without the tireless support of the garage helpers, the pit wall crew and most importantly those keeping up a continual supply of food, tea and coffee to keep the teams going. Well done one and all.