Thunder Saloon Round 2 – Castle Combe
May 4th 2015
Qualifying:
This was to be the first time driving the car with the new shock absorbers and revised spring rates resulting in 4th position which we were over the moon with having not had time to test the car.
Race 1:
Bradley got off to a great start and held off a couple of more powerful cars as well as one with 4 wheel drive and 600 horsepower for most of the race, at one point he was up to third place and battled closely with Andy Robinson in his Australian V8 supercar until two laps from the end of the race when the brake pedal went to the floor heading into a bend at the end of a 120mph straight, Bradley managed to pump the brake pedal and scrub off just about enough speed to get round the bend. This caused the pace to drop off for the remainder of the race as the car was also very unstable through the corners , the root of the problem was traced to a completely destroyed rear wheel bearing. Limping the car home, Bradley managed to finish 5th, frustrated but a good result.
The panic was on for race 2 as we only had 2 and a half hours to replace the rear wheel bearing which had also damaged the bearing carrier and hub, having had no luck asking around the paddock for spares and being a bank holiday Monday, trying to source parts for a 29 year old sierra locally was proving difficult. After trying for over an hour and a half we had all but given up until a sierra from another championship was involved in an accident, the driver very kindly let us take the complete rear hub assembly off his car and fit it to ours. We had only around 40 minutes to get the car sorted and over to the assembly area for the live televised race 2 which we didn’t want to miss, making it with only 5 minutes to spare.
Race 2 :
Bradley got off to another good start maintaining his position and battled closely with the more powerful 4 wheel drive Subaru of Ian Froggat only being held back from an over taking move by yellow flags due to an accident which couldn’t be cleared on the last two laps. Bradley bought the car home in 4th place and we were all amazed that we even managed to make the start with the events earlier in the day. With great tv coverage as well this was one race meeting we wouldn’t forget.
