Brands Hatch 2009 .. review

Venue: Brands Hatch Indy Circuit
Date: June 28th 2009

The date set, venue set and round 4 of Time Attack 2009 beckoned..

After the mad panic and huge amount of work going into round 3 at Silverstone, it was refreshing and lovely not to HAVE to do anything pre this round. This didn’t stop one minor tweak though… in preparation for the forthcoming diffuser it was time to raise the exhaust up to exit the rear bumper. You will see the new exit below:

Unlike Silverstone, Brands Hatch is much more of a handling circuit and with ZEN Performance’s superb history of winning this round I was confident of a great result.  Plans were made ages ago to get practice in prior to this round as I had not driven it for 20 years and then it was in standard MG Metros and MG Maestros on a corporate day… I had a lot to learn and booked Phil glew’s services to teach me.  Having had his tuition already this year I have seen the huge difference that his tuition has made to my driving, confidence and speed.  All set for the track day and totally gutted the day before when the organisers called it off… oh ffs !!  With work already scheduled nothing else could be arranged so I would have to made do and learn as best I could from the track time available on the day.

Saturday:

Picked up a borrowed trailer from Andy Stevens (cheers mate) and Julian (CJS Norwich) and I prepared the tool kit for the sunday and were going to head down there in the morning.  Easy day doing basic last minute checks but great to have Julian as my right hand man and his superb Jeep there to do the lugging duties of the car and gear.

Car loaded and a nice relaxing meal and sleep ready for the early start.

Sunday:

A great drive down passing Olly Clarke but getting blitzed by Team Zen who flew past us beeping horns and waving – we thought that was a good omen.  Hopefully not the only time Team Zen would go past RCM…

We arrived in plenty of time and unpacked and with loads of time before our action started, there was time to clean the car from the spray on the roads on the way down from the fenland mist and make all checks (again) to the car, set up the live in car camera system (from Rapid Media again), chat to everyone and fine tune tactics for the day with Paul from Zen.  This has been a superb partnership this year and without doubt has made a huge difference to the ability to get the best from the car (and me).

It was sorted… the plan was to win.

Julian was accompanying me in the warm up, not for anything other than a huge thank you for his help – he is ever cheerful and great to have around when my mind is often cluttered with thoughts of self doubt.  The car was great, the bad-ass Zengine was purring and everything was going to be great. Relax… have a sausage roll

I learnt the hard way last year that warm up was not a place for heros – it was for test and warm up so I was not disappointed with being well down the leader-board. I was hardly on full throttle. No point of breaking it or crashing it in this session.  Traffic was horrendous in this session with so many cars out on track on such a short track.

Warm up dealt with and a minor tweak to the suspension setting from those that we ended Silverstone with to cure some mild oversteer I had going into clearways.  This was needed at Silverstone to help in the complex but wasn’t here. We knew everything else worked perfectly.

Time to watch Team Zen’s pro car blitz the field… oh bugger just as we were ready to watch, the car had stopped on track and was catching fire. Oh bugger again. The mood in the camp was down. VERY down. So much work had been done to get the Zen car there, it was ready, readier than it had ever been but a small component failure had caused their day to be over. The whole team was gutted but I was now absolutely determined to bring some smiles to the pit garage and get the top slot for the team. Sure it wouldn’t be the same as their own car be there but such is the spirit in Team ZEN that it is all for one…

Practice and Rob Barnes came around to say would we mind the top 10 cars from club playing out on track with the club pro and pro cars to give everyone more space.  Hopefully we wouldn’t hold the pro guys up but it would even the two sessions out and give everyone the best chance of track space for the hot laps.  I jumped at the opportunity and to be able to share track space with the cars in that class was an honour.

We headed out for practice with the pro guys and this confused a lot of people, I got texts, answer machine messages galore from onlookers that were there and those at home watching the live timing screens on the TA website and not seeing me there.  I am sorry if I didn’t answer them

Practice went well and I followed Jonathan Faull for most of it.  The car was understeering a bit more now (although not much) so towards the end of the session I headed into the pits to check tyre pressures, temps and tweak the suspension.  Unfortunately the session was cut short so I didn’t get back out but I knew the adjustments would be spot on.  I ended up in P1 in club challenge with a 53.8  I was very pleased as I felt there was more to be had.

In car video from this session:

Duncan Graham – Brands Hatch practice session 2009 from Duncan Graham on Vimeo.

Qualifying and we were out with the Club pro and Pro guys again. I headed out after most of these as I did not want to be interfering with their times and hogging the first slots in the pit lane.

So.. this is where it started to count.

Out lap and then 2 flying laps, the second quicker than the first and I had a 53.3 That ’should’ be enough but I kept circulating checking the pit board for updates and cooling the tyres/car ready for another flying lap.  The tyres were hot but as I was learning lines better and getting to grips with the car the two were counteracting each other.  The car was spot on.  It was in the elusive sweet spot of total predictability. It turned when I wanted, stopped well, grip galore and I was having fun.  Another pair of mid 53 second laps and the rain was starting to come down.  I tried for one more hot lap but as soon as I went into paddock hill I knew no-one was going to be going quicker on that track at that time than my previous time so i aborted the lap and came into the pits and chill.  P1 was mine and the job was half done with the nearest challenger a way behind.

The wait for the final seems to take ages when there is nothing to do or fix on the car and we hadn’t touched it all day apart from bleeding the brakes after the warmup.  It was faultless and running gorgeously.

It was great to chat to everyone there though, chatting to my sisters and their families, play with my niece and nephews who were cheering me on whilst my wife and daughter were up in cambridge (my daughter was competing in the Cambridge Triathlon – I was as gutted to miss that as she and my wife, Rachel, were to miss Brands…)

On with some uber sexy wheels (thanks Paul and Liz) and it was final time and we were out with the club guys again.  Paul and I had sorted tactics and I got to the start of the pit lane before everyone else ready for the start of the session.  This was it. I was determined to get the top slot for the first time ever.

The final went like clockwork apart from coming down the start finish straight for that first hot lap as cars were still coming out of the pits. Paul had warned me of this but it seemed to be like a parting of the waves and I just kept driving with everyone jumping out of the way on their out laps. Thanks so much chaps and especially Marco and I think Steve Linton that I was pretty close to around Clearways … ooops Lap 1 was 58.8 as a result and not enough so I kept on it for lap 2 and improved to 53.8 .. P1 but could it stay that way?

I checked the lap board on the lap afterwards and it showed me as P1 – thanks Steve for that and the team for giving you regular updates to hold it out every lap. I kept going around slowly keeping out of the way to try and cool tyres down and then put in another hot lap – 53.3 better. Still P1 and time running out for the others but my nerves were starting to get frayed. Calm down Dunk. More slow laps and then another blitz … 53.1 yes. That felt good.

I came around again and the lap board was still showing P1
Next lap… P1
Next lap… P1
Next lap… P1
Next lap… P1

My mind was jumping ahead of itself and I had to drive fast to get my head clear of stupidness. Another hot lap and a little bit scruffy with a 53.3 but all good.

Lap board says P1 still there cant be much time left surely !!!

Next lap.. checkered flag .. OMG !! I bashed the steering wheel with a release of emotion and thought of the pain and anguish over the last year and a half to get there… or had i done it…. the lap board was gone. Oh sheeet. Bugger.

Into the pits and Steven was doing his Michael Jackson dance – then I knew I was speechless and shaking with adrenaline. It does that to an old man like me lol. YES !!

I was overjoyed (i still am) and couldn’t thank my family, sponsors, supporters, helpers, and team enough.

Best of all, Team ZEN were smiling.

Not being known to celebrate on the podium (cough cough) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maSX-aNgWsE