Mallory Park Don Truman Trophy 24th March 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The first round of the season produced a pretty good turnout of fourteen cars, in spite of the conditions which varied between bright spring sunshine and snow showers throughout the day! We were rewarded with an offer of a second race at the end of the day, views on the sense of this varied according to each competitor's mechanical maladies and the precise weather at any moment but a few brave souls stayed behind to continue play.
Practice Most managed the difficult job of starting without too much difficulty, some resorting to a liberal dose of Easy Start or a tow. Qualifying was cold but the track was almost dry and it was Nigel Ashman, this year in his Mk XI Cooper Norton, who showed he'd had everybody's share of Wheatabix by claiming pole with a 1:00.367, an excellent time in the conditions and a few hundredths ahead of our resident "Mallory Master" John Turner in his faithful Mk IX. Last year's champion, Mike Fowler, was third a couple of second back, Mike easing himself back into racing with his Mk V. Alongside would be be Martin Sheppard with a respectable 1:03. Row three was made up of coach builder Rod Jolley making a guest appearance in Brian Joliffe's Mk VII and Neil Hodges, struggling with magneto problems in his similar car. Next up were Mike Gilbert and Shirley Monro, followed by Roy Wright, who didn't take the start after discovering a badly cracked chassis, and the Cousy of John Jones. They were followed by Darrell in the Creamer and Richard Bishop-Miller in the early Cooper Mk II. The final row would be taken by Humphrey Collis in the JLR Triumph and Hakan Sandberg in his Cooper. Post-session there were a few problems to resolve. Hakan could not fix the JBS, but was generously offered Brian Jolliffe’s second Cooper Mk VIII (the royal blue car, Rod having the BRG model). Richard Bishop-Miller set about salvaging his clutch, reasoning that for once it wasn’t some broken JAP internals to contend with. Neil Hodges’ problems were traced to a spooked magneto failing to provide a spark.
Race 1 Don Truman Trophy Thirteen cars set off on the green flag lap, but we suddenly lost Mike Fowler, diving for the back entrance of the Paddock (and nearly distracting a couple of others into following him!). Mike spotted what looked like the brake pedal clevis pin rattling around the foot well. Although the brakes were working fine, he rightly decided to check from the safety of the Assembly Area rather than the approach to Gerards. The offending part turned out to be the rev counter drive spindle, and Mike raced to pit exit to tag on to the passing field. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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On lap 2, John looked in control, easing some two seconds from Nigel, who in turn was about four seconds ahead of Rod and Neil, the latter clearly looking for a way through. For the next couple of laps Neil looked for the opportunity, but on lap 4 a rear brake pipe fractured. He would nurse the car home, with a few tyre-smoking moments as he incorrectly guessed his early braking point for the hairpin. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Classified Finishers Main Race | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tailpiece
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