My 2002 Season by Mike Turner

After a season that saw me finish only 2 races out of 11 without problems you could say things have been pretty bad!

However having eventually traced the problem to a faulty distributor the last 3 events of the year did at least show that some progress was being made with the Van Diemen sports 2000.

At the start of the year I was very worried that it might be time to stop racing having struggled to beat the lap times set in my previous car a Shrike P15. Having raced this car for 4 years and having been a regular front runner I decided it was time to move on.Having followed Nik during 2001 I thought the Van Diemen looked a good car to have. After selling the P15 and doing a deal with Les and Nik for the purchase of the 2001 championship winning car I looked forward to 2002 with great optimism.

The first test at Silverstone proved very disapointing , not being able to get within one second of previous times. At the first race I began to understand we could have engine problems.The chassis felt good with just some understeer I felt we could dial out with testing. A trip to the rolling road showed we were 22bhp down on what the engine should have produced! After suitable adjustments the engine did produce the proper readings. Off to Spa and in testing things seemed much improved.Practice day and pouring rain saw me into the barrier and out of the meeting – driver error!

The next few events showed we were still struggling with the engine. Out it came and back to the engine builder who quickly diagnosed the problem, basically the distributor was scrap.

With the engine re built and a new distributor in place off we went to Silverstone again – bingo 3rd place! That seemed more like it.

However although we had wasted most of the season at least we could now start to tune the handling to my liking,something we should have been doing in March.

After changing springs and going softer on settings I do feel the car is much nicer to drive and I am starting to get to grips with it. As Nik has proved the car is more than capable of winning and I have no doubt that we are going in the right direction.

The car does react to changes of suspension settings which must be a good sign. It also very quick in a straight line, I guess good arodynamics must be a strong point here.

In terms of preparation we have hardly changed anything all year,the car seems as strong as a tank! Just nothing moves or breaks – great news for any club driver. Setting up is pretty simple and so long as you don t start going agricultural the settings do not move much.

Despite a disapointing year things are looking better. Thanks to great support from Les and Nik which has certainly helped in the darker moments I am not ready to stop yet. Roll on 2003!