Donington Park 18/19th October 2003

After the US campaign we felt we had better up our game for the last race in the UK series.
I was adamant that I would improve the car after seeing that we were not good enough to win in the US Runnoffs.

We went to Donington with the car to try some new springs and settings and to test two new drivers (who both failed to appear) . Whilst we were there we also tried the new wing on the nose that the Hathaway cars are running. What we found was that it was a big improvement and allowed us to run similar times to their cars but not quick enough to compete with the Carbir at Donington.
A conversation with Ralf Firman, who is now back running the company at Snetterton, meant that he would try to make us some new suspension for the following week. We picked the bits up on Wednesday and Nik worked into the early hours to fit them to our car. Three hours sleep and we were off to Donington to try them out, only to miss the first session due to a puncture on my Land Cruiser!

Dramatic is the only way to describe the result; from a 1.13.6 best before to a 1.12.3 in six laps was incredible. Nik was delighted as he now says the car is transformed and one that is easy to drive. We were unable to better that time as the splitter broke with the extra down-force of the wing. We tried running without the wing and the times were half a second slower, although the car was faster down the straight.

We had no time to fine- tune the car at all, and just guessed at the damper and roll-bar settings. The day finished with us very happy at the overall achievement.

Back home and another full day that ran into midnight before we had the car back at Donington for the race.

Qualifying was just great as Nik put the car on pole with nearly a two second cushion, and a 1.12.3 time the same as our test time.

Come the race it was to be altogether different as both the Lola of Gilbert and the Carbir of Manderson were able to catch and pass Nik. Try as he may both of those cars were just too quick down the straight. Nik was delighted with the handling of the car and he knows he was better round Redgate than the Carbir, better at the Old Hairpin than the Lola and as good everywhere else, but lost out down the straight.

We can only assume that we had too much aero on the car and we need to trim it out a little.
All in all a good day, as we found real car drivability and this is only the first stage of Ralf’s redesign.
Nik finished second overall and first in class, as Chris Gilbert and Matt Mandersen had a coming together at the final esses, Nik was in the pound seats and able to see the whole thing, his version of it will be classified until 2010 or you can read it in his memoirs!

A sincere thank you to Ralf Firman , Derek, Trevor and Colin at Van Diemen. Also many thanks to all of you who followed Nik’s progress in the US via the Internet, we were pleasantly surprised how many of you were enthralled by the coverage. A big thank you also to our wives who kept the firm going while we were away.

We look forward to next season and the good friends we share our racing with, and the new ones we hope to meet. I have cars for next year to sell both new and used, both pinto and Duratec, all will be updated if required and backed by us.

Keep checking the web site as we will update you on events and sales.

Les Johnson