Brands Hatch 17/18th April 2004

The 2004 season starts with lights to flag win for Nik in the Duratec, and a win in the Pinto series for Rupert Russell.

I thought it was prudent to hold my reports and general information on our winter activities, until we had run at least the first race.

Lights to flag win for Nik and an excellent 7th (4th fastest lap) from 21st on the grid for Dennis Pavlina. Click for full size picture.

We finished 2003 with major improvements to the car for the last round at Donington, resulting in a second place but with some suspected aero problems. The new rules for the series outlawed the extra splitter as run by the Hathaway drivers, which we had tried for that race. The removal of that option made us redesign the original splitter over the winter period, along with some other work to the body panels and aerodynamic improvements. These modifications and the use of new spring rates have been a positive step forward.

We tested at Silverstone using 2003 tyres on the National circuit, the weather was dry and cool, track conditions that were very favourable and this may have helped our best time of 58.7 seconds and a bunch of 58.8 laps.

Nik had previously set a pole time of 59.3, so a good half second a lap improvement was we think significant, and this was after taking a jig saw to the splitter which we found to be giving us too much down force.

We have two Duratec cars, the four- speed car that Nik ran in selected races last year and the five speed ex Timpany car. We are able therefore to use different settings on each car to help us find the better one. We only ran the four- speed at Silverstone and left that set-up for our guest driver from the USA, Dennis Pavlina.

Eric Purcell in the States runs Dennis, and Dennis expressed a wish to do a race or two over here, he was at Brands Hatch for the first meeting.

Opening round at Brands Hatch.

We were delighted to have Dennis Pavlina as a guest driver in one of our cars for the opening round at Brands Hatch. Dennis (48) has been a club racer in the States for some years; he is currently driving a Doran sports car with a BDA engine in the West Coast series. Dennis tested with us on Friday and quickly settled into what he described as the best handling car he has driven. Over the course of the day he got down to a very respectable 1.33-second lap, only to have the engine tighten during the last session.

Nik only ran a few laps in the other car as he had never driven it on track and we just wanted to see if it was OK for the Saturday. I didn’t time him as he was running with Dennis to watch the car etc.

We now had to make some rapid decisions, we had another engine back in Lincolnshire and so a call to my other son Richard saw him come to our rescue. Richard loaded the engine and drove down the A1 to meet me, whilst Nik removed the broken one from the car.

By one thirty next morning it was installed and in the daylight Neil and his “angels” from Pride engines finished the fuel system whilst we sorted all the other bits ready for qualifying.

The engine fired up straight away and the last water, and oil were added as the call came for us to go to assembly. ( many thanks to Dave Isles who came and reset the fuel pressure)

Nik’s car ran perfectly and he set a pole time of 1.31.3, I sidelined Dennis after a few gentle laps, as the oil pressure was reading far too high, but at least he was on the grid for the race. The fault turned out to be just a loose wire but I couldn’t afford to risk the engine and forfeit the race.

We returned to the Motor home and opened a bottle of Champaign; I felt that we had earned that after the pressure of the last few hours; we had both cars qualified and one on pole.

We worked until three pm and then took Dennis into London and around the sites to give us all a break.

The Race.

A very wet day was a big disappointment for our guest, he felt that in the dry he could improve his lowly 21 st on the grid and be well up at the finish. We did not have any “wet” settings for the new spring rates so we just guessed at them and hoped the cars would be drivable on the wet and slippery track.

Nik got a good start and pulled away from the rest quickly, only to have the race stopped for cars that had gone off. Dennis was at least still there and on the restart he made a solid effort to drive through the field to finish seventh with the fourth fastest time. He was pleased with that but is sure he can do better! Lets hope he returns later in the year to see if that is the case!

Nik had a trouble free run to the flag and was very happy with the level of grip and balance of the car.

We are going to be racing in the USA again this year to try to make improvements to the car and achieve a good result at the Runnoffs, because of this we will not be at all the rounds of the UK series.

Thanks to Scot our new young helper and as always to Van Diemen, Ralf, Derek, Colin and Trevor. Also to David Fox for the help with the bodywork.

Colin Feyerbend has again worked tirelessly for us all to get the best venues and track time and we record our thanks.

The Pinto race saw a great result for Rupert Russell in his Van Diemen, Rupert set a very quick pole time in the dry and was able to convert this into his first win for some time. This could be the year for Rupert and we hope that those drivers without a car yet, will see that the Van Diemen is the one to have!!

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