Oulton Park (Gold Cup) Race.

I was looking forward to Oulton Park. It’s one of the countries best tracks and we were entered in two races. firstly a 20 minute HSCC points race and later in the day a one hour, two driver race for pre-1966 Touring Cars.

First job was to learn the circuit, so we had two 20 minute test sessions on Saturday morning. One for me to learn the 2.7 mile Oulton Park International circuit and one for Jeff the second driver who already knows the track, but doesn’t know the car. The weather was unpredictable all weekend, so mine was dry and jeffs was wet.

It’s a great circuit and it was clear that it suited the Beetle much better than Mallory Park. Lack of time meant that the car was unchanged from the last round, so we were still lumbered with a 4th gear that was too tall, meaning no acceleration on the faster parts of the track, which was firstly ruining our lap times and secondly making it hard for us to defend ourselves on the straights during the race. Compounding the problem was that we were still 55kg overweight (despite losing 10kg myself!!) and ran out of time to squeeze the extra 10-15bhp from the motor.



Still....Things were looking good. We weren’t far off the pace and what we were losing on the straights, we were making back under braking and through the corners.

Firstly my qualifying for the 20 minute race was dry. I went out behind a Mini Cooper which I could match on power but in the corners it kept slowing me down. I put up with it for a lap, then pulled back to make some space. With a clear lap I out-qualifed the Mini by 1.5 seconds. My best time was a 2:24 which put me 4th in class and 19th out of 23 cars. ahead of an Austin A40, Alfa Romeo Guilia Sprint GT and two Mini Coopers. The Mini mentioned earlier, didn’t make the grid so it’s place was taken up by a 4.7 litre Ford Mustang (I managed to keep the Mustang behind me for 2 corners!!)

In the race I passed a Hillman Imp and another Alfa Sprint off the start, but at the same time lost positions to the remaining Mini behind me and the Mustang. On the first lap the Tacho started playing up, meaning that the needle was going all over the place, then as the race went on it was clear that I had some electrical fault which was cutting the ignition, sometimes for a split second and other times for more than 5 seconds, which enabled the Imp and Alfa to re-pass me. With every lap the electrics got worse with the tacho developing a mind of its own, dash lights going on and off and the engine stumbling, then eventually on lap 6 the Beetle finally ground to a halt, which was a shame as without the problems we were looking like a 15th place finish and a 2nd in class!

Back in the paddock we checked the wiring and tightened the battery terminals in the hope that it would help as our 1 hour race was fast approaching. We entered the 1 hour ‘Tourist Trophy’ race just for fun as it was clear, looking at the opposition that we were going to start (and finish!) near the back. The only cars that we knew we could beat were a 1500cc Sunbeam Rapier S3 and the 1600cc Alfa Guilia Sprint GT that i’d out-qualified in the earlier race. The rest of the cars were far too quick for the Beetle in its current state.

Then in qualifying it rained and the form book went straight out of the window. In the rain the Beetle on its crossply tyres was a real handful but with the weight over the rear wheels and less power than everyone else, we were able to get better traction out of the corners and found ourselves qualifying 11th out of 16 cars. Ahead of the Sunbeam Rapier, two 1600cc Alfa Sprint GTs, a 1500cc Ford Anglia 105E and a 3800cc Jaguar S Type!

In the race...to make sure that we could see where we were going, we switched on the heated windscreen (JK part No. J15327) Jeff did the first 30 minute stint in the pouring rain and had fun right from the start with the Beetle spinning its wheels then bogging down with the engine going off-cam as he backed off to get more traction from the cold tyres. This cost him quite a few places off the start, but once under way the Beetles wet weather performance and Jeffs experience payed off and he was soon back up to 11th place. Then over the next half hour he managed to pass a 1600cc Lotus twincam powered Ford Cortina...Things are looking good! Then it was my turn. The pitstop and driver change were quite slow for us, so as I left the pits the Ford ‘Lotus’ Cortina which had a quicker pitstop left ahead of me, so it was my job to retake the position. Unfortunately I hadn’t done many wet laps at Oulton, so I was quite cautious for the firat few laps in the changeable conditions, whereas Jason who was driving the Cortina for the whole race had already had 30 minutes in the rain already and knew where the grip was. I managed to match his lap times ‘just’, but there was no way I was going to be able to catch and pass him. The track was lethal in places and on some corners it was like driving on ice! There was so much water entering the first corner that the car aquaplaned as you approached what was normally a 70mph corner for the Beetle in the dry, which was focusing! The other corners that were bad were the Brittons chicane and druids corner, both which I had to do at less than half the speed that I was doing in the dry. One thing I was pleased about though was that we had no major electrical issues and despite the fact that the car has no door seals, no opening windows and our race suits and boots were damp, the windscreen stayed completely clear for the whole race which apart from being safer, certainly helped our lap times.

One thing that amazed me was that in the wet the track would change on every lap, so you never knew where the grip was. The trick in the wet normally is to drive on the sections of the track that aren’t regularly used as there is less rubber on these areas meaning the surface is more porous, allowing the water to sink into the tarmac, rather than sitting on top.

As the race neared a close, two things happened. Firstly I lapped one of the Alfas and the Cortina that I was chasing pulled off the circuit.

Relieved that we’d managed to stay on the track for a whole hour I crossed the finish line in 10th place, 47 seconds ahead of the Jaguar, 52 seconds ahead of the No.39 Alfa and over 3 minutes ahead of the No.30 Alfa. The winning car was a 4.7 litre Ford Mustang with two 1293cc Mini Coopers 3 and 6 seconds behind it! This is what I love about Historic Touring Car Racing, the David and Goliath battles featuring the 400+bhp muscle cars that are quick on the straights and small European cars that are quick in the bends.

To see the in-car movie of the Oulton Park HSCC race visit the Tech Tips section of the website. Sorry there’s no sound again, but the cameras microphone doesn’t seem to like the ignition system on the car and all you get is noise. (new ‘broadcast’ quality camera planned for next season)

The final HSCC points race for us is Brands Hatch this Sunday 13th Sept 2009 (although I’m tempted by a BeetleChallenge round also at Brands and an HSCC race at Silverstone, both later in the year)

I'm looking forward to Brands again and next week i’ll tell you all about it!

Ian