Castle Combe July 19th

This meeting saw team Westlake visiting Castle Combe circuit near Bristol. Nick raced last year at this track so knew what to expect, however, Cris had never experienced racing at this track before. As qualifying got underway, Nicks session was cut short after only 6 laps as he suffered clutch problems. As the 15 minute qualifying session ended, Cris’ lap times were slightly lower than he had hoped and slotted in 29th position on the grid for the start of the first race. Nick managed to secure a much better position of 16th on track, placing him 4th in class.

As soon as Nick had bought the car into the pits, the bonnet was up and parts were being taken out at a rate of knots. Team Westlake had a huge amount of work to do as a clutch change would normally take 4-5 hours – however, we only had a couple of hours before the start of the first race so with the stop watch running – the boys got to work! Nick, Matt, Mark and Karl stripped out the gear box, which was still at a burning temperature, replaced the clutch and had the car back in one piece within 2 hours. After giving it a quick test, it all seemed ok and they were back out on the track.

As race one started, Nick got a great start and pushed steadily through the field without giving a second thought to the previous clutch problems. He ended up finishing 12th in position and 3rd in class.

Cris thankfully got to know the circuit and finally started putting in some respectable lap times. From a start position of 29th Cris was extremely pleased when he found out he had finished 13th. This secured Cris’ award for V.A.G ‘Driver of the Race’ for his achievement of a 4th place finish in class.

As the day moved on and the black clouds loomed over head, the team pulled out the wet weather tyres. Thankfully they passed without a speck of rain insight and the cars were able to stay on their slick tyres. A few minor suspension adjustments were made and the cars were sent to the grid again for the second race.

Nick started 12th and Cris 13th and as the rolling start crossed the line, they both managed to hold their positions. Nick very quickly passed Mark Hosken in the BackDraft Motor Sport Audi TT and Cris kept his position following the pair of them. A little further into the race and Cris passed the Audi TT and was hot on Nicks tail, however with Nicks tidy driving and very similar car set up it wasn’t going to be easy for Cris to pass him. By lap 5 Cris was passed and started to pull out a gap, closing down on 2nd and 3rd placed class B cars, Andy Thompson and Paul Dickinson, both Seat Cupra Cup Cars. Unfortunately, before Cris really had a chance to challenge them both, he ran into a gearbox problem and was unable to select some of the gears he needed at very crucial moments. We saw his lap times falling and Nick soon passed Cris and secured 3rd place in class. However, even though Cris was frustrated with the cars problems, he was overjoyed to hear that he had managed a lap time of 1:16.2 the fastest lap time of any of the Cupra Cup Cars that day.

It would seem that Cris’ car setup was slightly better than Nicks on this occasion, but leaves them with positive prospects for Brands Hatch next month.

As a great day closed, team Westlake left with 3 awards and see’s Nick and Cris leading 1st and 2nd respectively in the Championship in class B.

All good achievements only made possible with the support of a great team. A big thanks to Matt, Mark and Karl for their great team work.