Apr
9
Dan Cammish: A frustrating weekend at Oulton
Hello everyone and welcome to my latest blog. It has been a long winter and unlike last season I am no longer a ‘rookie’ which meant there was much less testing to be done. The first time I sat in a car this year was way down under in Australia. Some pre-season testing had been planned with Spectrum manufacturer Borland Racing Developments and I had two weeks of sunshine to test some new parts. After 5 long days of testing with hundreds of miles under our belts it was time for home, which happened to be covered in snow. This was great news for myself as it meant others hadn’t had much testing on the new Dunlop tyre. Which I believe is a welcome addition to the Ford championship as with its long life should help to bring costs down.
After just 4 days testing in England we were rapidly approaching the first race of the season which was to be held over Easter Bank Holiday at the Oulton Park circuit. This time last year I qualified 2nd and had a podium in my first ever car race. Unfortunately there was no front row starting position this year, however starting from 5th I still managed 3rd in race 1 which was a good result.
All weekend we had been expecting rain with forecasts showing heavy showers for all days bar Sunday, obviously. Gladly they never came and all our races were held in dry conditions. After qualifying 5th for the Saturday race and 4th twice for the two Sunday races I was in a good position to score some excellent points and get my Championship under way. 3rd in the first race of the weekend was a good result but a little disappointing to be so far behind the leader.
Race 2 saw me make an excellent start vaulting from 4th to 2nd by turn one. Pole man Scott Pye and Josh Hill collided which left a 3 car train of myself Scott Malvern and Antti Burri scampering into the distance. The race was going well for me and I was comfortable behind Malvern with 3 laps to go, however I knew this was my chance to get that 1st race win of my Ford Career. I made my move into Lodge corner having to drive around the outside of Scott as he took the defensive inside line. I managed to brake as late as possible and tried to cut back to the inside of Scott but he hung me on the outside. I hadn’t made it so I conceded and tried to tuck in behind once more. To my horror I felt the engine die as I hit the throttle, it came back a few seconds later but Burri had driven clean past me by this point. I knew this feeling, I had felt it before and knew what was coming. I knew I was either out of fuel or we had a pickup problem and after suffering with this for 2 tests pre-season I knew it was the latter. I did all I could on the final two laps to keep the engine alive, throwing the car from side to side hoping to get some fuel into the engine. I made it to line but I couldn’t hold onto my podium place and finished 4th. It was disappointing to have gifted away my podium not to mention the possibility of my first win. But it will come.
Between races 2 and 3 the Kevin Mills team did all they could to find the problem but like in pre-season testing it had evaded us. The only option was to add more fuel. I started race 3 from 4th again and made another good start, 3 in a row now which is unusual for me, so I’m hoping it has finally clicked. I tried to hang on round the outside of turn 1 but ended up running wide onto the grass and I lost a position or two. I quickly gained one back at the end of the lap into Lodge and settled into 5th. 3 laps in and I was struggling with big oversteer and losing the pack ahead. Then bang, I was hit from behind under braking to turn 1, I somehow kept it out of the wall and continued but I knew we had damage. The car was crabbing in a straight line and swerved under braking. I managed to finish the race in 9th position which was very disappointing but it could of been much worse. I had a fair bit of damage to my right rear corner and how I even finished was a miracle. What’s worse is that on the final lap my mysterious fuel problem returned and I lost my 8th place with only 2 corners to go, very frustrating.
But now we have 5 weeks until Knockhill, a circuit we know will suit our car and I hope my next blog will bring news of my first victory. Although its probably best to make sure we can actually make it to the finish at full speed this time.
Regards
Dan Cammish
Oh, don’t forget to follow my progress throughout the season at www.danielcammish.co.uk