So "How did it unfold ?" I hear you ask...
Well for
Morgans For Fun it went something like this;
The handicapper knows Morgans very well, we've been doing the Birkett is some shape or form since the 50s, added to that we have a very successful Challenge Race Series so he's never short of accurate timings. The best you can do really is ensure his not giving your team a raw deal whilst pointing out any glaring errors with your rivals, however he will only consider solid evidence not heresay ! All I can say is that the Morgan times looked sensible.
It was WET, WET, WET, there was never a dry line - only the degree of wetness and precipitation varied. This never helps us on road tyres, given that many Teams run in Series that permit full wets.
So we sent out Stuart Anderson in the Bumble Bee to start, safe and steady in poor conditions. We always have 6 cars and try and give everybody an equal share of the driving, ideally with onl;y 5 changeovers. Very quickly Stuart's hour was done and we brought him in on schedule. Off went Tim 'hero' Harrison in the Orange Rocket his Snetterton maladies hopefully consigned to history and all went well for 50 minutes when he arrived in the pit lane very slowly and wisps of smoke/steam eminating from the car (holed radiator). No matter Paul Burry was belted up and ready so no real time lost, then just as we were all begining to relax the tannoy hailed "Oh no the red Morgan has tangled with a Radical and the Smart car..." (yes Team Smart Car), Morgan continues Smart beached. Paul arrives as anticipated with a very bent front wing and is unable to participate further. Off you go Kelvin, 3 and a 1/2 hours to go and only 3 cars Hmmm...OK we'll stretch the stints out and ask each to do 1 hour and 10 minutes, that should do it. So after an hour we give Kelvin the FUEL ? signal asking him if he is OK for fuel, in the frantic gloom Kelvin mis-reads the board and cheerfully arrives at the pit ! Well we know Barry Sumner in the yellow VMO will enjoy the wet as long as I want him to. And so it proves until he comes in early (coolant problem) and throws us back into improvisation mode. Jack is away in WAR and relishing another spectacular drive in the rain (think Brands with steroids) he is truly heroic in the again worsening conditions, but he has no fuel gauge and nobody really knows how long after an hour he can run. Just before we bring him in he produces a stunning series of laps and claims the team's fastest lap of the race (boy those new compound AVON CR6ZZs are good). In the meantime we have readied Kelvin and he goes again, Stuart takes the graveyard shift sitting belted in the car until the end just in case another problem befalls us - thankfully it didn't
Well that's about all you need to know, the results I don't have to hand (and don't like reading), apart from my "Thank Yous" to the whole team of stalwart supporters and helpers - most noteably Liz Burry, her friends Marlene and Sue, and Mary Oliver - for what has become legendary catering (and comestibles for Bob). Liz was also my right hand girl for the day and I couldn't have done it without her
We were
Morgans and we had a lot of
Fun
Andy