Prologue. The Rockingham Motor Speedway... some background

Corby, Northamptonshire, England - Rockingham Motor Speedway, the first purpose-designed motor racing venue to be built in Great Britain since Brooklands in 1907, will open its doors in May 2001. The new complex with a first phase cost of £ 28 million, is situated mid-way between the A1M and M1 motorways at Corby in Northamptonshire and will introduce American-style, high speed oval racing to Europe.

In addition to a range of different length 'road course' configurations to full international standards, the track will feature a banked, 1.5-mile high speed bowl, similar to such tracks in the USA as Indianapolis. When completed, Rockingham Motor Speedway will feature unprecedented all-seater facilities for spectators, who will see at least 85% of the oval or road circuits from the grandstands.

The spectacle of cars racing on a high speed 'oval' has been denied British motor racing fans since the closure of Brooklands at the start of the Second World War. Since then this type of racing has been largely confined to America where speeds of well over 200mph are regularly recorded for ChampCar, Indy Racing League and NASCAR racing.

It is intended that a key public attraction will be the establishment of the renowned Richard Petty Driving Experience oval racing school at Rockingham. Run by the legendary American racing driver, the school already offers the chance for drivers and passengers at several tracks in America to lap banked ovals in V8-engined NASCAR racing saloons at speeds up to 160mph.

The meeting on 12th and 13th May uses the International Long Car Circuit pictured alongside. The reference speeds are those expected for a competent driver in a Porsche 968 Sport. We'll see what speeds the Clubmans K Sports 1600 and National SuperSports are like this weekend.The proper opening of the circuit is not till Sunday 26th May and our meeting will take place behind closed doors to help the organisers test marshalling, timing and other circuit issues.

Rockingham, when we got there, did not fail to impress. Sure there were problems getting all the trucks and cars into the infield paddock, but that was a minor hardship. In fact when the Rockingham organizers asked the BARC not to chastise us over the tannoy for bringing private cars into the infield there was a sense of relief and respect for the ìclients firstî ethic of the new American style Rockingham business machine. The Rockingham marshals in the paddock were calling each driver ìsirî. All that was missing was ìhave a good dayî.

The facilities at the circuit are stunning. Three monstrous stands dominate the US-style oval speedway. The pits are bigger than any circuit in Britain. The capital has been raised privately, the contractors have been working diligently (even if they were still there in force this weekend struggling to finish for the official opening in two weeks). Poignant that the F.A. Cup Final took place on Saturday at the Millenium Stadium Cardiff, the first time for 78 years that it did not take place at Wembley, a classic sports icon closed and condemned before funding for its reconstruction had been properly secured. We are forced to acknowledge again that Britainís capital funding ethic is pathetic compared to many other countries (notably France with unceasing programmes such as autoroutes, Airbus, Ariane Espace, TGV and the Stade de France). We are pleased to acknowledge that Rockingham is all the greater an achievement given the UK backdrop. I like many others here this weekend wish this circuit many great events and huge wealth for the promoters.

Practice

The Pre-Opening Tester event ran on a combined circuit, i.e. part on the speedway oval and part on the infield road circuit. It seems that one of the applicable regulations of British motor sport ordains that thou shalt not race on a circuit with more than one turn of an oval speedway. I have looked in my CD-ROM copy of the Doomsday Book and indeed it is there. No complaints though, as the road circuit is superb. Itís wide, smooth, undulating, cambered this way, cambered that way, predictable and surprising. There were no rumble strips, just tarmac giving way to earth. So when I decided half way into free practice to try holding fourth gear through the high speed chicane where our oval section gives way to the road section, my right wheel dropped off the tarmac and the impact against the earth was enough to shatter the right front corner of the Mallockís fibre glass bodywork. My first damage to the car. Howard Payne did the same thing much better during qualifying and smashed his entire front sub frame and radiator mountings, strewing remnants of bodywork down the road.

The reference speeds on the Rockingham web site turned out to be pretty accurate. The infield section is complex and busy enough to keep speeds down. The most fascinating part of driving a brand new very wide road circuit is the choice of line. On several corners, notably the double right-angle hairpin at the far side, the fastest line ignores the first apex in order to get the ideal line on the way out under acceleration clipping the second apex. The oval section, banked as it is, provided full throttle sensations and a track width that provided many ideas about the ideal line. Hug the white line. Hug the banking. Enter high, drop down the banking to accelerate, ease away, take a second apex. Etcetera. All at about 130 mph. My utter respect for the talent of the drivers of the US 200 mph monsters on these tracks took another leap upwards.

The other feature of driving a wide circuit with good visibility is how small and how slow the cars ahead look. This is the same optical illusion that makes jumbo jets on the approach to Heathrow seem to fly much slower than small ones. I started off my qualification session behind Brian Jordan, with whom I compared notes on this issue afterwards. There I was keeping station behind him (and avoiding him thankfully when I locked the brakes briefly at the end of the oval section). He seemed to be going so slowly. The a moment later there he was, still going slowly, but a little bit further away from me. So I upped a mental gear and got in the groove, He still appeared to be going slowly as he methodically disappeared into the distance. Frustrating for me. A new part of the learning curve.

As soon as I found a gap in the traffic for a quick one I came up against a couple of slower cars. Dave Madgewick, guest driver from Spedeworth Stock Cars and a long-time hero of mine, came steaming past then had a bit of a moment and backed off. Got round him again. Then someone else. Settled in for a quick one. Peter Clark appeared in my mirrors going like the clappers, pretending to be a go-kart driver, and darted past me, sideways, at the wide hairpin going into the back pit straight.. His qualification time of 1.51.933 was 1½ second faster than Clive Woodward in second, and 9.62 seconds faster than my fastest. Even so the maths is deceiving because he had caught me up to overlap in only 8 laps, after starting the session maybe twenty seconds ahead of me.  That makes an average difference between him and me of maybe 11 seconds per lap! Lord help us.

Ian had tightened up my shock absorbers a couple of notches, and had put a bit more starting pressure in the tyres (a tyre at 14psi cold as going to be running at 18 to 20psi when heated by braking and road friction) to rectify a tendency of the car in the morning practice to lean and dip, briefly, into medium speed corners off the power. Now it was much more stable, cornering flat and much easier to control with power without backing off. Little good did that do for its beginner driver, as I was third slowest in practice (again) in 2í01.553.

Race

The BMWs lined up for the first ever race held at Rockingham and we all lined the rail on top of the pits to watch, jealously, this historic occasion. First time off, one car was stranded at the back of the grid. Red flag. They all lined up again, completed a green flag lap, andÖ they're off. Round turn 1 of the banking an engine gives up the ghost and one poor car slides on its own huge trail of oil. Three others spin but mercifully no-one hits the stricken car wedged into the concrete outer wall. No-one hurt. I'm surveying this scene when another spectator says "Yes well two red flags means that this race will be put back to the end of the day". Crikey. That means K Sports, Race No.2 is on immediately. Dash to the motor home to get the helmet and gloves. Dash to the assembly area to get in the car. Marshals everywhere telling the stragglers to hurry. Get in the carÖ wait. Wait another quarter of an hour while they get the oil cleaned up and the car out of the wall.

But this turn of fate makes BARC's K Sports 1600 Championship race the first race to be run at Rockingham, if we complete it. Having taken earlier a group photo of all our drivers with one of the new cars on the pit straight, the huge stands behind and our cowboy hats thrown in the air in thanks to Rockingham, we now see some marvellous publicity coming our way.

Sure enough, the K Sports cars being pretty reliable and well maintained, we get off to a perfect start and complete the race without major incident. We were the first.

My race was fabulous for a long time. As at Cadwell, and with Ian's car set up similarly to Richard Mallock's (firmer shock absorber settings at the back end as I mentioned above) the car was fighting fit and ready for the adrenaline rush. I was up with the back all the way during the first laps, and got past Jamie Champkin who has become a sparing partner. He majestically/disdainfully got past me immediately. Apparently there were ding-dongs going on all the way through our field and it was a great spectacle for the privileged 5000 in the stands (the event was behind closed doors as a tester and the only tickets were complimentaries from BARC for VIPs).

I was flying. My 2.'01.553 was consigned to the history books as I nailed 1'57.194 somewhere around the middle of the race. The firmer rear suspension meant that I could launch the car into fast corners with the power on much earlier, with the confidence that the down force from the wing would give me the adhesion to stick to the line. On the slow corners, three hairpins, full power in second gear gave fabulous power slides, controlled to the best of my ability to get back up the gears as quickly as possible. It was wonderful fun to be able to hold off Simon Kelly (white and blue in the picture here), going excellently in his dad's Mallock 27/28, and we started closing on some folks ahead of us.

From there it was a blur. The purple mist of exhilaration takes the edge off normal judgement. I would think I was up to 12th or 13th when we came up behind Brian Jordan trying to get past Tony Pouyanne. At the end of the banking I out-braked Brian and made for the apex of the hairpin. I did not see his evasive action but apparently when we turned left he was forced by my move to go straight up the slip road towards the wall of the banking, lost four places and was not best pleased. As he had tripped over the battery cart I was putting into place in between our two cars in the paddock earlier, I had much humble pie to eat and apologies to make afterwards.

My troubles were just beginning. Straight after this outbraking, which lost Tony and I some time as well, all the others in the dice were all over my tail. At the next corner I put my left wheel off the tarmac. Clouds of dust. Dust and pebbles on my wheels. Next corner a skid, corrected. I thought I had a flat tyre. More marbles. At the next hairpin at the far side, big spin. The car rotated gracefully (and harmlessly thank goodness) into the infield crud. Damage to the front wing again, the second of the weekend. The photo shows the damage under the Macmillan logo. Poor Ian will have to get out the fibre glass moulds and rebuild the two damaged front wings before OUlton Park in two weeks' time. By the time I got back on the track again the last man had gone past and I was down to 21st. Disaster. Ignorance. Being a beginner is hardly an excuse because dust is dust and it's logical that adhesion is lost.

The last two laps were almost touring, the only relief being Dave Madgewick, the stock car star - who was excellent throughout the meeting and a great guy to have racing with us - who had bigger problems than me. The new EBX all-enveloping bodywork obviously makes less cooling draft and he was nursing a 100° plus engine. So I stole 20th place and the last single championship point, which I hardly deserved.

Statistics
 

Circuit	Rockingham International Combined	Fastest test lap	not timed
Fastest qualifying lap	2'01.553 = 75.51mph	Qualified in position	20
Conditions	Dry and sunny	Number of cars qualified	22
Fastest race lap	1'57.194 = c. 78.6 mph	Number of cars at start	22
Finishing position	20	Number of cars finished	21
Number of laps behind	same lap	Average speed	74.29 mph

Paddock chat

Up front Peter Clark won the race from Clive Woodward by 1.682 seconds. Peter was delighted to take the winner's garland for the first ever race at Rockingham in front of photographers and TV cameras. But it was James Lindley, in his beautifully repainted red and blue car who held the first ever outright lap record for Rockingham's International Long Car Circuit at 1'51.164. Richard and Sue Mallock were pleased to have Mallock cars in the first 7 places of this first ever race so I hope they can capitalise on that for the business.

The event and the place are utterly splendid. Despite the building works the organisation was excellent. I think the BARC and the other organisations involved performed well under the stress of first time out. We all had a great time, especially as Phil Weaver had organised a barbeque and beer on tap on the Saturday evening. A great outing for Clubmans K Sports 1600.

We are raising £5000 for Macmillan Cancer Relief. Please sponsor me for £1 per championship point I win. Details on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/mbicknell/racing/3relief.htm . Email me on marcus@bicknell.com to make a commitment.