Just
a year ago I went to Brands with Christopher as a spectator to see the
Winter Series races. We saw the Mallock of Tim Covill. We talked to dad
Martin Covill. They came. They conquered. From then on my mind was set
on racing a K Sports Mallock, and sure enough that's what I did in the
2001 season. So the Winter Series is a celebration of that meeting, and
a bit of fun.
At the same time, I have acquired the yellow Mallock Mk 26/27 SG from Allan Elphick and need some track time to shake it down and see what needs doing over the winter. So I entered this Snetterton race, and the one next weekend at Brands. What I hardly reckoned on was the amount of shaking down that would happen and the amount of work to do short term. I had repaired some of the nose cones and Richard Mallock had made me two new ones including a high-downforce nose-cone. I do tend to spin, and they are just so low to the ground that any hump in the grass is enough to break them. This picture lies. I took four nose-cones to Snetterton and the Covills have dubbed me "4 nose-cone Bicknell".
Son Christopher, aged 12, was my chief mechanic and Director of Trackside
Support for the day, and he was excellent at the paddock work like cleaning
mud off the car, changing wheels etc. But I was without the slick organisation
and cool influence of Ian Megson, whose car I rented in K Sports 1600 in
2001.
Tim Covill brought his EBX and rookie Adrian Lester brought his new
EBX acquired from ASCAR ace Phil Weaver. We parked up together and the
Covills, in their usual generosity and bonhomie, let me work under their
canopy and benefit, as it turned out, from their technical expertise.
Testing
Bear in mind that this would be the first time that I not only drive the race car but also tow the car to the circuit, prepare it, get it scrutineered, check the levels, change to slicks, change the set up for the dry, etc. etc. I had come up for testing on the Friday which turned out to be a disaster. I missed my first session because I could not get the car ready in time. On the first lap of the second session, the water temperature shot past 120° and off the scale. I got back into the pits, but by the time we had freed the airlock, let it cooled down and topped it up the session was over. In the third session I got going alright (although in pouring rain out the back) and completed 7 or 8 laps before the engine started dying on me... I crept round the Bomb Hole and then the engine gave up completely on Coram Curve. By the time we got the engine's electronic management system going (thanks to Paul Freeman by phone), the fourth and last session had finished. A wasted day.
I did have some incentive to work on the car on Saturday, including stripping down the master switch where the electrical problem started... it was full of water drops a day later! And then back again to Snett early on Sunday.
Qualifying
Scrutineering took a long long time.
By the time they released me we were in a hurry to change from wet tyres
to slicks and get to the qualifying session. I got to the assembly area
just in time. When the marshall stooped to look for my scrutineering ticket
I realised to my horror that I had forgotten to tape it into the car! First
big mistake of a regime without Ian Megson and his method! So I had to
drive back to the paddock, get out of the car (no-one else around), find
the car keys, get the ticket out of my jacket pocket, back into the car,
get the belts done up, drive back to assembly. That lost me 7 
minutes
out of 15 minutes for qualifying.
Off I went. The car was handling much better on the slicks in the cold dry than it did on the wets. By lap two I was beginning to come up to speed. Coming out of the chicane at the back, pulling to the top of second gear, there was crunch as something let go, and a clattering sound as if the prop shaft was scraping along the road. I pulled of at a marshal's post and waited for the end of the session and a truck to lift me back to the paddock. I was pretty certain, not having completed 3 laps, that I would not be allowed to race. Even if I got the car fixed it would be unlikely to be ready in time to complete qualifying with another class before the racing started in 40 minutes. So I resigned myself to joking with the marshals and some nearby spectators who were amused to find a driver with a dead car who was not kicking his helmet to death and cursing all and sundry.
Back at the Covill Encampment with
the car we took the top off and found the differential had given up the
ghost. The drive pinion was stripped. At the same time, Christopher came
back with the timekeepers' verdict... I had qualified! 4th slowest, but
qualified. 
One
of the Clerk's assistants said that the green flag lap before forming up
on the grid would be enough to complete the 3 laps for qualifying. Fair
enough. Thanks.
The bad news was that we now had to make an effort to get the car going. Two hours and 10 minutes. I had not brought a spare diff. The Covill spare was a Ford diff which did not fit in my BMC axle housing. Glenn Eagling up the road was on holiday. Phone Barry Foley near Ipswich... YES! He had one, sitting in the garage. Off I went, with Cathy Covill kindly navigating, 40 minutes there, 40 minutes back. The Covills mechanic friend Lal and son Carl had everything ready for a quick fitting session. Diff in. Fill with diff oil. Top up the petrol. Refit the cockpit wall, replace the bonnet and nose cone. Check the tyre pressures. Get into my race suit. Engine fires up. First gear, and the car pulls away okay. Yippee. Drive to the assembly area, last to arrive and 5 minutes to spare.
Race
The sensation of being the beneficiary of the great Clubmans Co-operative Spirit (see the report on the Pembrey race in the summer when everyone changed Adrian Brown's engine in an hour and a half) was a good one. The sensation of lining up in front of those red lights on the grid with 25 other cars ready to go after such an ordeal was tremendous.
Given
that Barry Foley had shown me some pitting on the drive pinion in his diff,
and knowing that it could break up under the load of racing at full tilt,
I determined to start off quite easily, short-shifting to keep the stress
on the pinion as low as possible. It worked. I kept out of trouble in the
first two bends (luckily as there was a multi-car shenanigans at the right-angle
leading into Revitts Straight) and then started picking up the pace.
Adrian Lester, in his first ever race, was ahead of me, looking smooth. We got past a couple of Westfields and I locked onto his back to have a look and bide my time. Three laps later he made a small mistake at the chicane at the end of Revitts which was enough for me to out drag him between the Bomb Hole and Corams. The leaders (2 and 3 litre Jade sports cars, 2 big Radicals and a flame-spitting Porsche 911 RS Turbo) came screaming through to keep us busy. Then a bit later they came screaming through again. Autosport called them "indecently fast" in their report of the race. The pretty Global Lights (600 cc motorbike engines) were not far behind (see the picture left). The leader was doing 1'07s against our 1'23s! I got a 1'22.332 in, the same as with Ian's car at the K Sports race here where I did a 1'22.401 in the race. Allan Elphick says I should be doing 1'18s... in your dreams sir. Another year or two maybe.
Then the chequered flag was out. Made it! Qualified just, got to the grid just, finished the race. It was a very satisfying feeling.
Statistics
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Circuit
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Fastest test lap
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Fastest qualifying lap
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Qualified in position
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Conditions
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Number of cars participating
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Fastest race lap
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Number of cars at start
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Finishing position
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Number of cars finished
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Number of laps behind
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Average speed
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Paddock chat
Well, thanks Martin and all the Covill team. Thanks Barry for the diff. I am deciding in the next day whether to run it at Brands on Sunday or fit my other one. Or even do the politically-correct thing and run the 3.9 diff. Check it out on this site next week!
I have got some pictires from Snetterton now and one is at the top of
this report. Tim, did yours come out?