Well I say set off, but we didn't even make it out of the garage at home. The Mercedes battery was flat. Got that going. 80 miles to Castle Combe down the M4. Round the roundabouts at Chippenham, then I heard clunk clunk and looked in the mirror. Pieces of rubber flying off one of the trailer tyres and smoke. We pulled off smartly and set about fixing the blown tyre. Mercifully it had lasted until we were off the motorway. I had not yet taken the spare wheel off its mounts on the trailer, which were securely fastened with the rust of ages, so that took us half an hour. Then finding a way to jack the trailer up. Anyway we made it to the circuit in time for sign-on, new driver briefing, scrutineering and qualifying. Allan Elphick, ace driver and the previous owner of the car, was there to give me some support and some fine tips on driving the car. We made a good team.

There were some kindred spirits in this GT race, like Mallock owners. The sponsor, Rupert Crook of Moonraker Fork Lifts, has a newly-EBX'd Mallock 27 SG and is very pleased with the way the all enveloping bodywork feels. He probably enjoys the extra power of the Ford 1800 cross flow engine too.  I had spoken to him by phone during the week at Richard Mallock's suggestion and he was very hospitable (like squeezing some space out of a crowded paddock for me to park up). By the way Richard, now that the all enveloping bodywork is accepted in K Sports and is running well in other categories, would it not be fair to say that it is no longer "experimental"? The X of EBX stood for experimental, so isn't it the time to drop it? Rupert's would be a Mallock 27 SG EB.

Other Mallocks there were David Smith with a 1600 cc Vauxhall engine in a Mallock Mk.28, and Peter Hobday in the familiar rear-engined Mallock P20 Lynx/Vauxhall. There were a couple more as late entries and I'll report on them when I find the results sheet!

Qualifying

So I got 19th on the grid out of 24, and nothing broke on the car. Yippee.

Bob Light did 1'04... 12 seconds quicker.

Race

As with Ian's car I get a great start in first and second gear then get overhauled in third and fourth. Strange. Must be gear box ratios. Has anyone got an idea? I had backed off the wing from 7° back to 5°, but the difference was not that noticeable. The car was still nice and stable.

We all got cleanly through Quarry and the first chicane. I had made up two places, one of them round the outside of Quarry (picture), so that was satisfying. But then the cars with more power slowly started drawing away despite my best efforts. I started to get better speed through Camp but improved my qualifying time by less than one tenth of a second to 1'16.09 (by my lap timer). On lap 6 the leader came through. I was assiduous with the mirrors and three or four came through with my full cooperation and a momentary lift of the throttle as required. On my 7th lap out of 12 I could see two huge cars pounding up Dean Straight towards Camp, but well behind me. At Camp they were nearly on my tail. The flags were still out for oil on the outer part of the corner which a Tuscan had left and which we had all seen, so I was not about to go round the outside at 110mph. I turned into the right hander (mindful of the progress I was making with that corner, and at what seemed to me like a terrific speed) when the first of them (maybe Lane Robinson's 2 litre Zeus Vauxhall) hit me square in the back of the car, bending the venturi but apparently not damaging the wheels or anything else. I will check tomorrow.

Anyway, I was shunted smartly off the racing line, spnning slowly clockwise. At Pembrey I froze rabbit-like and did nothing much. This time a I got on the brakes and stayed on the road going sideways for 100 yards or so until I was tossed off into the grass verge heading for the armco at the paddock exit. Mercifully the car stopped a foot from the wall! I jumped out without a blemish and leapt over the barrier like 7th time Barrichello. The other car was long gone. The incident had made as much impact on him as a tetse fly on a hippopotamus.

I don't know what made me think of a coconut shy this evening. The speed differential is so great between the 3 and 4 litre Le Mans prototypes and little me with a sealed 120 hp engine, that the Castle Combe Special GT's reputation is surely warranted. Each overlapping move is an accident waiting to happen. It seems as though we are just there for target practise. Each time as big car MISSES a little one, it's the ball that misses a coconut. Then the car that punted me off was the one ball which did hit a coconut. "A teddy bear or a plastic revolver to that man".

No picture of my crash I'm afraid, but here's the damage.

Bob Light did not win. Mike Roberts I think got it, but I'll check and get back to you. I was too busy getting grass out of the nose, mud and gravel off the tyres and egg off my face. Roll on K Sports. Such nice people.
 

Statistics
 

Circuit	Castle Combe	Fastest test lap	Tested in the wet two weeks previously, no times
Fastest qualifying lap	1'16.115	Qualified in position	19
Conditions	Overcast but dry	Number of cars qualified	24
Fastest race lap	1'16.09	Number of cars at start	24
Finishing position	DNF	Number of cars finished	18
Number of laps behind	I was being lapped by the leaders when a front-runner pushed me off at Camp.	Average speed	87.6 mph