The Peter Hall Memorial 6 Hour Relay.

Planning our entry around 6 cars/drivers, the unfortunate withdrawal of the 2 Cobras left us with the following group.

Peter Mac/Bolwell Mk.7

Barry Schultz/ASP clubman

Norm Clements/Clemente clubman

Chris Westren/Roaring GT40

A beaut little competent team that couldn't afford to get any littler.

We approached the event with a feasible game plan that did come unstuck a bit. Practice the day before for 3 of the 4 cars enabled those drivers to set their lap times which turned out to work very well on the day for them.

One remaining driver, who works on Saturdays, didn't have that luxury and only had the opportunity for 5 cold laps on Sunday morning and tried to set a time from that. As you know, the 6 hour is a regularity event and lap times are critical. With this (as it turned out) inappropriate time, the number of breakouts was huge which pushed us down the list at the end of the day. We are gradually getting better though. 2 years ago we were 2nd to last and last year we were 3rd to last. This year we came 4th to last. The Bolwell ran well all day as did the ASP. The Clemente succumbed to mechanical problems, fortunately after Norm had completed his 10%. The GT40 sported brand new Wilwood front brakes which proved to be very effective but huge pad wear resulted in Chris doing his last few laps in the Bolwell. Club member, Chris Gascoigne, running in MX5 team 2 shared last place with his fellow team members. Actually, Chris G ran pretty well all day doing more than his share. It wasn't his fault that the rest of the team dropped out leaving him high and dry. Meanwhile, former Bolwell member, Ian Duncan, in MX5 team 1, hit the wall rather heavily and we were concerned for his well-being. However, he later appeared in one of the other team cars. Being a bit incapacitated, I was lucky to be able to take a seat in the press box and do my calculations and relay via lap recorder extraordinaire, Dino's radio, instructions to deputy team manager, Greg. Our neighbours, the Puma team, came one place ahead of us.

For consistency, a team of only HQs or Excels would be good.

Evidence of this was the "Sexcells" team coming third and the Scouts team (comprising Hyundais owned by the Scout Association) did pretty well too.

In the carpark we find Dino's 7....

.....another Clemente....

....the new owner prepared to recognise it as such..... and I managed to get a spot in the area reserved for black MR2s.