Silverstone Report-June 2

Silverstone - June 2, 2001

Team:-

Andy Scott	Tim Sopp
Gary Scott	Andy Lofthouse
Will Scott	Martin Dickson
Phil Belcher	Rob Coombs
Sean Nash
Transporter Driver:	Jack Hobbs

Saturday June 2
Silverstone played host to Rounds 7 and 8 of the British Touring Car Championship. The meeting, staged on the 2.249 mile International circuit, was classed as a night meeting, with the Feature Race starting at 10 'clock on the Saturday evening. The Free Practice, Qualifying and the Sprint Race also took place on the Saturday.

This meant that the Synchro Motorsport Team travelled down to Silverstone on the Friday to set up the Accord, along with the equipment, in garage 6A. All the bodywork damage and the gearbox linkage problem had been fixed after the Oulton Park meeting.

On the Friday evening, at 10.15, there was a 15-minute free night practice. Dave Allan completed 9 laps during the session to finish up in thirteenth position of the twenty-one starters. Although better, the on-going problem of getting the Accord to handle round the circuit still plagued the team.

Saturday started cold with rain never looking far away. The 45-minute Free Practice session was scheduled for 10.35 and, just before 10.30, the heavens opened and the short but heavy shower changed the shape of the session. Wet tyres were required and, of course, the chance of testing the handling of the car had gone, as the characteristics in the rain were much different than on a dry track.

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However, things did not go to plan once again. After only one lap, Dave came into the pits with the Accord misfiring. He lost about thirty minutes of the session, returned to the track, did one complete lap, and was forced to return to the pits again with the misfiring still there. It was the end of the session for Dave. This was the second meeting in a row where Dave had missed out on the Free Practice, as problems had ruled him out early on at Oulton too.

The 30-minute qualifying session was at 1.15 and in the period after free practice the team had isolated the cause of the misfiring to a loose connection in the distributor. The weather had remained dry and it was hoped that the team would have a change of fortune for the qualifying.

It did go a lot better. Dave pushed hard and steadily improved his lap time down to the low 35's and finished in twelfth place overall. It was a much better performance but a shame that this did not take place in the Free Practice as it would have given Dave a fighting chance of an even better qualifying result.

The first race, the Sprint, followed around five hours later at 7.35. In the meantime the weather had remained dry and the race was away four minutes late at 7.39. The first lap was a nightmare for Dave as he dropped nine places to twentieth, with just one car behind him, after an incident at Maggotts, which sent him careering across the track with cars flying by on either side. The race could have ended there and then for him, but luck was on his side at that moment. The incident seemed to spur Dave into action and for the remaining fourteen laps he proceeded to work his way back up the order. At the end of lap 2, he was eighteenth. On lap 3, he bettered his qualifying time by a fifth of a second and again on lap 5. Dave was now seventeenth.

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On lap 10, he carved almost a second off his best qualifying lap with a 1m 34.413. He was now fifteenth. He continued to press hard and by the end of the race had picked up a further six places to finish ninth, an absolutely superb performance for both Dave and the team. It was unfortunate that Andy Scott, the Synchro Motorsport Team Manager who works so tirelessly for the team, had had to leave Silverstone at midday to fly to Japan that evening on business.

The result lifted everyone and set them up for the night race, which started almost half an hour late, at 10.27, in terrible wet conditions. Dave's plan was to drive steadily in an attempt to conserve his tyres and try to stay out of any trouble that seemed likely under the conditions. Dave drove exactly to plan and, like the Sprint Race, he progressively worked his way through the field. After another fine drive, he finished in an excellent seventh place.

Things are starting to come together for the Synchro team. Dave is up to eleventh in the driver championship and, provided both he and the Accord can hold this level of consistency, results may get even better. It is unfortunate that Dave Allan is also leaving for Japan after the weekend. Both he and Andy Scott will be away for a month and consequently will miss the Mondello Park meeting in two weeks time. Dave arrives back in the country on June 29, just one day before the Donington meeting. Let us hope that he is not too jet lagged!

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