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Donington Park- June 30/July 1, 2001

Team:-

Andy Scott (Sunday)	Tim Sopp
Gary Scott	Andy Lofthouse
Will Scott	Martin Dickson
Rob Coombs	Sean Nash
Transporter Driver:	Jack Hobbs

Saturday, June 30
Rounds 11 and 12 of the British Touring Car Championships were held on the 2.5-mile Grand Prix circuit at Donington Park near Derby. Free practice and the qualifying sessions were on the Saturday and the Sprint and Feature races on Sunday.

Dave Allan arrived back in England after his Japan trip at 4.30 on the Friday afternoon prior to the race meeting. With Japanese time nine hours ahead it would obviously be a bit of a struggle for Dave this weekend. Andy Scott, who handles the technical side, did not arrive back from Japan until the Saturday afternoon.

Saturday was a changeable day, warm, humid with a risk of rain. The free practice started on time at 11. Dave began slowly but progressively picked up speed. However, on lap 4, he had a spin at Goddards and returned to the pits on the next lap for a tyre check. All was fine and Dave went back out and then put in a series of quick laps, bettering his previous best lap by 2 seconds. This time put him up to fourth place. However, on lap 14, Dave went off at the bottom of the Craner Curves and planted the Accord firmly in the gravel. His session was over. He finished up ninth overall, still a very creditable result.

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After the session it was discovered that the front nearside damper had bent. This was a major problem as the team was unable to get hold of the relevant spares. There was no alternative but to try to straighten the damper in an attempt to put in a few laps to try to get a reasonable grid position, rather than start from the back of the grid. Dave went out onto the circuit with just fifteen minutes left of the thirty-minute session. He completed six laps before the damper failed but had managed to record a 1m 49.489s lap, which saw him eleventh on the grid.

Sunday, July 1
In the meantime the Barwell team had loaned Synchro a set of front dampers. As they were of a different type, it meant carrying out a mod before they would fit. Fortunately for the Synchro team they had a chance to try out the dampers prior to the race as the Goodrich tyres issued for the meeting had a suspected fault and had to be changed. To give the teams a chance to bed down the tyres the cars were allowed two laps prior to the pit walkabout. On his return to the pits, Dave was happy with the feel of the new dampers, so the car was ready for the Sprint race.

The Sprint was a nightmare come true for Dave. The race has a novel format whereby the Tourers start before the Production cars. They start when the lights go green, as in a normal race. However, the production cars start after a predetermined number of seconds delay, thirty in the case of Donington, but this is variable from meeting to meeting. Dave, though, started when the lights went to green! He immediately realised his mistake and pulled over on the grass, two grid positions up from where he should have started. When the flag did waive to start the Production cars, Dave could not get the Accord into first gear. He eventually started a long while after the rest.

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To add to his woes, he was given a 'drive through' penalty where he had to pull into the pits, drive through them under the speed limit and out the other side. By the time he had emerged, he had already been caught by the Tourers. However, what with cars dropping out and with a stroke of good luck fortune he found himself back in a race. The safety car came out for three laps and allowed Dave a chance to get back onto the pack. By the end of the race, he was in eighth position, a very fortunate end to an embarrassing race for Dave.

The Feature race started almost half an hour late at 3.58 with the weather cloudy, dry and humid. Dave made a better start and was up to ninth by the end of the first lap. Dave, though, was finding it tough, as the new dampers had been set on a default setting. Nevertheless he persevered and by the end of the race was up to a fine fourth place, his second of the season.

Taking all into account, it had been a good day for Synchro Motorsport. The valuable points that Dave had picked up moved him to ninth place in the Championship and Synchro to seventh place in the Team championship.

The next meeting is at Knockhill, a long trip to just north of Edinburgh on a track that Dave has never driven before.

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