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Silverstone - September 8/9, 2001

Andy Scott	Tim Sopp
Andy Lofthouse	Gary Scott
Martin Dickson	Will Scott
Phil Belcher (Saturday)
Transporter Driver:	Ken Sly

Rounds 21 and 22 of the British Touring Car Championships were held at Silverstone in Northamptonshire. It was the second visit this year to the 2.249-mile circuit.

Saturday, September 8
Saturday was cloudy but dry with a gusty cold wind. The Touring section and the series had been boosted by the arrival of the two MG's, driven by Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes.

The Free Practice was at the normal time of 11 o'clock in the morning. It did not start too well for Dave Allan as, on his fifth lap out, he pushed the Accord too hard at the Luffield complex and slid into the gravel. The marshals retrieved the Accord but told Dave to leave the car where it was. After a little 'discussion' they finally agreed to let Dave drive the car back to the pits, where it was checked over and 'degravelled'. This lost him eighteen minutes of the session. On his return to the track, he found it tough to get in a reasonable time, particularly as the gear change mechanism had become very stiff after the gravel incident. He ended up thirteenth of the eighteen cars in the session. Silverstone is a difficult track to get the car set up correct and this meeting proved no exception. Nevertheless adjustments were made before qualifying in an attempt to try for a good grid position for Sunday's two races.

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Qualifying was at 1.45 that afternoon and it went relatively trouble free. The gear change mechanism had been fixed and Dave managed to knock over half a second off his best time from the morning's Free Practice, recording a 1m 35.000 lap. He made two pit stops during the 45-minute session to change tyres and bed them in, in readiness for tomorrow's two races. On his last session out, he did manage to get within a tenth of his best time but could not improve it further and brake into the 1m 34's. He finished up eleventh overall. The set up was a little better but he was still losing a lot of time through Luffield. Nevertheless it was a reasonable day.

Sunday, September 9
The Sprint race, over fifteen laps, was earlier than usual, at noon. The weather was very similar to yesterday, cloudy, dry with a cool gusty wind. Further adjustments had been made to the car's set up. With the autograph session out of the way, the race started slightly late, at 12.03. The Production cars set off 28-seconds after the Tourers. It was a relatively uneventful race with Dave finishing up in eighth place in the Production Class, holding off a stiff challenge from the Alfa Romeo of Colin Blair. He improved his lap time for this meeting during the race, recording a 1m 34.866 on lap 8.

The Accord had sustained a small amount of damage to the front bumper during the race, but this was duly fixed in the interval.

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The Feature Race, over 30 laps of the International circuit, started only two minutes late at 3.22. Immediately there was an incident on the first lap when Roger Moen, who had been on a winning run, Simon Graves and Mat Jackson went off. The safety car was used and, when the cars came passed the pits for the first time, Dave was up to sixth place. The cars did 5 laps under the safety car before the race was eventually restarted. On the first lap back, Dave made a move at the hairpin at Farm that saw him up third place. It was a move though that put him off line, losing momentum and position, and he dropped back to ninth place and a 'long' four seconds behind the eighth place car, the Ford Focus of Rick Kraemer. It was a tough challenge for Dave to get back this time. He did, though, get to within half a second, putting Rick under a lot of pressure during the latter part of the race. Luffield again proved difficult for Dave's Accord, as it was very apparent that it was here that he lost out to the Ford Focus. The race that its toll on the cars and by the end of the race Dave found himself in sixth place. The Synchro Accord was, though, one of only four cars, of the eighteen cars at the meeting, to finish in both of the races, a fine achievement for the Synchro team.

The next meeting is also a return visit, to Donington over the weekend of 22/23 September. This again is a track where set up is all important. The Accord struggled back in July but it is hoped that the car will be in much better shape for this penultimate meeting of the 2001 British Touring Car Championships

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