Mike Turner – Birkett 6 hour Relay Race – Silverstone

A surprise phone call from Clive in the week before the race resulted in me getting a drive in Patricks MCR as he was unavailable. I was to share with Matt Manderson so at least one of us would be fast!  (Matt not me!)
After a long day instructing at Thruxton on the Friday saw me home late thanks to the horrible Friday night
traffic.
Up early on Saturday and off to Silverstone. I have never signed on in the dark before!  Clive and Cindy had got the cars scrutineered on Friday afternoon so it was straight out for qualifying with a disparate hord of cars.  Everything from Radicals for historic Hillman Imps were on the entry.|
I had not raced on the historic GP track before so just spent the session finding my way round the bits I didnt know.
Matt put in a storming lap in his qualifying so the MCR team started on the front row with Clive on board.
Clive put in a fine first stint and MCR were running 2nd overall but about 102 on hadicap!
Scott Guthrie carried on the good work until a Caterham seemed to want the same bit of tarmac as Scott. Exit Scott with some damage to his car.  The team with Pete Williams, Steve Head, Clive and myself managed to keep things going. Matt put in another superb stint to get MCR back to 5th overall.
Fifth overall on scratch and nowhere on handicap was the final result-  I think we should just take the 5th on scratch!
Overall a really enjoyable end to the season. Many thanks to Clive and Cindy for the opportunity to drive in the Birkett and for all their help and support over the season.
Roll on 2012 sports 2000 season and maybe another go at the Birkett 6 hours?

Mike Turner – Silverstone GP Circuit 1st October

After a frustrating weekend at Oulton Park when we had engine problems in testing it has been a hectic few weeks.
The day after Oulton the engine was out of the car and I took it down to MCR on the Monday. Clive stripped the engine while I was there and the diagnosis was that it had been over revved at some stage. After a few beers and a nice meal with Clive and Cindy I travelled back home the following day.
After 4 days the phone call came saying the re built engine was ready for collection. Fantastic service to get it turned round so quickly. John and I got the engine installed in the chassis and I went on holiday leaving John to do all the hard work!
On my return all was complete, on running the engine however we found that it was not running cleanly. An electrical fault had ocurred. I took the car to Hi Tech Motorsport in Dudley who got the engine running but there was still an underlying electrical fault.  A phone call to Clive at MCR and I arranged to meet him at Silverstone to try to sort things out. Once again MCR provided superb back up and with the hard work of Clive and Steve who makes the MCR looms the fault was rectified ready for qualifying on Friday.
I managed to somehow get the wrong gear ratios in the car – maybe too much holiday sun and wine! This meant I was having to lift of early and use higher gears in the slow corners.  Anyway I qualified 13th and 2nd in the Derek Bell class and was confident of a much better race.  John and Dave fettled the car and we fitted the right ratios on Saturday morning.
After a cautious start – my first proper start of the year  – I was not sure how much grip would be available from the new radial Yokohama tyres things soon looked good.
I managed to find a couple of seconds in lap times and enjoyed a good tussle with Scott Guthrie and Rupert Russell.  Although unable to catch the group who were battling for 5th – 8th position I seemed to be getting closer with reasonable lap times. Sadly the race ended early when on lapping a pinto car he was distracted and unfortunately hit the back of my MCR putting me into a spin and also resulting in some damage to the car. So end of race!
Overall though a good weekend after all our frustrations the car ran superbly.  It handled very well with good power and at last I felt I was starting to get to grips with racing again.  John will be driving the car at Brands, his first race there. I am sure he will enjoy the handling and response of the MCR on the challenging Indy circuit.
Then we join the MCR team for the Birkett 6 hour relay race at Silverstone Historic GP Circuit on 29th October.
I must thank all at MCR race car manufacturers for their back up, support and help during the year. I hope next season we can have a proper year of racing in the Sports 2000 Duratec Championship and the Sports 2000 Mini Enduro Series.  It really can to come too soon!

Mike Turner European Race – 11th/12th June

Mike Turner racing at Spa Summer Classic
Mike Turner racing at Spa Summer Classic

Spa and my first race with the MCR sharing the car with John Owen this year promised to be a good fun season.  John moving over from Formula Ford and myself changing from a Duratec Lola.  After a good test at Donington I really looked forward to my first event in the new car.  I new the car was very quick after Patrick Sherrington had been so successful in it during 2010 so was eager to get to grips with it.  esting on Thursday went well.  In only 8 laps or so the car was over a second quicker than I had lapped at Spa before in my previous Sports 2000 car.  The amount of grip available and the performance of the brakes were a real eye opener.

After a look at the data with Scott, Patrick and Clive we were able to identify some areas to work on from a driving point of view.  John took the car out first in qualifying and again improved his times well.  I jumped into the car and managed to lower my times by 1.9 seconds from the testing times.  We qualified 6th and were both very pleased with how things had gone.  John was doing the first race and drove a fine first race in torrential rain to bring the car home 7th after a testing first drive.

Sunday dawned fine and dry.  I think I definately got the best of the deal here!  The start was hectic and after a short safety car period the race resumed.  I managed to get up to 5th when I ran over some debris in the track which made a huge noise.  I decided I had better pit to check things out. Having pitted with only 5 minutes to go I decided to call it a day as we could not find anything amiss. Rather than risk the car I decided to save things for Donington in July.  A real shame as 4th or 5th position was a good possibility.

Overall a great weekend.  I feel I am only just getting to grips with the car.  The amount of potential is huge once I get used to the grip levels and braking performance.  Roll on Donington!