LMS Donington 1000Km - Sunday 27th August 2006 - Review by Mick Hyde

Stuart Mosely - Radical SR9 LMP2The weekend started well for the two Radical SR9’s. In the first test session, the track was wet when the cars went out onto the circuit. Within a few minutes, Stuart Moseley was fastest overall, a position that he maintained until the track started drying out, at which time, the Rollcentre SR9 took centre stage, and finished the session as fastest P2 car.

The second free test session was dry and saw the two SR9’s battling for P2 honours. In the end, both cars were pipped by Tommy Erdos in the RML Lola, who finished two tenths ahead of the Bruichladdich SR9, with the Rollcentre SR9 a mere four tenths behind. The Bill Binnie Lola finished a further 1.2 seconds adrift.

Qualifying was set to be close, and so it was! For the majority of the session, the Bruichladdich car, driven by Stuart Moseley led the P2 class with Rollcentre close behind, but on the last lap, the Michelin-shod Lola of Tommy Erdos pulled one out of the bag, and again pipped Stuart by just two tenths of a second. The Rollcentre car finished one secondback, and fourth in class.

The race was held in beautiful sunny conditions and promised to be close. The start saw both Radical’s making a cautious start, but both cars started making up places until disaster struck the Bruichladdich car. A non-return valve in the water cooling system started to leak, and the subsequent 15-minute pit-stop put the car out of contention. The car ran strongly for four hours, until Tim Greaves had an off towards the end of his double-stint which put an end to any chances of scoring any points.

Meanwhile, a superb drive by Joao Barbosa, Martin Short and Rob Barff saw the Rollcentre car run fifth (and occasionally fourth) overall and first in class for the whole of the race, until the fateful last pitstop when the car refused to start. This is the second time the Rollcentre car has been assured a win when fate has stepped in during the last half hour of the race.

It is only a matter of time before Radicals dominate the podium…but not just yet!
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Tim Greaves “I hit the inside kerb at Coppice too hard and it just sent the car off into the gravel. The impact was pretty hard on the steering so unfortunately that was the end of the race. Overall I’m pleased with the competitiveness of the car. The only weakness was getting out of the slow corners – we needed a different gear ratio. The car handles superbly so although I’m disappointed about today’s result I’m pleased about that. The early problem with the non-return valve was one of those totally unpredictable failures and once we’d identified it the guys fixed it really quickly. From there we had the long haul of climbing back up the ladder which Stuart did really well to get up to sixth and I think we were fifth when we finished."

“Rollcentre Racing did very well again and it was a great shame that they were robbed of victory in the closing stages by a minor technical problem. I’m very disappointed for Ben but I’m sure he’s looking forward to the test in the USA car on Thursday. I have to say a big thanks to the team. For a group of guys that have only been together for two events they’re excellent – very responsive. They’re growing together very well and we’ll be at Jarama better and stronger.”

Official race results are available at www.lmes.net

more news & photos available at www.DailySportscar.com

for the latest Whisky news visit www.bruichladdich.com
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