ON TRACK WITH RICK PEARSON By Rick Pearson
Welcome to the third of my weekly articles about the National racing scene and my journey through it over the past few years. This week I'll look at my first half season in Super Coupe cup racing or 'why you should know your flags'...
As I mentioned in last weeks article, having decided that Caterham racing was unjustifiable in terms of danger and cost, I invested the princely sum of £4,000 in the Renault 5 GT Turbo that had won the Championship the previous year and signed up with Mark Fish Motorsport to go Super Coupe Cup racing.
For those who don't know, the Super Coupe Cup is the orphanage of the National racing scene. When a Championship is abandoned by the manufacturer who has created and nurtured it, the Super Coupe Club will often take it under its wing and merge it with similar such orphans to provide full grids and close racing. My first year in the Championship saw Renault 5 GT Turbos mixing it with VW Polo G40's and Honda CRX's, soon to be joined by Rover 216Gtis and Renault Clios.
The cars' specifications are gently tweaked to provide similar lap times and a rolling start is adopted to ensure that no particular induction type gets an advantage away from the lights. For those of you who haven't taken part in a rolling start, it is difficult to describe the sensation as forty cars come out of the last corner at 40mph, six inches apart and then floor it towards the first corner, arriving there en-masse, usually slightly closer together!
My first experience of this came at the first round I competed in, at Snetterton. Now there is often some debate with rolling starts as to whether you are allowed to race from the moment the lights go green or the moment you pass the green lights...but the finer points of this debate had obviously been lost on the Greek gentleman who was supposed to have lined up behind me (alongside the pitwall).As the lights went green, he was on the grass, on the other side of the grid, overtaking the people two rows in front of me...
End of the second lap, the red flags were flying as I approached Russell and on its side- balanced on the tyre wall- were the remains of a Renault 5, sprayed in the distinctive colours of the Greek flag and rolled comprehensively into a ball. Not being one to wish harm on a fellow human, I couldn't help but feel that this was justice... unfortunately however, my joy was short lived when I discovered that our Greek friend had a teammate in (what had been) an identical car...
That first half season yielded one further quality tale of woe for our Greek friend, this time caused by the introduction of the yellow and black quartered flag. For those who don't know the intricacies of the British racing scene, this flag is the equivalent of the American "Full-Course" Yellow. The leader slows the pack to 50 mph and all are to keep station behind him so that the marshals can work in safety to remove a car from a dangerous position. Once the track is considered safe, the flag is withdrawn by the waving of green flags at the start/finish line.
The Super Coupes visited Castle Combe, in those days a super-fast circuit and after just a few laps of the race, the quartered flag was flying. The pack dutifully slowed except for our Greek friend who bravely out-braked the three guys in front of him to take the lead and disappeared over the horizon. After a couple of laps on his own, it dawned on our Greek friend that perhaps all the vigorous flag waving from the marshals and the fact that no-one was giving chase might mean something. So he slowed substantially, before finally coming to a halt on the start/finish line.
As you might imagine, the marshals, whose task had been made somewhat tougher with this guy hurtling around at full race speed whilst they dealt with the incident, were a little unimpressed. So as the pack approached the final corner (with the Blue and White of Greece, still stationary on the start/finish line) the marshals at the last post surreptitiously indicated that we would shortly be receiving the green flag... hence the pack took the corner at full speed blazing each side of the stationary car as it sat in the middle of the grid suddenly surrounded on all sides by waved green flags. Our now somewhat angered Greek chap dropped the clutch as he saw the pack descend and weaved as hard as he could from side to side.
Although he managed to make contact with a couple of cars, the majority of the pack got by before he was moving again! A spot of red mist saw him on the grass at the exit of each and every corner of that lap before he caught me approaching the first corner of the next one. I was dicing for second and looking up the inside to take the place when I heard the sound of tortured tyres, ducking out of the way at the last moment, the Blue and White of Greece came steaming down the inside of me and the guy in front, hit the apex kerb and drove headfirst into the tyre wall at the exit.
I held on to finish third while our Greek friend took the long walk back to the Control tower for a very lengthy interview with the Clerk of the Course and a license endorsement.
Next week, a full season in Super Coupes including getting to race the blue and white, Spitfire-engine (!) Greek special...