Croft reports

The midway point in the 2008 BTCC Calendar was set to take place at the North Yorkshire circuit of Croft.

Not only a fantastic circuit, it’s also the local circuit for the North East based Robertshaw Racing Team & Driver Harry Vaulkhard is also a motor sport instructor at the venue.

After a stressful run up to the meeting coordinating sponsors and guests for the event Harry Vaulkhard was in high spirits for his home race. Things all began to take a turn for the worse late on the Friday night after the new engine was delivered late and the team had to work into the small hours fitting the unit which ideally would have been fitted earlier in the week & run up in the workshop. Non the less the job was done! In the Morning the BTCC test was the first event, as the cars were started and warmed up with minutes to go Vaulkhards’ mechanic pushed the clutch pedal and to his surprise the clutch failed. The team hurried round to repair the problem only to have the same problem again, meaning Vaulkhard was unable to get on circuit for the first test a setback the team didn’t need. As the Chevrolets have never run on the UK circuits before it is vital for the team to get as much running time as possible to evaluate set-up and car data. All of the developments for the car now lay ahead in Free practice two. In the break between the tests the team mended the clutch issue, as the cars were firing up for free practice two disaster struck the Local team again as Vaulkhards car failed to start. Much hurrying round and diagnostic checking lead to no answers, again a set back the team could ill afford. The issue meant that the car didn’t get out on track at all in the test sessions, meaning that Vaulkhard had a mountain to climb in qualifying, with no set-up data or gear ratio information it was going to be a bit of a lottery to try and find the vital tenths of seconds that count in qualifying the team were not too hopeful for any good result.

Qualifying: Took place in the sunshine on a dry circuit, Vaulkhard headed out of the pit lane to do the first lap of Croft that a Chevrolet had ever completed. In the time permitted Harry had 3 laps in which to set a good lap time with most of the 20 minutes being taken up with getting heat into the tyres and stopping for new tyres after a 1 hot lap run. Vaulkhards first flying lap saw him slot into 9th position, much to the surprise of the driver & pitlane. As the session progressed Vaulkhard was on his 2nd flying lap and was 3/10ths up on his previous lap but had now dropped down to 15th position heading round Tower bend he was closing in on a car slowing to go into the pits who then got right in the way and ruined Vaulkhards fastest lap. After the session
Vaulkhard said:
“Well to be 15th is a bit of a shock I think we were expecting to be at the back of the grid after not getting out at all this morning, the test sessions are more important to us than any other team as it’s the first time we know what the car will do. It’s frustrating as a very experienced driver caused me to miss my hot lap which may have moved me up the grid a bit but that’s just what happens sometimes.”

Race 1: Started in torrential rain, as the cars left the grid Vaulkhard made up place on the run to the first corner, and by the end of lap 1 Vaulkhard had made up several positions, one notable move at Hawthorn bend saw Harry slip up the inside of two of his competitors using a bit of local circuit knowledge. At the start of Lap 8 Vaulkhard had made lots of solid overtaking maneuvers and was passing one of the team RAC BMW’s which left the circuit at unabated speed at Tower impacting with the tyre barrier, and later that lap as the marshals were tending to the driver the other Robertshaw Car of Alan Taylor careered off and into the back of the stricken BMW bringing out the red flags. Vaulkhard re-joined the grid in a creditable 9th position from 15th on the grid in just 9 laps. The delay was so long that the hard rain fall had totally water logged the circuit for the restart, Vaulkhard had just passed the two Motorbase BMW’s and on the restart the rear wheel drive advantage powered both cars into the top 5, also on this lap Harry made up 3 further positions promoting him to 8th position and on the run into Sunny Micky Doyle locked up and collected the Tyneside driver and in the process snapped Vaulkhards front wheel and damaged his steering making the car very difficult to get round left handers, in less than a lap Vaulkhard went from 8th to 13th due to this problem. Non the less it was a great showing with an unfortunate final lap as the race was declared a result at the end of the lap due to too much standing water.
Harry commented “It’s a real shame they didn’t declare it a result at the first red flag as we would have had a 9th, that final lap was really unlucky for us and we probably would have had more luck in a drag race, we seem to keep getting robbed of top ten results. Non the less considering we had only done 8 laps on the circuit until before the race I think we showed quite well.”

Race 2: With the rain beginning to subside the cars left the line still in wet conditions Vaulkhard made a good start and had an impressive opening lap claiming a few positions and was one of the front running independents battling with some of the works cars, after several laps Vaulkhard had dropped back a few car lengths from the SEAT TDI of Darren Turner and the reason soon became clear as the youngsters windscreen had steamed up to the point he was having to guess where apex’s were. After some talking to the team the problem was remedied and within 3 laps Harry had his sight back but had lost valuable time to the cars in front. The Tynesider then set about closing the gap, which he did, and while doing so was setting lap times and sector times comparable to the race leaders, however now up to 10th position the track was beginning to dry and without the test sessions the day before the team had to guess at a set up which was unfortunately not able to last the race distance, as the front wet tyres were wearing down to slicks they were offering less and less grip lap after lap and Harry was unable to defend against the chasing cars and unfortunately on the very last lap dropped down to 13th. “The car was awesome at the start, but we were clearly too aggressive on the set-up and were unable to get the longevity we need in the tyres. It all stems from the problems we had before qualifying and not being able to collect any tyre data in the test sessions. Still we finished where we started and this weekend has become about damage limitation.”

Race 3: After the torrent of rain had subsided the clouds had parted and the circuit was now dry with races taking place on full slicks and dry settings. This time Harry was not so fortunate off the line and dropped down to 14th, After a good opening few laps Harry had fought hard to get up to an impressive tenth position, Yet again the safety car had come out due to accidents around the circuit, this was a real hindrance to Vaulkhard as it allowed the pack behind him that he’d worked hard to pull a gap on to close in. On the restart Harry maintained his 10th place and was pushing hard for 9th position, it soon became clear that the lack of testing on Saturday was again coming back to haunt the BTCC rookie as his gear ratios were wrong on two corners and the front tyres were beginning to go off pretty quickly, again with no other option Vaulkhard was forced to concede a position and drop to 11th where he stayed till the end of the race. After a very grim start to the weekend the end result was fairly imnpressive under the circumstances although the team & Harry left feeling frustrated as they know had things have gone their way on Saturdays test sessions they could have had at least two top tens. Harry summed up the weekend.
“It’s been very frustrating for me, and I feel for the team too. We started on the back foot and managed to come back reasonably well, the team have done a great job with the hand we’ve been dealt. I really feel had we got to test and sorted out set-ups and gear ratios we could have been very strong here. I’m looking forward to Snett as it’s one of the few circuits we were able to test at pre-season.”