Earlier today, whilst aimlessly browsing the magazine stand at Tesco, a somewhat odd-looking, green single seater on the front of Practical Performance Car magazine happened to catch my eye. “That’s a Formula Vee“, I thought to myself before a double-take revealed that it was in fact my old Formula Vee.

Rob Medhurst has spend the three ensuing years from that eBay auction rebuilding the bare chassis to a road-legal, road-registered single seater. What’s more, it has even achieved SVA (Single Vehicle Approval) homologation in its own right. What ever Rob’s motivation, I wish him the best of luck and I am genuinely happy that the infamous Sheane lives on. After all, he even kept it as number 66.

The car is now for sale once more for offers in the region of £7000.

Related posts:

1. Looking back at 2007
2. Preview: Mallory Park (UK Formula Vee)
3. Publications

Going into this weekend I had no circuit knowledge. Having elected to skip the Oulton Park round last year, an afternoon of testing on Friday had only two objectives: learn the circuit and refine a setup.

A broken head stud was the result of a single installation lap in the first of two sessions. Later, during the second session, the oil cooler was ruptured by a stone and a rocker gasket began to leak, ending what was a very difficult day in which I managed just half a dozen laps of the picturesque circuit.

On Friday evening we reappraised our situation. I had come to Oulton Park with the clear intention of winning. I wanted my fourth straight pole position and I wanted to make up for the mistake last time out at Silverstone. However, we found ourselves in a difficult situation. I still did not know the circuit well and with only a handful of laps, we approached making changes to our setup with some trepidation.

As far as I was concerned, the objectives had changed. Martin Farmer, last years Oulton Park winner and my only championship threat, was clearly fastest on Friday with the new 2008-spec GAC engine. With only ten championship points separating us going into this weekend, I had to focus on damage limitation. For me, we decided, there was nobody else in the race.

During qualifying, I stayed close to Farmer. James Birch put in an early quick lap to take provisional pole position whilst Farmer and I continued to improve our times. The session ended with Farmer improving on the final lap to take pole position. Birch ended up second whilst I was was third.

We were ahead of Farmer up until the final lap and considering the relative lack of circuit knowledge we had, it wasn’t a bad result. The car was also distinctly unpredictable and we later discovered a broken trailing arm. Since lap one of qualifying we were running extreme camber on the right-rear wheel, almost certainly a result of taking the heavy kerbing through one of the two chicanes. All things considered, I was relatively confident.

Lining up on the grid, I still had just one goal in mind: finish ahead of Farmer. For the first time ever, I was ready for big picture racing.

Over the green flag lap I was somewhat concerned with the car. It sounded more “throaty than normal and I concluded it was probably a small piece of dirt in the carburettor. What’s worse, the oil light had come on as I took my grid space.

I had an average get away but lost momentum as Hands came across to cover the inside. As I was swamped by many cars, I decided to err on the side of caution early into the turn one. I was down in sixth position but as we swooped through Cascades and down the Lakeside straight for the first time I was not particularly concerned. It was a train of cars: Hands, Farmer, Birch, Jake Oliveira, Sam Oliveira, myself and Ryan Lindsay. It didn’t think it would last and so I sat back for a lap to consider the car.

Over the opening lap the oil light continued to flash. Rationalising that I wouldn’t still be running if I really had an oil pressure problem, I figured it too was a victim of hitting the kerbing hard all weekend.

Exiting Lodge corner for the first time and we began to concertina together. I got alongside Sam up the hill and was past in time to take a somewhat normal line into Old Hall. Hands and Birch were alongside one another at the front, as were Jake and Farmer directly ahead of me.

Jake Oliveira and Farmer continued to run side-by-side down through Cascades and I managed to get to the gearbox of Jake before Farmer had a chance to close the door. Approaching the Shell Oils hairpin this time and I was back into 4th position but most crucially, ahead of Farmer.

I decided to start defending. After all, I did not have to win the race and even if the front three made a break, it didn’t matter to me.

We continued to go wheel to wheel over the next lap, Farmer getting to my outside before Old Hall. He couldn’t make it stick and fell back into line for the run through Cascades. Once again, on the run down Lakeside Straight, Farmer rocketed to my outside before Island Bend. Taking the outside line, he appeared to get on the marbles and he under-steered off the circuit and onto the grass. I could hardly believe my eyes and as I began to brake for the hairpin he was out the sight of my mirrors.

I continued to search my mirrors for any signs of the works GAC. Before we had even reached the Knickerbrook chicane I was confident that if he was still running, he was considerably down the order.

Sam Oliveira was now glued to my gearbox. Having reappraised the situation and still holding reservations about the reliability of my car, I moved over to let him past rather than risk fighting unnecessarily. What’s more, by following him, I would be almost certainly be dragged back to the front while continuing to conserve my own car.

Sam was having his own difficulties and as he went through to my inside at Druids, his car was quite literally on fire. Being a sportsman, he let me back through and I continued to reduce the gap on my own.

Exiting Cascades again and it was now Birch who was to fall by the wayside. Suffering an engine failure, this promoted me back to where I had started in third position.

As I negotiated Island Bend for the third time I could see the stricken car of Farmer in the outside wall. Once again, this changed the dynamics of my race. With a ten point lead originally and a DNF giving Farmer only 1 extra point, I would need to score 18 to take the title, the equivalent of finishing fourth. As I was currently running in third position, I concentrated on keeping consistent and conservative. Ryan Lindsay was keeping me honest and his constant presence in my mirrors gave me little hope of relaxing entirely.

Related posts:

1. Formula Vee: Victory at Mallory Park! (Video)
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Race Commentary

Friday testing suggested quite how close Saturday would have been. The full GAC team were out in strength, with ex-BTCC works Toyota driver Ian Flux testing Farmer’s car during the morning. Daniel Hands returned to the track after his Brands Hatch misfortune and to the best of my knowledge, Farmer, Hands and myself were separated by a matter of hundredths all day.

Come Saturday and the forecast of rain, qualification was neither wet nor dry. Damp patches covered the circuit but as I was in the second of two sessions conditions were invariably better for me. However, it was of little advantage as Martin Farmer, James Birch, John Hughes and Jake Oliveira all contested this session too.

As the session got underway, I settled in behind Birch, Hughes and Farmer and quickly worked up to the front, using each of them as a spring board forward. After four laps the session was stopped due to oil down between Brooklands and Copse. Whilst waiting for the session to be restarted I was told that I was fastest by eight tenths, ahead of Farmer. Knowing that Farmer would also be told this, he would certainly be pushing hard once we got going again.

By the time the session was resumed, circuit conditions had improved. However, the remnants of oil at Brooklands meant I couldn’t improve on my previous best lap. Never-the-less, neither could Farmer and it was good enough for my third consecutive pole position by little over four tenths of a second from Martin Farmer and James Birch.

The Clerk of the Course later deemed that the two sessions had different enough conditions to justify staggering the results and so joining me on the front row would be Sam Oliveira, with Ian Buxton and Martin Farmer making up row two.

So, an hour before the race the rain settled in, the full extent of which I did not know until we made the grid. Large puddles of standing water lined the circuit, at Copse, Beckets and Brooklands.

Getting off the line was a struggle in itself. Even the most extreme clutch finesse gave too much wheelspin. Sam made an equal start but by the time I made second gear, Ian Buxton had already jumped us for the lead.

Benefitting from an absolutely storming start, he moved to the inside and led into Copse for the first time. Feeling the need to make it back to the front I got to the outside of Buxton under braking for Brooklands and we ran side by side until I had the inside line for Luffield.

Now back in front I could start to think about running at my own pace. Unbeknown to me was that as entering Becketts on lap one Farmer had touched wheels with Birch, spun and was now trailing at the back of the field.

I started to push reasonably hard but it was short-lived. I stretched out a sizeable lead over Buxton on that lap but after making the apex at Brooklands, continued to aquaplane off towards the gravel. Realising the potential that I would get beached was high, I got back on the throttle fractionally before reaching the end of the track. This gave me just enough momentum to power through the gravel, over the grass, across the tighter, disused Luffield corner, over some more grass and to rejoin just behind Buxton in the middle of the corner.

I had lost a few seconds to Buxton but remained in second position. After regaining my composure, I decided that I needed to chase down Buxton for the win as I had no idea how Farmer was progressing.

Within two laps I had caught him and in the process set a new fastest lap, 1.2 seconds faster than his and a second faster than anybody else. Starting lap six and on the run down to Becketts I had a think about going down the inside of Buxton. We were millimeters apart and on the exit I was completely out of shape. I couldn’t hold it and spun. Keeping the engine running I had to wait for Birch, Lindsay and Oliveira to pass before I could rejoin. It was at that point that I realised Martin was no longer towards the front.

So I got lucky. Yes and I admit it. The red flags were thrown due to an incident between Alan Robinson and Ankit Love at Luffield, therefore on count back, I retained second place.

Martin struggled to make up positions and finished down in 18th position, scoring just three points. He will now drop that round, his worst finish of the season and with my 22 points for second place and the extra point for fastest lap, I have retaken the championship lead and have a ten point buffer heading into the final two rounds.

However, whilst the dynamics of the championship have changed (I can now finish second to him even if he wins and gets fastest lap), it is far from over. A DNF at Oulton Park or Snetterton would put me largely out of contention, albeit not mathematically, but practically. It may only be 30 minutes of racing but there is a long way still to go.

Overall, I can’t help but be slightly disappointed at myself for not winning. I was quickest in qualifying and in the race by a sizeable margin. The truth is, the conditions caught me out.

Congratulations to Ian Buxton on his first win of year. He may not have been the quickest but he did manage something I didn’t – he kept it on track.

Next up, Outlon Park.

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Pole Position Lap

Race One

Race Two

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Race 1

Race 2

Thanks to Elite Photography for the photographs.

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