At Oulton Park on 21st April, Team B&Q Jet York City Racing took their first podium of the year with a great second place finish in the Feature Race, despite a difficult start to the weekend.
The team was running the new ex-Synchro car for Jim Edwards whilst John took over Jim's aging 1999 Accord. "There's a big difference between the two cars" said Peter. "Really the aim is to allow John to get comfortable in his car this weekend whilst we go all out for a win in the other more competitive car."
With limited testing, the team were straight into Qualifying on Saturday afternoon, but both Jim and John found it difficult to get to grips with their cars, qualifying in seventh and ninth place respectively.
However, in racing anything can happen...and it did! Just half a lap into the Sprint race, John was taken out by the wayward Mitsubishi Carisma of Steven Wood, the car sustaining heavy damage on impact with the barriers. Thankfully John was ok, if a little sore. Jim went on to finish a lonely sixth out of seven finishers, complaining of "sloppy" handling, whilst the race was dominated by the impressive Civic Type R of Synchro Motorsport.
"I worked with Jim between the Sprint and Feature race to establish the problems in the set up and we made some significant changes to stabilize the car", said Peter. Subsequently Jim was able to make good progress in the Feature race, taking the BMW of Norman Simon into the final corner and just stealing thrid place across the line. The team were even more delighted when they learned that the Peugeot of Mark Fullalove was to receive a time penalty for cutting across the Knickerbrook chicane, therefore handing second place to Jim! Needless to say the celebrations were long and loud!
The next race will be at Thruxton near Andover in Hampshire (on 6th May), an ultra-fast circuit well suited to the Accords. "I hope we will be able to improve on the second place I took there last year and grab that first win for the team!"
