The first round of the 2008 Fun Cup took place at Mondello Park, just west of
Dublin, Ireland on 26th April.
Peter joined Ian and Marc Connell in the #190 SPAR / Cuisine de France car at a damp and windy track on Friday for a 3˝ hour practice session. "We arrived at the circuit with a set up we had developed last year," Pete commented, "but it wasn't quite ideal for Mondello, so we made quite extensive changes to the suspension to improve front end grip and traction out of the corners."
The changes paid off and all the drivers reported better grip in the dry but very busy qualifying session on Saturday morning. 30 cars made the trip across the water to Mondello which this year hosted the Fun Cup on the 3.5km International Circuit layout.
The Fun Cup utilises a random grid draw to spice up the racing and the #190 car would start 9th on the grid. Marc took the first stint and did a great job staying out of trouble. He quickly moved up to 6th place and was happy to be in touch with the leaders. At the one hour mark, Ian took over and once again initially held 6th place before encountering a spinning car at the ultra fast (and imaginatively named) Left Hander. To avoid a collision, Ian had no option but to take to the grass where unfortunately a very bumpy ride across the service road led to a damaged front splitter and a severe vibration as the suspension set up was compromised. A pit stop to replace the nose dropped the team to 12th place and one lap now behind the leaders.
Pete then took over under safety car and immediately pitted to switch front wheels. "The vibration was so bad, I figured we had nothing to lose in changing the wheels during the safety car period, in case it was a buckled rim that was the problem. Unfortunately it made no difference, the damage clearly being to the suspension itself."
Pete persevered, with Marc taking over again an hour later. By the 4 hour mark, the team had edged back up to 5th place, but significantly one lap behind the leader. It was time to take a gamble and try and get the lap back and back onto the leaders’ tails! Calculating that one refuelling stop could be avoided if there was a safety car period (which seemed likely on previous experience!), the team had sent Mark out without refuelling to get back on the lead lap…The plan nearly worked but just half a lap from the next refuelling pit window opening Marc ran out of fuel! Less than half a litre of fuel would have allowed us to leapfrog into a podium position!
The car had to be towed to be fuelled, but cruelly the fuel pump was damaged and the Abbey Motorsport crew worked frantically to replace it. By the time Pete left the pit, the car was in 19th place. Pete quickly set about recovering the lost time, taking a double stint to the end of the race, as Marc has hurt his shoulder during his stint. "It was a tough session with that steering vibration, especially in the braking area which at Mondello are often on a curve, so you are holding the wheel with one hand whilst changing down. I seemed to have a pretty clear track and was pushing pretty hard, setting some good lap times being encouraged by Ian, Marc, Mike and the rest of the team on the pit wall!"
Pete in fact set the quickest of the car's laps in that stint (2:05.675) which was appreciably quicker than in qualifying. What he didn't realise was that the team were providing somewhat exaggerated pit signals in an effort to see how fast he would go! "I thought I was catching the next guys pretty fast," he smiled afterwards!
Ultimately the SPAR / Cuisine de France car finished a creditable 11th place after six hours of up-and-down racing. Not the result that was expected, but the gamble was worth a try! The race was won by the JPR-Frenchstone car which Team Honeywell and Track Torque completing the podium.
Although the #190 car will appear at Anglesey in June, due to other commitments, Pete will not drive the car again until the fantastic Spa Francorchamps 25 hours in July.
