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Silverstone 22/03/08 Round 1 Production S1

Anna fights back after challenging weekend 

The 2008 Production S1 championship began at Silverstone last weekend, and even for those familiar with Silverstone’s changing weather the howling blizzards of snow mixed with sun and blue sky’s seemed extraordinary and challenging for both organisers and teams.

Anna is back racing another season with Geoff Steel, after being asked to take the wheel of one of Geoff’s BMW 3.2ltr 360 Bbhp machines. Anna started the weekend by revealing her BMW’s new eye catching colour scheme for the championship, raising a few eye brows and keeping the photographers snapping.

Pairing up with her for the season is VW Champion, Tony Gilham, who will also be racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup with Redesign Racing. Anna comments: “Tony and I make a good partnership - we both have the hunger to win this year and we work well together pushing each other on”.The pair were quick at the official Britcar and PS1 press day the week before and had high expectations for the race weekend. 

Friday Test:

Weather conditions were constantly changing, Anna went out first on wets to shake the car down. “The car felt strong for the first few laps but I soon ran into problems and headed for the pits” The diff was leaking oil and needed to be changed which put a stop to the pair’s morning test. However, it was sorted quickly and Tony got behind the wheel for the afternoon session. After setting some good lap times Tony didn’t appear on the 6th lap and the red flag was waved. The engine had let go leaving oil all over the track at Luffield.

The car was towed back to the garage, and Anna’s head engineer, Will Fields, took one look at the engine and knew it had to be changed.(well, the two inch hole in the cylinder head and another in the bottom of the engine block gave it away a little!). Undeterred, the team shot back to the Lincoln workshop, to collect a standard BMW engine and then worked solidly though the night replacing the damaged engine.

Friday ended with Anna and Tony knowing they had their work cut out for the next day. Only a few laps completed on test day and now the car was over 40bhp down on power. 

Saturday Race:

The looming snow storms held off long enough for the pair to qualify 10th on the grid, but being hard racers they weren’t phased by this grid position. “It’s all down to race craft now” said Anna.

First decision was what tyre to race with as black clouds could be seen to be coming nearer and snow was forecast. Anna and Geoff went with slicks deciding the wind would blow a lot of the snow off the track and leave a dry racing line. Anna started the race on the outside with the Seat Cupra of Jamie Stanley’s, the Honda Civic of Alan Blencowe’s and the Evo of Gary Furst around her.

Two green flag laps were given and Anna worked hard weaving aggressively to get heat into the tyres as the first snow flurry hit. Clipping the kerb at Woodcote the lights went out and Anna had dropped right back. I’ve lost power!” she shouted down the radio. The standard engine had gone into safety mode!

Anna turned everything electrical off - wiper, lights and diff pump. It took half the circuit for the power had come back with Anna holding her position with a strong defence. With blue skies above and a dry racing line, the power returned and Anna did what she does best - she had a storming race with Alan Blencowe and Jamie Stanley, the cars being  three abreast at one stage. By racing hard she made up 5 places overall.

Once Anna was through and had pulled a gap the team called her in to hand over to Tony. With the snow holding off, Tony drove a storming race putting in good times and chased down the 4th place Alpha of Donaghy and Clonis. They battled hard with each other with Tony passing it a couple laps into his stint. However, this didn’t last long with the lower bhp really telling and the Alpha got through. Undefeated, Tony fought hard and managed to catch the Alpha diving up the inside on the last lap.

The BMW crossed the line in 4th place. A strong result from what was one problematic weekend.  

www.anna-racing.co.uk