On Sunday I was invited at the last minute to co-drive a Porsche Boxster in the 750 Motor Club‘s Cartek 2 hour endurance race at Silverstone. I had planned to attend the races anyway, to watch PDC Racing mechanic Esther Quaintmere make her debut in their Stock Hatch championship, but I got a call from Jonathan Evans, who I’ve known through the Porsche Club Championship and 24 hour races for some years. He’d signed up to take part in Sunday’s race and the original plan was to drive his new-build Cayman. With that car not ready, he instead rented a 987 Boxster S from one-time BRSCC Porsche Championship team Taylors Foundary.
I’d raced in the 987 variant of Porsche’s mid-engined roadster before, sharing Canadian Farees Ali’s car for a season in Britcar, but this car was new to me – and to Johnathan, who had only ever raced 986s. He and his team SE Motorsport had spent a lot of Friday testing the car and trying to get it set up correctly. As well as its stability management system – which sometimes decided to lock the wheels under breaking – they’d struggled with tyres with no one on site able to provide a suitable set in the right size. A call to local BRSCC Porsche driver Richard Avery resulted in the loan of a set of part-worn Toyo R888Rs on suitable wheels and we had these swapped onto the car for the race.
Johnathan qualified first and had posted a best time of 1:18.99 – which I was unable to better – and that put us in the middle of the 42-car grid.
He also took the first stint and with lap times down to 1:18.66 had got the car up to 2nd in class B with a significant gap to the next car, also a Porsche, in the same class. He came in after 60 minutes, but unfortunately a problem with the refuelling jugs meant a very long pit stop and despite my best efforts, I could only finish P4 in class.
My thanks to Jonathan for the unexpected chance of another race, his sponsors ESRG Group, S.E. Motorsport, Auto Fuel Fix and Treacle Media, plus BRSCC Porsche drivers Richard Avery for the tyre loan and Jamie Callender, who helped out on the pit wall.
