Brundle's Goodwood dispatch: punctures, throttle traps and the true cost of historic racing

Inflation, it’ll get you… especially when you order the extras. Our Lola T292 project is ongoing to get it ready for June’s London Historic Trophy at Brands Hatch, and I’m reminded of the nice surprises to be encountered when building a historic race car. “We need 12 wheels”. Oh yes, three sets: for the wet, the dry and the new set. Got it. Damper valving, the springs you need, the ones you ‘might’ need, tooling, starter motors… It’s those extras that bring these cars into existence, and pound you just before the build’s completion.

And inflation also happens at the track. At the Goodwood Members’ Meeting, I qualified a BMW 323i on the fifth row of the Win Percy Trophy, with a lap time that would have put us in the top five just a year ago. As the race has become more prestigious, it has also become more competitive, so your qualifying time’s ‘buying power’ in terms of grid position decreases every year.

It turned out the nut behind the wheel, and the air in front of the bumper, were the problem; the lack of a slipstream was costing us big time. The start went better. There’s always some luck involved when you guess the revs, and this one put me in the lead group. I was happy to be there, because the Beemer gives away 25bhp and 50kg to the RS2000s.

I was gaining on the straights just by being in the tow and, with the car brilliantly set-up by Amspeed, I could hang on if I ragged it. Then Romain Dumas slid on dropped coolant and hit the chicane, dislodging a rivet from the panelling. I came along moments later and, with great accuracy, collected it squarely in the left-front tyre. Slow puncture; I fell to sixth.

The Rover SD1, inset, I shared in the Gordon Spice Trophy had me on my toes. The throttle stop was fixed by bolts that protrude into the pedal box. The inevitable press at a slightly different angle to the owner, owing to my ’short-man ergonomics’, involved the throttle rod slipping behind the protruding bolt end. You’d better be OK with full gas from there on.