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NURBURGRING Meeting July 14-15th 2001
The German leg of the 2001 BTRA championship at the Nurburgring was
packed with incidents with Steve putting in some fine performances.
Steve is a racer and as such cannot restrict himself to just the championship
races, he entered every race that he could and consequently found himself
up against the best in Europe in the FIA races.
The brakes were a problem all weekend and, being wet on the Friday and Saturday resulted in some interesting incidents! In one FIA race, following a great start where Steve went from 18th to 5th place, the brakes grabbed resulting in a spin in the middle of the pack and dumping him in the gravel, losing all the places he had made up! Steve rejoined in last place then made up eight places with the German crowd going berserk, then the brakes failed again at the hairpin and he spun into the tyres. Straight back into the fray and following a gutsy performance Steve finally finished in 5th place amongst the cream of Europe!
Steve generally did very well in the FIA races, entertaining the crowd with power slides, exploding two tyres, melting three sets of brakes and getting nicked for speeding ten times in a ten lap race!!!
Due to the packed schedule, the powers that be decided to combine the BTRA Championship races with the French Nationals. In the first of the two races Steve started in 4th behind Stuart Oliver in Pole, then a Frenchman, then Nigel Fry. At the first corner the Frenchman blocked Steve allowing Roy Clarke to pass him on the other side, this set the tone for the race with Steve being blocked at every passing opportunity. By the 7th corner Steve was still blocked and getting very frustrated, going into the chicane he shunted the Frenchman and finally got past, but by this time it was too late to make any impact on the leaders. Stuart took first place followed by Roy Clarke and Nigel Fry with Steve finishing fourth.
In Race two, Steve passed the Frenchman at the start but the brakes continued to let him down, causing him to miss the Chicane twice. There were a few more 'incidents' with some of the French competitors and Steve finally finished in 4th position again behind Stuart Oliver, Nigel Fry and Roy Clarke.
Steve's Volvo White was a little the worse for wear after the Nurburgring but Steve is now on 'catch up' and the War continues at Thruxton on August 18th and 19th. Don't miss it!
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