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From Minicross to Tarmac - Customer Profile: Ron Watson

Race report from Lydden 5^th May 2003

After the rebuild as a result of the broken oil cooler occurring at Silverstone on 26^th April, we went out to practice having to run the engine in before attempting to set a decent lap time. The engine was brilliant which was a miracle given that Bill and Lee only had two and a half days to rebuild it, and this included a new crank, bearings, and in the gearbox a new select fork and reverse gear.

Practice for race two went well until I realised the brakes weren’t working properly i.e. under heavy braking the car pulled sharply to the left! Managed to post a 49.1 which was the best time of all the cars in class 8. It gave me 8^th place out of 15 cars on the grid I was surrounded by Cosworths and BMW’s. Lights went red, lights went green and I made up three places going into Chessons for the first time. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep this pace up, losing lots of time each lap, trying to get the car round the Devil’s Elbow on at least three wheels!

Anyway, a good race. Won class 8 and finished 8^th overall, should have been 7^th, but got jumped on the line by the Vauxhall Chevette of Brian Wray.

Practice for race 5 in which I was the lonely class D entrant, started badly and got worse. We found that the brake pads which caused the problems in practice for race two had been contaminated by the Castrol R40 that had been sprayed everywhere when the oil cooler let go at Silverstone. This meant new pads had to be fitted and this job took a bit longer than we thought, so I didn’t get a full practice in. Once I had bedded the brakes in, I had a real go at trying to better the 49.1 achieved in the previous practice, but couldn’t do better than a 49.9, probably because I picked up a puncture early on which led to very unusual handling characteristics.

Qualified 14^th on the grid out of 20, and again found myself surrounded by Cosworths and BMW’s. Another blinding start got me from 14^th to 10^th going into Chessons, but again lost out at the elbow. I was holding the class lead comfortably when 3 laps from home the new oil cooler let go. This time I knew what had happened so crept back into the paddock before doing any engine damage.

Must say a big thank you to Bill and Lee who got the car ready in such a short time. Must also say a big thank you to Ryan, Julie and Adam from Portsmouth Mini Owners Club, who were my race team for the day, these three worked tirelessly to keep the car and the driver going, and I very much appreciated their efforts.

We will now be rebuilding the front suspension and changing the gearing for the Pembrey event, hopefully will do well there.

Tarmac debut.....

Silverware too ! Ron has recently left Minicross and decided to have a go at proper circuit racing - this was prompted by a rather unhappy return to Minicross after a break from competitive motorsport. After finding that the new minicross car was being 'punted off' the circuits far too regularly to be much fun it was decided to use the car (with a set of slick tyres and a few modifications) at a Lydden track day to see if Ron might be competitive at this entirely new discipline. I don't think that it was much of a surprise to see that after being set some target times by Bill Richards, Ron went on to produce consistent lap times below this target as the day progressed.

The Minicross car would not be eligible for the the Lydden Saloon car Championships for various technical reasons (the engine was not in the most appropriate state of tune and the bodyshell had been 'de-seamed' by a previous owner) so it was decided that a new car ought to be developed. A new bodyshell was obtained and the team at Bill Richards Racing set about producing a competitive car for club motorsport.

The 26th of October was Ron's first event in the new car - it was also the first test for the car as it had not really been tried out at all. I think that it's quite safe to describe practice as a total waste of time ! - the car would not run properly on either of the two practice sessions and glum faces were very much the order of the day. It was decided to remove the rev-limiter from the equation and the car immediately seemed far happier (as was it's pilot !)

Both races seemed to go very well indeed, I'm not sure what the final positions were but I'm sure that Ron will take great delight in informing us in his forthcoming race report - he even collected some silverware for his first day on tarmac which has got to be considered a huge success. The car ran faultlessly once the rev limiter had been removed and the lap times were consistently quick.

A racing history.....

The 2002 Minicross car "After racing in Minicross for a couple of years, having great fun for not a lot of money, in 1996 I won a round of the Minicross Grasstrack Championship - probably more by accident than design. What a great feeling, I got the trophy, I got the applause and I wore the grin for a whole week – there really is nothing to compare to the feeling you get when you win a race!!"

"On the downside, and there is a downside, I wanted to win again and again. Yes, yes, lets go for it in 1997. Let’s try and win not just one race, but one of the 3 championships that Minicross was running – Grasstrack Championship, Rallycross Championship or the prestigious Champion of Champions." Minicross car on slicks

"The challenge was on, but my Mini definitely was not – what’s more the first round was only 4 weeks away… I had another rolling shell and most of the running gear from the old Mini to transfer across, but an engine? Uh-oh – didn’t have one with enough power or reliability to be consistently competitive."

"Somebody suggested I get in touch with Bill Richards, as he might be able to help. So I did, and he did. What an engine! What an experience!"

“Bill Richards Racing engine is very reliable, powerful and gets the Sollis nod of approval”

Bill Sollis - Miniworld Magazine

"It is worth mentioning that it was quite common for Minicross competitors to have one car for Grasstrack events and a different one for Rallycross, I didn’t and Bill was more than a bit concerned that I was going to use the one engine and one car for all the championships. He did fuss over that unit – but guess what? I raced 16 rounds with no failures, no misfires, no powerloss and no overheating, even though the driver (oops) used stratospheric revs often. The season’s results? Yes we did it – winning 1997 Grasstrack Championship, 1997 Champion of Champions and the 1997 Best Presented Car trophy."

"Sadly, due to work commitments I couldn’t campaign a full season in 1998 and so sold the car – retiring gracefully from racing, but I took up a technical role for the Minicross Drivers Association…"

"A new car was built for the 2002 season and Bill and the boys (Lee and Phil) worked hard to get it ready in time. It appeared in Bill Richards Racing Team colours, who supported the car for the season. It’s about 70kgs lighter than my last car, it has a de-seamed shell (thanks to Russ) a bit more power and it sounded the business!"

"The first event was at Lydden on Sunday 17th February and I'd promised to take it steady and learn how the car works. I was also helping the Bill Richards Racing Team raise money and awareness of Autism on behalf of the Kent Autistic Trust, a worthy charity, based in Ashford, Kent that helps kids of all ages to integrate better into a society that struggles to understand them. We were intending to be bringing them to our race meetings throughout the season, and were hoping that visitors would be coming to say hello."

The season was marked by incidents and accidents most of which were no fault of the driver and were much more to do with the way that Minicross has developed. I wasn't half as much fun as we had remembered and thus it was decided to take the Minicross car to a practice day for a good look at how my racing might be better enjoyed amongst the saloon car racers.