World Qualifying Round 1 - Ipswich 30th July 2005
The debut national meeting for Brian Loram (forgetting one race
back in 1994 at Newton Abbot) took place at Ipswich on the 30th July 2005.
We got a shock we wern't expecting when the NHRPA completley changed the
grid formats the day before the meeting which meant we'd be facing a reverse
grid for the heats and going off the back in the final, quite a blow when
under the previous format we'd have been off pole! Added to this the dreadful
weather we faced when arriving at Ipswich on Saturday afternoon and it
looked like we were in for a busy meeting!
Race 1 - As the cars lined up on the grid for race 1 the track
was still wet with most of the drivers on full wets. From the start Brian
moved up from his 12th placed grid and soon got up into the top ten after
catching Dick Hillard. The 262 car was stuck behind Hillards 31 car for
several laps and was unable to get past which let a couple cars through
before the pace car had to come out on track while an accident was cleared
away. Unfortunatly the left front tyre was now letting itself down and
Brian had to complete the race with a completely flat tyre which unfortunatly
dropped him several places back and cost the team a good result.
Race 2 - With the track beginning to dry Brian decided to take
a gamble and go out on full slicks for race 2, it was evident from the
warm-up lap that this had been a mistake and this was confirmed as Brian
slid down the order in the opening laps. With 26 cars out on track though
a dry line soon started to appear and from being the slowest car on the
track 262 was now lapping at the leaders pace! Unfortunatly with only
one dry line overtaking was nearly impossible so despite having good pace
the result was still poor.
