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“The Masters” at Mallory Park - 26th October 2008 - the XK Challenge Event Report by John Davies Roberts exciting race this year!! So where did I finish the Season with my XK150? Read on………. I began to believe that we were in for a very wet weekend. It was to be however, a race day of two halves. Thank goodness I arrived on Saturday and set up tent, I mean the MWS Marquee, as it was a lovely evening, dry with no hint of what was to come because, on Sunday morning I awoke to heavy winds and rain. By the time we arrived at the circuit, the rain had stopped but with heavy humidity, the circuit was going to take a long time to dry out. Assisted again, by Steve Andrew (My Race Engineer and Applied IT company CEO) we organised our day, the car, the FOOD (Essential!). The last time I raced at Mallory was some four years ago where I raced my Championship winning FIA MGB. So, I had never raced my XK150, so this was going to be a day of enlightenment. Luckily we were the last race to qualify, but even then the circuit was very slippery in parts and I struggled to get the power down early enough out of the corners without loosing the back end. I have to admit that other drivers were setting much faster lap times, but thank goodness for CKL who managed to salvage the situation. But we were in 14th out of twenty cars with a 1 minute 1 second lap time around this very fast but short 1.35 mile circuit. However, in the afternoon, the sun eventually broke through and the three races before us helped to dry the track out completely. The thoughts going through my mind at the time were confusing, but I hoped against hope that I would manage to do better than the morning’s qualifier. The down side to being the last race of the day was the fact that the clocks had changed the night before and our race didn’t start until 16:05 and it was for 45 minutes. We were definitely going to need our headlights, for the first time this year. We assembled on the grid and I knew what I needed to do! Going into the race I was leading Class ‘C’ of the XK Championship, by one point from CKL in his XK Roadster and four points in front of John Burton in his very quick XK120 FHC. I certainly needed to stay in front of CKL, but holding off JB was going to be a task and a half. I also needed to overhaul Graham Love in his XK150S to gain valuable XK places in the race. Graham and Phil Keen had qualified well in 5th place.
My first lap was a 1:00.72 and my speed got progressively faster and on five laps I managed lap times of 59 seconds. My dice with Stefan Zeigler also bore dividends. Faster than me in qualifying, I caught him, proceeded to harass him for two laps and he eventually lost control at (Yes, you’ve guessed it!) Gerrards. When CKL took over it was really a case of the gathering gloom and, with headlights ablaze, CKL took off to re-join the fray. John Burton, who had spun off on the first lap was back on the pace and eventually overhauled Chris to gain 3rd in Class position but we achieved a very creditable 4th. This was a very fast race and I had also forgotten how much fun little Mallory Park is to drive. We all had a wonderful time with great teamwork with CKL and Steve at my side. The net result of my endeavours was that I am: and it appears... 2nd overall in the Shared Driver Category overall for the XK Championship 2008. All I can say is that this year has been a testament to the hard work we have all put in with a big thank you to CKL and my mechanic Dave and to Steve having supported and guided me when I could only think about racing and not “preparation” as well. But a big thank you goes to Gary Gardner and Helen at MWS International who have diligently posted my Race Reports, photographs and edited my Camcorder footage for each event. THANKS GUYS!!! The Classic Motor Show, NEC on the 14th, 15th and 16th of November. Hope to see you there! John D R.
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