Why people should stay retired....

It sounded like a good idea when I was reading my email back in December or January, a return to Monoposto with a race at Spa. How hard can it be to step back into a Dallara after almost two years and win Spa. Yes, it was late at night in New Zealand and yes I had been drinking at the time.

As the months went by and I was back in the UK I slowly realised that we had better take my car out of storage and prep it for Belgium. This meant Nemesis replaced the floors, repaired a starter motor, and re mapped the engine for a 25mm restrictor. We also raised the ride height to 40mm. A quick shake down at Mallory Park in the wet (still at F3 ride height) raised some questions. I couldn't remember how to start the car and almost pressed the extinguisher by mistake. "Are you sure Spa is A Good Idea?" was all Jeremy Bennett had to say.

So off to Belgium it was with Jody as mechanic as Jeremy was running a car in a historic F3 race at Brands Hatch. I don't get this new love Nemesis have with old race cars. I mean isn't the choice between a Dallara and a Brabham a bit like Keira Knightley vs Barbara Windsor? It's just not the 60's anymore!

Preparation for Friday practise involved finding the right way out of the circuit to get to the Racing Hotel and making sure Nemesis was not out done by Magic at the bar. Some game was on the TV. Rounders I think so we ended up making the trip to the pub a regular evening event over the weekend. Practise one was a case of feeling my way back in. It seems not only had the Bus Stop and pit straight been re profiled since my last trip to Spa but someone had made Eau Rouge steeper and Blanchimont a lot tighter. The result was a lift where the 'old corners' had been flat. Mark Harrison also found the track had changed and used his old wet line through Eau Rouge.

6th fastest wasn't all that bad so for Quali two we kept with the old F3 tyres that had started life with us back in summer 08 but cranked a bit more front wing flap on. The runs went without any problems and I had some nice dices with Geoff Fern and Graham Reed. 7th on the grid for the second race.

I should have known luck was changing. At the end of the second practise our car was checked for eligibility and when trying to re-start the car to get back to the pits the starter motor clutch broke. When Jody went to change the slicks for our race tyres the left rear stub axle thread was damaged. Then to cap off our bad luck when Clare, Neil and I were riding the paddock bike up to the pub we ran out of petrol. I was left wondering why bad things happen to good people.

Despite Neil Harrison reliably informing us all that it was going to be rain and thunderstorms for the race we woke up to baking hot weather and a slight hangover. By the time we were taking the grid it felt more like Melbourne than Belgium and I was worried that the engine would overheat and that we would not be able to re-start with our damaged starter motor. Fortunately the green flag lap was quite fast and I got a nice reaction time on the green lights. I was past Neil and a few others into turn one and chasing the lead pack down the hill. As I exited Eau Rouge I noticed some pressure on the back of my head. As I went further up Kemel straight I realised the head rest was not fitted properly at the back and was being lifted with the air pressure. This was forcing my head down so that by the time I got to the 100m board I could only just see over the top of my dash. I considered trying to drive around the problem but as it repeated again on the back straight I came into the pits for a quick repair. After that my race was pretty much over and I just tried to regain as many places as I could.

When I heard about the retirements of Jeremy Timms and other front runners I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon walking around with a Jim Blockley smile on my face, convinced I could have finished on the podium if I had not needed to pit. In all likelihood I wouldn't have but that rational doesn't come into your head when a beaming Neil Harrison is trying to spray champagne down on you.

Sunday's race start was even better and I was up to third place by the exit of La Source. I lost this on lap two when Peter Venn came flying past me at the top of Kemel. I was geared to 166mph and hitting the soft limiter so Peter's top speed was very impressive. I spent the rest of the race trying to pass Peter who was faster than me through Eau Rouge and Blanchimont but slower at Pouhon and Stavelot. Traffic pushed us apart and then closer again so that by the end of the race we crossed the line only two seconds apart, Peter retaining third and I was fourth overall. I had the third fastest lap time and gone 9 seconds faster than the day before so it was quite a pleasing end to the weekend for me.

I had a great weekend of fun and was reminded of how friendly the Monoposto people are. I would like to say a big thank you to team Avit for repairing our stub axles and team Magic for fixing our starter motor. Another big thank you to Jeremy Timms and his crew for helping Jody and I out all through the weekend, without these people and their help we would have been stranded in the pits and not out racing. I have a bit more respect for a certain German who is making his own racing comeback and whilst I don't doubt his decision to come out of retirement had less to do with Steinlager than mine, I think he's doing a great job. My tip to him though would be to follow the advice I got by text message late Saturday night..... ditch the Sparcos and get a pair of lucky brogues. The shoe choice of champions.

Phil Moore

Keira Knightley (Dallara)

Barbara Windsor (Brabham)

Or...some of us (I can name them...) might equate a Brabham more with Joanna Lumley rather than Barbara Windsor.

With this analogy you can begin to recognise Jeremy's reasoning

The author in his Dallara 304

Jody fastens in the low flying Kiwi

Out for practice

It may have been borrowed, but this is closer to silverware than some other legends have got when attempting a comeback...

...mentioning no names