With eighth place on the grid after Saturday’s qualifying, the Corby based Catchpole team was full of optimism for rounds five and six of the SCSA Championship at Rockingham.

“We don’t know if the race set up is as good as the qualifying one. But we went back to the British style settings and it seemed to work. We had a vibrating rear hub and a misfire in free practice, but cured those,” said Southampton’s Phil Weaver.

Within the first three laps of the first race, Weaver had dropped to 15th place and it was clear that all as not well. After persevering for another 12 laps, Weaver headed for the pits.

Although he returned to the track and completed 51 of the 60 laps in total to be classified 13th, the team was left with plenty of work to ready the car for the second race.

“It was undriveable, with phenomenal vibration and we need to change the rear axle,” he said.

In the second race, Weaver started to move through the order and was in 10th place by lap 15. As the pitstops approached, he caught and took Keith White for ninth and rejoined the race in the same place. Reigning Pickup Champion Gavin Seager was the next target and on lap 48 he was poised to challenge. “I had the measure of Gavin and pushed hard through Turn Two, then flat out of Turn Three right under his rear. He blocked so I braked and then went back on the throttle, but there was nothing there,” explained Phil. The fuel pump had failed with no warning and it was race over.