Round 5 of the CPC Legends Championship at Leicestershire's Mallory Park proved another eventful excursion for the driver of the CPC Legends number 14 car Paul Musselle.
A solid practice session saw the Hertfordshire based driver and TV Presenter 11th fastest of the huge 28 car field and out-qualifying his vastly experienced team-mate and former World Legends Champion John Mickel.
For race 1 of 3 Musselle had drawn grid position 25, on the inside of the 13th row and with the colossal task of trying to work his way through to the front of a packed and enthusiastic field. The impressive charge to the first corner was followed by a destructive ‘coming together’ of several cars but Musselle picked his way through and kept his CPC Legend "lit", dancing his way through the chaos and picking off car after car to complete lap one in an impressive 10th place. The carnage at Gerrards, involving 7 cars, brought out the yellow flags. After 4 laps under the safety car, the red flag was deployed, bringing the cars to a standstill on the grid while rescue units recovered some cars and pulled others out of the gravel.
With more than two racing laps having been completed the field should have been re-started in the positions they had been when the race was red-flagged. However confused officials reset the grid as it was at the start of the race, pushing Paul back to 25th on the grid for the restart and added insult to injury by reducing the race distance to just 4 laps. Despite the shorted distance, Musselle, fully committed, managed to pass 12 cars to be classified 13th of the 23 finishers.
Race 2 saw Musselle start on the front row and he drove the wheels off his Mickel Motorsport prepared '34 Ford Coupe to hold a top 3 position in the first 5 laps before being passed by Simon Belcher and Lawrence Davey on lap 7. Contact by the latter at Gerrards saw Paul sent into a wicked 360 degree spin from which he quickly recovered without hitting anything or anyone and raced home to finish 11th.
By the time Race 3 arrived, ominous dark clouds were gathering but a dry track meant dry tyres and Paul started from the outside of row 7 in 14th place. By lap 4 the heavens had deluged the 1.35 mile circuit with standing water in a few places making conditions treacherous. Musselle made good progress in the extreme positions and held on to his CPC Legend on a number of occasions with the car desperately trying to swap ends due to the lack of grip. On lap 7 the car got its way and despite recovering from a wild spin at the John Cooper Esses, the car stalled and due to a defective solenoid, Paul could not restart the car and was forced to retire from the race.
Summing up the weekend the ever positive Musselle commented "Despite the ups and downs of the results and the confusion in race one it's been a really great weekend. Alan, John, Roger, Dill and the boys from Mickel Motorsport gave me a great set up after practice and I now know I'm getting to grips with Legends racing after 5 rounds. We're only a third of the way into the season so there's more to come from me and the CPC Legend - and from the feedback I've had, at least we're being entertaining too!"
The next two rounds of the CPC Legends Championship are at Lydden Hill on 26/27 June.
