RSR Racing ran the Stealth B6 in the inaugural GT Festival on the new Bahrain International Grand Prix Circuit over the weekend of November 25th and 26th 2004, within an International field of top GT teams with cars such as the Ferrari 550, Chrysler Viper GTS, Saleen S7 and many other exotic GT race cars.
It was the team’s first experience of the car, and although both the drivers, Nigel Greensall and Terry Pudwell, had prior experience in Stealth B6 race cars, it was also their first time in this particular car. This made for a tough but ultimately very rewarding week.
The week began badly when the team discovered that the car had been damaged in transit from the UK, so front bodywork and steering repairs had to be undertaken before the car could even be presented for technical scrutineering at this FIA run event.
The problems continued after just a few flying laps of qualifying by Nigel, when a rear rose joint failed when Terry was at the wheel, which bizarrely resulted in a broken gearbox output shaft, requiring new gearbox parts to be flown out overnight from Hewland Engineering in Maidenhead (great service from Alan in the stores at Hewland!). This meant that we missed all of practice/qualifying and the first 2 of the 3 scheduled 35minute heats, preventing the team from undertaking any set up work or optimisation of the car at all.
We had to nominate which drivers would start which races in advance and so Nigel did the 3rd qualifying heat (our first time on the track at speed) getting from 46th on the grid to 6th by the end of 35 minutes! This great performance from Nigel meant that Terry would have to start the one hour main race from 6th on the grid with full tanks, surrounded by top drivers who'd all had many laps of this beautiful circuit in qualifying and the heats, with Terry having not completed a single lap of the circuit at racing speeds. Not good for the nervous system!
In the build up to the main race, Terry made the most of his warm up lap and the pace car lap to try to get some feel for the car and circuit. He thankfully survived the hectic first lap and after the necessarily cautious first few laps, managed to keep the car inside the top 10. His memory of braking from 190mph into the 30mph Turn 1 at the end of the first lap in close traffic, without the benefit of practice or qualifying, will be etched into his mind for a long time and was an experience to say the least! A new braking system from Performance Friction meant that the Stealth B6 pulled up straight and strong from such speeds at each time of asking – a great comfort for the drivers! From here, Nigel blasted through to 4th place at the finish ( without any significant retirements ) gaining on the 3rd placed Saleen towards the end and with the Stealth B6 not missing a beat along the way. A sight to behold!
The team benefited from some much appreciated local sponsorship from Bahrain Duty Free (thank you David Ryan), with many guests in attendance, as well as many friends of Graham and Jennifer Sale (who hosted the team so wonderfully) and tireless help from our pressganged temporary mechanics Ray and Khalil. All this local support meant that the team really felt the pressure to perform. Nevertheless, after all the initial problems, the RSR team (Woody, Ian, Jim, Ray, Khalil and Sophie) and the Stealth B6 performed flawlessly, and provided everybody with a day to remember.
Roll on the second Bahrain GT Festival!!
