Driver name: Rob Compton
Team: #59 Team Air Ambulance
2007 Results:
Best Finish: 7th
Championship Position: 9th (1st Rookie Championship)
Likes & Dislikes:
Food? – Like: Italian, Indian, Chinese, Thai, anything with a nice flavour! – Dislike: Anything with Kidney in it.
Band & Album? – Motorhead / Ace of Spades
Football team? – Football is banned in the #59 household. These days it’s Big Brother on Grass. Just not interested.
Actor/Actress? – Actor : Brian Blessed, Actress : Helen Mirren.
Film? – Talladega Nights?, errr. No seriously – Dune
TV Programme? – Out of Town (long since canned!)
Car? – other than the ASCAR, my Vauxhall Belmont Thundersaloon
Driver? – The late great Gerry Marshall.
Holiday destination? – Zakynthos
Questions:
2nd favourite race circuit (after Rockingham of course!)? – Cadwell Park
What was your first road car? – Ford Fiesta 1.3Ghia TEB723S
What’s your occupation? – Radio Engineer
How did you get started in motorsport? – Having been interested in cars from a young age, I first thought about sprinting, and started building a Chevette HS. That idea got canned when I bought my Nova Sport. I decided to race that in the BRSCC Super Road Saloon championship, and that was that.
First thoughts leaving the pit lane for the first time in a stock car? – Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Harrrrrrrrrr
What are the differences in driving style between Oval and road course? – Other than “turn left, turn left, turn, left, and turn left again”, it’s the style. With road course racing, it’s a different way of handling the car, it’s slow in, fast out, there are not many corners where you want to carry the speed through the corners like we do. To go well on the oval, you have to be smooth, and that’s something that I’ve found easy – after driving fairly skittish front-wheel-drive cars for much of my racing “career”.
Why do you race with number 59? – It was the number that I carried from my third ever race onwards. It’s just kind of “stuck”. I had to race with No.9 on the Belmont last year in the EERC V8 Supercars, though all I did was cross out the 5!!
Best Moment of the season? – Finishing my first race.
Worst Moment of the season? – Need you ask. In the wall in qualifying. For a “previous concrete virgin”, it’s a weird feeling of helplessness when everything you learn through road course racing doesn’t work on a banked oval, especially with the hard Avon’s that let go big time!.
How does it feel to be Rookie Champion? – It’s a great feeling. I’ve beaten all of my expectations this year. As it said on the front of the car for the last race – ROOKIE CHAMPIONS 2007. Not just me, the whole team. I wouldn’t be champ if it hadn’t been for the rest of the team.
A brief season review (and sponsor plug!!!) – The season has had it’s ups and downs. We started on a high. A new team, and a car that worked pretty well out of the box. The April meeting went well, and I achieved three of my goals. 1. Entered the championship. 2. Started a race. 3. Finished the first meeting with a straight car.
May was the RAF Spirit of Adventure show – and after one demo run, it looked like I’d broken the diff!
June was a test of everyone’s patience. It rained and rained and rained. And to make matters worse – It wasn’t the diff – it was the clutch, as I found out when I loaded up to go to the circuit. Thankfully, Questmead had one in stock, and the team worked their usual magic, getting the car out for second practice and qualifying. Sadly, it came to nowt, as on race-day, the rain didn’t let up. What’s more, it was the first of our air ambulance fund raising efforts. I had my legs waxed by Laura. That raised £500 which was split between the East Anglian Air Ambulance “Bedfordshire appeal”, and the Hertfordshire Air Ambulance appeal.
July wasn’t too good for us. We had our own marquee (if you can call it that!) which tried to take off in the wind, and had a wet start to the weekend. Then qualifying for only a few minutes, followed by a race. Sunday started with a race first thing, and the first obvious signs that things were not right in the engine department. A misfire put paid to a decent result. The team worked on it, but it was still interfering for the “non-race”. It was put down to plugs/leads. One good thing that did happen for July – we picked up some financial support from Domino’s Pizza – Kettering & Wellingborough branches. Store manager Asif came along to see us in action. Due to the weather, the early Sunday race, and the fiasco surrounding the second race, he didn’t get to see us run.
August was better in one way – we had a garage!!! The misfire was still there, but worse. We had a breakthrough – it seems that No.2 injector wasn’t playing, and that was the cause, not the plugs/leads, though they were all well past their sell-by date. Moving the injector to No.4 seemed to make the problem go away, but it still wasn’t running right. In the first race it blew the porcelain part of the plug out, and I pitted. My crew were quickly on it, and fitted another plug. Sadly I missed too many laps, and was a non-classified finisher. With a very brief break between the two races, we refuelled and went out again. The misfire was still there, but not as bad, though this time it blew the complete plug out of No.2. Once again I pitted, but the officials wouldn’t let me rejoin. Once the engine had cooled, a bore scope seemed to show valve damage on No.2 cylinder. Again, Domino’s were supporting us, and we had some pizzas courtesy of the Hemel Hempstead store. We also ran a raffle to raise money for the air ambulance charities, and that totalled just under £250.
Between August and September, I took the left hand head off of the engine to check for damage. There was none! What I did find was No.2 inlet valve was a standard GM valve, not a Manley stainless valve. Thankfully, US Automotive had stock, and it was quickly replaced.
Guess what – September, Motorfest, misfire! And I thought I’d cured it! Though it was better. We had short compact practice session, and I’d say the car was just about back on-song as I went into qualifying. The car seemed a little loose compared to earlier, where I’d say it handled as well as it ever has, just down on straightline speed a little. On lap 4, as I went through turn 2, the back stepped out, I tried a little correction, it snapped back the other way, and not wanting to go into the wall head first, I turned the car into a spin the other way and slammed on the anchors. The left rear blew out, which probably didn’t help matters. The car then slammed backwards into the wall right up by Turn 3. All of that happened in only a couple of seconds, a lot less time that it takes to type these words!
While I’m recumbent in the medical centre, a swarm of black and red, among others, descend on my car, and set about repairing it. What can I say – the guys from every team that helped were unbelievable. Tractor cut it, Duane welded it! And a plethora of helpers cut, shut, tweaked, twisted, and taped the car back together again. Special thanks to the Rockingham Racing School who let us have the rear end off of the “bent” two-seater (which was less bent than my own). Colin White supplied a fuel tank casing and carrier, Duane found a spare rear end panel.
With no seconds left on the clock, the car was rolled out into the pitlane to start the Saturday race, to loud cheers from other crews and the crowd. I joined the warm-up laps after the rest of the field had started their second lap. The car, unbelievably handled very well. It took a few laps to get a feel for it, but I was able to push as hard as the V7 engine would carry me. This weekend saw the engine eat four brand new MSD motorsport leads, and one Magnecor “spare”. A finish in the first race secured the Rookie’s championship, which was the icing on the cake for the weekend.
I was able to overtake Pete Wilky in Sunday’s race – turns out he had a V7 too!! I was really happy with the car’s handling, it was just a shame that it didn’t have any “go” left in it!! Finally, the misfire has been put down to the No.7 coil.
I hoped to go away from this last meeting with only minor cosmetic work required for 2008. However, the car needs a new rear “clip”, plus a few bits of panel. And I want to have it ready for Autosport International.
That’s motor racing!
Special thanks for this season to my team : Nick (Spotter), Scotty (Crew chief), Rikko, Henry, Beery, Ben, Jon, and my wife Suzanne. Without you guys, there would be no “Team Air Ambulance”
Many thanks to all who have supported and helped Team Air Ambulance this season, and to those who have supported their local air ambulance charities.
Here’s to 2008!!
Rob Compton image copyright© 2007 www.timtime.co.uk
