It was just one of those weekends for Nick & Scott at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, where superstitious folk might suggest that they had walked under every ladder and crossed a few black cats’ paths.
It didn’t get off to a great start when the SD teams Team Parker racing Porsche Cayman GT4 cut out at the beginning of the first practice session, and after diagnosing a catastrophic electrical failure the team were forced to send for an expert from the Porsche factory over the border in Germany.
The car was worked on throughout the morning but neither Nick or Scott were able to achieve any meaningful running in either practice session, which meant they’d have to go straight into the late afternoon qualifying sessions with no race speed laps under their belts.
Under the circumstances, qualifying 14th out of 20+ GT4 cars in both the AM & Pro qualifying sessions was a good result, but unfortunately that was as good as it was going to get for the boys this fateful weekend.
With the format reverting to two one-hour races, it wasn’t long before the safety car was out just two laps into the first race when the Century Motorsport Ginetta, driven by Steve Fresle, crashed heavily at Raidillon.
Soon after the restart, another incident ahead saw Nick try to take avoiding action but unfortunately clashed with the other Century Motorsport Ginetta driven by Anna Walewska at La Source. Both cars retired on the spot.
With there being such a tight turnaround before race two (just 2 hours later) and the organisers not recovering the damaged cars until after the GT race had ended – and also after the subsequent 30-minute Formula Three race – the team just didn’t have enough time to repair the car for the next race. This meant a sad ending to what had already been a very trying weekend!
Nick and Scott now have a welcome four-week break to put this difficult weekend behind them before the next event at Scott’s home circuit of Brands Hatch on the 5th & 6th of August.
