ROUND 5 – ELF Renault Clio Cup / Oulton Park Cheshire, June 23/24 2007

Weather Adds to Oulton Park Drama

Round five of the ELF Renault Clio Cup saw the father and son racing duo of Jonathan and David Shepherd competing on home soil at the magnificent Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire. Both drivers love the sweeping, technical nature of the track and headed into the weekend confident of putting on a good show for all their friends, family and sponsors who were attending the event.

Large crowds flocked to one of the favourite venues on the British Touring Car Championship calendar, set amid the beautiful Cheshire parkland, it offers a great family day out for the spectators. As ever, the over subscribed Clio Cup championship means that the 41 drivers entered have to qualify for grid position and to be eligible for the 32 grid slots for Sundays points scoring race.

Jonathan and David both struggled in their separate qualifying sessions on Saturday morning, with neither driver getting a clear lap and both drivers ended outside the top 16 positions in each of their sessions. With only the top 16 going through to Sunday’s main race the pressure was on to gain plenty of places in the Saturday afternoon qualifying races.

David raced first and managed to avoid a multi-car pile-up into the first corner, gaining him several vital places. He then continued driving a good race and gained a few more places to finish 12th out of the 21 cars and secured his place in Sundays final.

Now the pressure was on Jonathan to ensure that ‘Team Gladman’ had both cars on the grid on Sunday. Another frantic race saw more cars heading for the barriers at the fast ‘Old Hall’ corner, this time Jonathan had to swerve to avoid two cars spinning in front of him and had no choice but to go off track, ending-up backwards into the tyre wall. Managing to restart with damaged rear bodywork, but fortunately all the suspension intact, he then drove a great race, making a brave pass around the outside at ‘Cascades’ to finish 15th and secure his place behind David in the final.

All eyes were on the weather leading-up to the start of Sunday’s final and with a shower just before assembly for the race, it was decision time on tyre choice. Jonathan opted for wet weather tyres, whilst David threw caution to the wind and went for slicks.

Jonathan made a superb start on his grippier wet tyres, gaining several places, whilst David suffered wheel spin as he left the start line losing a handful of places in the process. Jon settled into a good race pace, slowly gaining on the cars in front of him, David meanwhile was getting to understand the grip levels on his tricky slick tyres and took a little time to settle.

One lap into the race a crash brought out the safety car whilst the marshals removed the stricken car and repaired the barriers. Unfortunately it took five laps to make the repairs leaving only 3 laps left in the race for the duo to make further places.

After the restart David’s gamble looked like it may pay dividends as the track had dried slightly, but it was all to no avail as he was collected by another car coming out of ‘Lodge’ sending him into the barriers and ending his race with damaged rear suspension. Jonathan meanwhile worked up to 21st by the end of the race, just one place off a points scoring position.

Said Jonathan afterwards, “It was very frustrating being stuck behind the safety car for so long as I think I could have gained a few more places and grabbed a few points for the team. This time it was David’s turn to get the bad luck, lets hope that we can both finish at Donington next time out”.

Sponsors Birchall, Nothern Highways and Travis Perkins had plenty of incidents to talk about and enjoyed the unique Oulton Park atmosphere, plus all the Touring Car action in very tricky conditions.

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