Jason Davies' super Spa seals championship silverware by Rob Allender

Jason Davies driving his M&S Engineering Ford Sierra Sapphire Cosworth turbo, joined the current horde of Welsh drivers in bringing home some European silverware, by winning his Class and finishing  3^rd overall in the 2014 CTCRC (Classic Touring Car Racing Club) Burton Power Blue Oval BOSS Championship for Ford saloons, after an up and down weekend at the famous Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. After a not particularly good qualifying session.  Jason won Saturdays’ dry race 1 and set the fastest lap to take a class winning hat-full of points! Jasons’ task was made easier as his main class rival, Craig Rainer, had damaged his car at Brands Hatch and was unable to make the trip.  (photos Jason at Pembrey in 2013)

Back home in Haverfordwest, after completing the marathon 1,100 mile round trip, Jason confirmed ‘Winning the Class feels good, and makes all the hard-work worthwhile! It’s been a year of ups & downs!

Just to illustrate this, on Sunday, the Ardennes weather had changed to make it a typical wet Spa race, but more of that later!

Jason was hampered with an alternator fault at various times in the year, and this was the root cause of 2 dnf’s at Donington Park. Jasons’ dad Martin explained, ‘We need to change the alternator and I undid the turbo pipe to change it from above’ That lead to another problem in later rounds with a complete loss of boost pressure as the turbo pipe came off! However after Martin had secured the turbo pipe in place, Jason went on a victory spree, winning 3 races in row with one at Croft and 2 at Snetterton and taking 7 fastest lap in a row! Sadly the turbo pipe problems reappeared on the televised round at Silverstone! But Jason bounced back in the second un-televised race with a stirring drive from the back of the grid! With Martin having engineered at proper fix, Jason was on blistering form at Cadwell Park (as seen on Utube!), and won both races! However Craig Rainer managed to pinch the fastest lap in the second Cadwell race, and took a maximum in the next round at Brands Hatch when a bizarre problem side-lined Jason!

‘We had some dials and toggle switches in a binnacle on the top of the dash, secured with some quick release fasteners. However they came loose and binnacle hinged downwards and one of the toggle switches hit the fire extinguisher button! There was extinguisher everywhere! I looked like I’d been in a snowstorm from the waist down!’ As there was no way to re-charge the extinguisher at the circuit, Martin had to make a dash into the hinterland to buy and refit a new system. ‘We had to take the old system out, as the new one wouldn’t match up to the pipes of the old one!’ In the meantime mum Sue had to wash Jasons overalls and Nomex underwear, as the foam was starting to burn Jason in a sensitive area! All told it was a full family effort, and Jason gave his all in race 2, coming from a low grid position and setting fastest lap, lap after lap. However, unbeknown to Jason, his main rival Craig Rainer went out early on, but with the pit-lane at Brands Hatch hidden from the track, Jason was still on a mission! So although Jason was putting pressure on Ashley Bird, in a bid to cut the gap to Rainer, he could have in fact have relaxed a little! Unfortunately as the M&S crew did not have a pit board, they couldn’t give the good news to Jason!

 ‘I really tried hard to get past Ashley and I was taking a second a lap out of him. But I then had a moment out on the circuit, which dropped me back! If I had known the news about Craig, I’d have taken it easier and maybe taken only 0.5 second a lap out of Ashley!’  Martin confirmed ’The next thing we bought was a pit board!’  

However the Davies family and friends travelled to Spa with Jason 3 points behind Craig Rainer, whose car was too damaged to make the trip!  Jason had a plan ‘I figured as you got a point for starting and a point for fastest lap, if I could do that in the two races I would win!’ An early start beckoned, with the whole team leaving Haverfordwest at 4 am! Mum Sue confirmed ‘We had to catch the mid-day ferry from Dover and we only just made it! Then we had to shuffle the car & trailer onto to the transit to make sure we were getting the best rates! It was close but we caught all our Ferries!’

The marathon trip proved worthwhile with the Spa circuit impressing everyone, although the organization left a bit to be desired according to Sue, who enjoyed the trip even so!

‘It was an absolutely amazing place. Truly awesome!’ said Jason, Martin confirmed ’You might have seen it on the TV but you don’t realise the height changes! The TV just doesn’t give you the real perspective!’  Jason was 3^rd fastest  after free practice, but in qualifying the long term alternator problem popped up again and Jason only had 3 laps but was still 6^th overall in the combined Thunder Saloons/ Blue Oval grid!

In Saturdays dry race one, the use of some heavy persuasion made the alternator work (i.e a belt with a hammer)! With the race being 30 minutes long, the plan was for Jason to push hard early on, to seal the point for fastest lap and then slow down to try and save fuel. Jason duly stormed away and then backed right off for the last 5 minutes! Before that Jason had planted himself at the head of the Blue Oval series and was up to 5^th overall. He duly made it across the line for a full points haul to win Class A2, but had only 5 litres of fuel left!

Sunday dawned wet! This gave the M&S crew a dilemma as the alternator had decided that it didn’t want to play; and this time a belt with a hammer didn’t have the desired effect! Jason set off knowing he would have to try to conserve the battery for as long as he could, ‘Ideally you would need your lights, demister and wipers all on at the same time! I did the warm up lap with my headlights turned off, but I could sense the message was coming through and I turned them on just before the start! I then tried to balance using the windscreen de-mister & the wipers. But in the end I had to leave the wipers on, so couldn’t use the demister! Visibility got worse and worse so I had to make a late race pit-stop to get the inside of the screen cleaned! I re-joined the track but then found it had been the last lap, so I really needn’t have pitted!’

Having scored another maximum Jason had not only secured the Class A2 but had moved into 3^rd overall in the CTCRC Burton Power Blue Oval Boss Championship!

Well done Jason! Another driver who has gone on to great things after taking their first steps in the WSSCC!

Boss Class A2 Final Points 1^st Jason Davies  93 Points  2^nd Craig Rainer 78  Pts 3^rd Ashley Bird 71 Pts

Boss Classes Overall Final Points 1^st Olly Allen 117 points 2^nd Brian Long 106 pts 3^rd Jason Davies  93 Pts

N.B Jason uses Kumho list 1B treaded tyres supplied by Mel Williams Tyres in the dry.

In the wet drivers are allowed to use a full racing wet, so they use Pirelli wet's supplied by Matthew Corby

 http://classictouringcars.com/points_downloads/points_2014/CLASSIC%20BOSS.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koKUh_fDKQw&feature=player_embedded