The Silverline Chevrolet team endured a tough weekend at Donington Park at the weekend – with star driver Jason Plato spectacularly rolling out of the second race of the day. The team then performed a minor miracle to have the car repaired and ready for the final race of the day, with points finishes for Alex MacDowall and Jason Plato to show for the weekends efforts.
The normally-aspirated engines in the team’s two Cruzes were always going to be up against it compared to the turbo power in the majority of the rest of the grid – and it showed. In qualifying 8th and 9th for Plato and MacDowall was the best they could manage.
Things didn’t get any easier in the first race. Plato, having clumbed up to sixth, suffered a puncture that dropped him out of contention and meant he would start the second race from a lowly 18th on the grid. Then things went from bad to worse as on the opening lap of the race Plato was pitched into a spectacular roll on the infield at the Craner Curves. It all kicked off when the field bunched down the hill and Gordon Shedden caught the rear end of Liam Griffin’s car, pitching him into the side of Plato. Helpless, Plato speared straight on into the grass embankment, causing his Cruze to flip multiple times.
Despite Plato himself thinking his weekend was over, the RML mechanics set to work on the car and miraculously had it out for race three. Despite the obvious signs of damage, Plato was able to score vital points with a sixth placed finish.
Team manager, Rod Underwood, said: “We had to give it our best shot. We didn’t think there was a hope of getting the car out at first, but somehow it all came together and we did it. I’m still not quite sure how – two hours to fully rebuild a car, most of it was broken!”
Plato praised the hard work of his mechanics – including two who helped out despite being at the circuit simply to spectate.
“It was amazing,” said Plato. “It looked an impossible task, the car looked like a Transformer, but the lads were just amazing, you could see the passion in everybody. They’re the best racing team in the world, forget F1. That was teamwork – I had tears in my eyes, they had tears in their eyes, and to see their commitment makes up for all the bad weekends we’ll ever have. There was real emotion out there today.”
Alex MacDowall didn’t have much luck against the turbo powered cars either. 9th in the first two racers was the best the young Carlisle-based racer could manage, before he was handed pole position for the reverse grid final race of the day. However the sheer power of the turbo powered cars, the Vectra’s in particular, left him vulnerable and he slipped down to fourth by the end of the race – although he finished as the top normally aspirated driver.
However MacDowall says work still needs to be done to reduce the performance advantage of the turbo cars which he believes leaves him vulnerable to being easily overtaken.
“It’s impossible to keep ahead of the turbo cars,” he said. “The advantage they have is massive but we did the best we could with what we have this weekend. You really have to drive out of your zone to try and keep the turbos back and to then try and keep up with them when they pass, which you can’t prevent on the straights.
“We definitely need more equalisation between the normally aspirated cars and the turbos but that will take time. We’ve taken some good points away though this weekend, so there are definitely some positives for us. As always, the team did a fantastic job.”