Car woes continue for Newsham
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CAR problems continued to blight the recent fortunes of Dave Newsham as the MSA British Touring Car Championship headed to Brands Hatch for the latest three rounds of the competition.
"It’s been very frustrating for me lately, as it looks from the outside that I have been getting blown away by Tom, but that is certainly not the case.
"Despite the robust driving from Collard, I really enjoyed that race," he said. "My lap times prior to the Collard incident were on a par with my team-mate, proving that our cars are now near equal for once, which is all I can ask for.
Determined to finish on a high, Newsham survived a collision with Rob Collard to end race three in 12th place and is now targeting a strong finish to his debut season at this level when the final rounds take place at Silverstone on Sunday.
"Add to this the extreme heat that day, which we estimated in the cockpit of the car was about 40-45 degrees, it made the race the most physically demanding I have ever endured. I was close to exhaustion by the end."
"That was a very tough race," he said. "The car wasn’t set-up correctly, so I was fighting it throughout the race.
He climbed another three places over the course of the race, but the steering issues wrecked his tyres, resulting in a credible 17th place finish.
Newsham’s team manager to patch the car up for race two and despite steering problems, gained seven places on the opening lap.
"The only bonus was at least we have some power now, which makes racing so much easier. It’s clear we have been struggling for some time with speed, and I felt confident that I finally had a good car."
"That was probably the scariest moment of my racing career," he said. "The car went from a bit of smoke to fully on fire in no time at all.
It was later discovered that the fire was caused by a pipe coming off the new exhaust manifold, blowing red hot gasses onto the ducting. More worrying, however, was that the fuel lines had also started to burn, meaning that if Newsham had not stopped when he did, the car could have been a total loss.
Upon lifting the bonnet, he could see flames from the left hand side of the engine bay as marshals quickly arrived to extinguish the fire. It was another failure to finish for Newsham, his third in the last four races.
By lap eight, however, it had become worse and Newsham knew the car was on fire. Fearing for his life, he quickly pulled the car off the circuit and jumped out.
Newsham relayed this back to the garage, but their systems showed that everything was working normally and therefore to continue.
Over the next few laps he worked himself up into 15th before smoke started to fill the interior of the car, while there was a smell of burning.
This seemed to, initially at least, have the desired effect as Newsham made good progress on the first lap, moving up four places.
Having seen his team-mate Tom Boardman qualify in 12th, the 44-year-old sought answers from his team. The conclusion was to have an updated exhaust manifold fitted before the start of race one.
Finishing the practice session in 12th place, Newsham endured a difficult qualifying session, ending it down in 21st place.
With 29 cars entered, this was the biggest championship grid ever and Newsham was keen to be as near to the front of it as possible.
Issues with his car and coming off second best in crashes had left the Inverness driver frustrated after initially appearing to make good progress with Special Tuning Racing team.
Newsham has not had his problems seek, particularly at Knockhill and then Rockingham — the two meetings prior to this one.
"I just hope that we can end the season on a high and go and have a great weekend at the final round at Silverstone."
