Oulton Proves to be a challenging hurdle
25.05.2004 by AltoSport
Oulton Park has always been one of Joey's favourite venues. The challenging drivers circuit is well suited to his smooth style and rewards the brave driver. After his double win in Formula Ford there at the end of last year Joey was naturally in optimistic mood for qualifying.
It all started to go wrong however, in qualifying one on Saturday morning, when the session was red flagged with Joey on his fast lap. Time restrictions caused the session to be finished early and grid ten for race one had to be accepted.
Qualifying two almost went the same way, the red flag came out with Joey in a lowly fourteenth spot, but luckily the session went green with just four minutes left and he was able to improve to tenth yet again.
There was confusion at the start of race one when pole sitter Westley Barber stalled on the grid and the field was sent around on an extra parade lap, with Barber supposed to start from the back of the grid. He didn't, and led the field away, with Joey leaping from tenth to fourth as the cars race down to Cascades. Behind them however, there was carnage as eight cars littered the track after John Byrne attempted to win the race at the first corner. The race was red flagged, and restarted under the original grid positions as no full laps had been run.
This also meant Westley did not receive the black flag for disobeying the grid marshals, as the race was effectively null and void! On the restart Joey again made a good getaway, moving up to sixth by the end of lap one, a position he was to hold through to the chequered flag as the race settled down.
Race two was altogether more fraught, and although Joey had made it up to seventh by the end of the first lap, it all went very wrong going into the island hairpin on the third tour. "I went for the brakes as usual, but the pedal went very long, although I pumped like mad when the brakes did bite the wheels locked up and I was never going to make the corner. I flew past Oliver (Jarvis) and collected Sean Mackintosh and we both ended up in the tyre wall. I'm really sorry for Sean, as he had such a good race on Saturday (he won) but he accepts the situation as a racing incident. First Air (Sean's team) also spoke to me afterwards and they have no problems with my explanation. Unfortunately the Clerk of the Course saw things differently and handed out a fine and 3 points on my licence."
From a solid third in the points after round seven on Saturday, Joey has now taken a bit of a tumble in the rankings, but vows to fight back. "Thruxton is next weekend and I'm just going to get my head down this week, train hard, and get myself focussed for the races. Everyone will want to end the first half of the season on a high before the long summer break, so it will be tough, but now is the time to start getting some solid results."