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News Archive » On Yer Bike October 18, 2008 CR Scuderia entered a team into the “Run for the Earth” one-hour cycling race at Zolder yesterday evening, a charity event to raise money to offset the carbon emissions from the FIA GT race meeting. Tim Mullen, wearing his favourite ginger wig – the one he usually reserves for Saturday nights out in Northampton – led the way for the CRS boys, ably backed up by his race engineer and three of the team mechanics. The race got off to a shaky start when Tim headed straight for the cameraman, causing a bit of a shunt for a couple of the other competitors, before taking off into the distance, albeit 100 metres behind the rest of the field. Once into his stride Tim completed an impressively rapid lap before coming into the pit lane to hand over to the next man. Unfortunately the changeovers took place on the start/finish line so Tim had to do a U-turn to get back out on the track. Someone wasn’t listening during the briefing (maybe due to all that hair getting in his ears). Chris “Wheel Whanger” Phillips was up next; he completed his lap delighted that nobody had overtaken him and then proceeded to collapse at the side of the track. Tecwyn Evans by this time was hammering around the track and managed to complete a lap in just over four minutes, which was more than twice as fast as anyone else out there. So, we still don’t know how he did it but apparently the timekeepers are never wrong so well done Tec! With more blinding laps for Ian Benson and Lee Penn the CRS boys found themselves in the lead of the race. This was puzzling when you consider all the European teams had gone out there in full racing lycra that left little to the imagination (!) and with a strong determination to win. The CRS boys decided it would be a bit of fun before dinner and a good way to keep warm. Watching the timing monitors was confusing as the positions changed so often. CRS went from first to last and eventually finished up fifth which was a fantastic effort by the boys. “I had a bit of bother at the start,” commented Tim after the race. “My hair got in my eyes so I had a bit of a wobble in front of the cameraman. Once we got going we had a great run, even though we had to resuscitate Chris Phillips half way through. The only real problem we had was the weather; it was freezing. Next time we’ll prepare a proper battle plan and we’ll beat the lot of them!” Qualifying for round nine of the 2008 FIA GT Championship takes place later this afternoon and the CRS team will be taking things a lot more seriously, and hopefully finishing up higher than fifth! ENDS |
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