[Frank Catt]

As I understand the story, and from our investigations when the car got back to my workshop, it seems that Tom left the Knockhill race circuit, not far from his home, in a fairly healthy manner and sufficient speed to be illegal, and heavily hit a bump in the road which unseated one of the slam catches on the rear deck. As his speed increased to two x illegal air pressure under the deck slightly twisted the body to a point where the other slam catch was torn out of the glass fibre but remained closed and still fixed to the main tub( poor glass fibre work bonding the catch to the clip) The remaining lower catches were only held down by two self tapped screws (standard GTD practice) and these could not hold against the enormous pressure built up under the rear clip. Morals are :- make sure any metal work bonded onto glass fibre bodies are fully molded in and secure, fix the lower catches with threaded screws, preferably with nuts,and dont go ballistic on Scottish country lanes! Having said that, Tom never managed to tear the new rear deck off so we must have made a more secure job, or he has slowed down a lot, which I just do not believe to be possible. Frank