Re: Brian Redman & Mike Wilds in GTD @ SPA Pic\'s
Paul, Thanks for posting the photos of the "Yellow Peril" at Spa in October. Robin Batt, the owner of the GTD40, and myself took the car to Spa Francorchamps in Belgium, which is the current Grand Prix circuit, but also one of most famous venues at which the 40s ran in the sixties. We go to the circuit once or twice a year for unrestricted track time, and this year in October we had the only 40 (replica) there. We were told by the Organisers that Brian Redman was also at the circuit to drive a Ferrari Le Mans car for an American motor magazine. After he had completed his drive in the Ferrari, Brian came along to see the 40, and told us that he had not driven a 40 at Spa since winning the 1000km race in 1968. He was promptly offered a drive in our GTD, and awhile later he returned to the pit garage with his helmet, obviously very excited to bring back the memories of his races with Jackie Ickx. We asked him what a good lap time would be for a 40 in the 60s, which he said was abour 2minutes 55 sec. (We could just manage about 3min30sec!) Off he went, watched by just about every driver at the track and monitored by dozens of stop watches in our car! After two laps the times started to come down dramatically, and after 5 or 6 laps we were counting down to see him arrive at La Source, each time sooner than the last and the car sounding glorious on its straight open exhausts. We finally had a lap that was recorded variously between 2.57 and 3.05, too accept that Brian Redman had done a 3 minute lap at Spa in OUR GTD40 was best accolade we could ever want. We asked what we should change to improve the car, the answer "dont touch a thing" Mike Wilds, who currently races original GT40s in historic racing, also said "dont touch a thing". What else can we do?
