Two podiums for novice classic car racer Balfe
Still a relative newcomer to the classic and historic side of motorsport, Caythorpe's Shaun Balfe returned from a successful weekend at the Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium with second place in the Historic Touring Car race and a class win in the prestigious Six Hour Classic GT race.
Having only previously raced his own Lotus Cortina at Donington Park, Balfe shared his car with Andy Wolfe, who built the classic for him.
In qualifying, Wolfe went out first. Balfe said: “Andy set the time for fourth best, but I found it about a second slower than the previous day's practice. It was hotter and we had hoped it would be quicker.”
Starting from the second row of the grid, Balfe was on the outside for the first corner, the La Source Hairpin. “I lost two places as I couldn’t get across to the inside,” he added.
He quickly managed to regain fifth from Carlos Monteverde’s similar car and closed in on fourth placed Richard Dutton.
Balfe said: “I knew if I could stay with Richard we would get the advantage when we stopped for the driver change.”
They stopped after 10 laps for Wolfe to take over and after three laps he was into third place. A lap later it was second, but the leading Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA of Oliver Hart had been dominant and the Balfe/Wolfe duo settled for a solid second place, 13.3 secondss away from victory.
“The Alfas were about three seconds a lap quicker; we couldn’t have done better than second,” Balfe explained.
There were only a couple of hours break before the Six Hour GT race got under way, having qualified the day before.
Balfe said: “I had done the second stint in qualifying, between David Pittard and Oli Stirling. It was my first time in a Lotus Elan and I only got three or four laps practice, one flying lap in qualifying, and was then sat on the grid on class pole and ready to start the race.”
With well over 100 cars on the grid and the race going into the early evening and darkness, it was going to be tough throughout.
“I was in the car for around two hours, but only dropped three places overall in my whole stint, so I was pretty pleased with that,” said Balfe after handing to Pittard for the second stint, with about 1min 30sec lead in the class and 12th overall.
The class lead continued to grow and, with Stirling in for the last stint, they not only took a class win by more than a lap, but finished seventh overall too.
Balfe concluded: “Such a brilliant weekend, good racing, good fun and no one cared what you had done before, whether you were a wannabe or just an ordinary driver. All everyone wanted to do was race and enjoy it.”
The team are back in action this weekend at Donington Park in the British GT Championship, with Graham Johnson/Mike Robinson stepping up from GT4 to the GT3 McLaren 650S usually raced by Balfe and Rob Bell, whilst Adam Balon and Ben Barnicoat join the team with another McLaren GT4 570S for the first time.