Coates: “It’s not every day you’re heading towards the Armco at 80mph”
Although the weekend didn’t quite go to plan for one Ginetta Junior driver over the Oulton Park weekend, when BTCC Crazy caught up with him after race two, he continued to remain positive and look towards the next round at Croft.
Max Coates lined up on the grid hoping for a good race one and to gain some pleasing points. What he was not expecting however was on the penultimate lap to be slamming into the Armco barrier at over 80mph.
Max Coates talks BTCC Crazy through what happened in his eyes on the Saturday Race at Oulton Park:
“ Well we started seventh and I made quite a bad start actually. Basically I was just stuck on the back of Brad Bailey all the time, and I pretty much stayed there all the way through the race until the last lap.
“I made one mistake coming out of Cascades and round on the grass really wide, lost quite a bit of time to him [Bailey] and then caught him up pretty quickly and I just struggled to get by. I’m sure I was quicker than Sennan Fielding I think in front of him [Bailey], I just couldn’t find a way through.
“Then Will Foster had a little look into the first corner, I decided to defend from him and attack Brad and made a move which I thought was quite a good move and then unfortunately Brad stayed on the grass and came back on half way down the next straight, we touched and I ended up in the barrier.
“It was probably one of my worst crashes so far. I was fine when I was in the car, it was just when I got out I just went a bit dizzy, but I was fine after about 10 minutes. It’s not every day you’re heading towards the Armco at 80mph!
“It was gutting to be honest because the weekend hadn’t gone as smoothly as we’d hoped. Testing pace wasn’t really there, so to be up to sixth was quite good really, then to have that taken away and finish last wasn’t that great.
“The team has done a great job to get the car back together this morning [Sunday], and I want to thank everybody who managed to find all the pieces of bodywork and bring it back to us, we definitely wouldn’t have got the bonnet back together, and that might be the difference to me racing at Croft and me not racing at Croft (budget wise) but that’s thanks to them.”
As Sunday morning dawned, BTCC Crazy took a look around the Ginetta Junior paddock, to find Max and his team frantically putting the car back together ready for race two. Luckily, the car was ready in time, and Max was ready to race.
The next hurdle the drivers stumbled upon was the weather conditions. It had been raining most of the day, and the track was rather wet. However, as race two got even closer, the rain was slowly subsiding, and the weather was getting a little warmer.
So, was the best option slick or wet tyres?
“Today’s race [Sunday] I got a far better start. Obviously it was sort of mixed conditions really, we opted for wets and then Niall Murray went slicks, that was definitely the right choice [for Niall]. As soon as we went out I realised we’d definitely made the wrong call, but it’s just a decision that we’d made and you’ve got to stick with it and unfortunately it was the wrong one but that happens sometimes.
“The start was good, I moved up to seventh so we got straight by Sennan Fielding, I was quite content really just to try and stay there for the odd lap just to see and work out how the tyres reacted. Jake Giddings and Charlie Robertson had a coming together at Cascades I got through and that was me up to fifth. Then I got passed Tom Howard somewhere , I can’t remember where, but then we were up to fourth, and I was just trying to get past Will Foster as there was a big pack behind, and Mikey Day was putting quite a lot of pressure on.
“I just wanted to get past and try and catch George Gamble, but it just wasn’t going to happen then unfortunately Mikey came up the side of me and I lost four places and I was back up to eight again.
“I got back up to about fifth or sixth at one point and then Charlie did a really good move on me on the penultimate lap and credit to him it was a brilliant move, he did me half way through Knickerbrook, I gave him the room and he put the move on me.
“ So seventh wasn’t such a bad result, we can be sort of happy with that I suppose after the way the weekend’s gone so it’s nice to finish in one piece.”
With Oulton Park coming to an end, and the paddock slowly packing away their things to head home before the next round, Max took a bit of time out to look towards Croft, and what he has to do to get his car back to its top form and reflect on performances in the past to aid him in the future:
“There’s a lot of work to do this week to get the car to Croft now, obviously the bonnet has quite substantial damage, so that needs checking, and I wasn’t entirely happy with the car in the race, we just lacked power from about half way down every straight.
“Hopefully we can get it fixed before Croft so we’ll be in with a chance to be in with a win and hopefully a double, so I’m really hoping for a local round to do really well. I think the Thruxton performance showed we can really do it, and I think as long as we click with the track straight away there’s no reason why we can’t go for podiums and wins.”
Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey
Becki Mitchell
