Lowe's hoping for better fortune down the Hatch

BY NO stretch of the imagination is the start of Dave Lowe's defence of his 12th national Formula Ford Championship anything less than subdued. The first race this season was with the Historic Sports Car Club at Donnington, where he used the meeting as another championship to test out winter work and was pleased to practise fourth on the debut of the new 'short motor'.

'Unfortunately, it rained for the race, which is not my favourite situation in the Lotus 69, and I slipped to sixth place from 30 starters so felt it was a good result.'

Silverstone was the venue for the first round of the classic season and, unusually, the veteran Guernsey driver found himself 11th on the grid thanks to a mysterious cut out of the engine on fast right-handers, of which there are three, and a lap time 1.8sec slower than last year, when he had pole position and the overall win.

'A look at float levels and fuel jets was all I could do, but the problem was still there during the race despite trying to drive around it by short-shifting gears to allow the fuel more time to recover if it was surge.'

But a finishing position of only ninth and second place in class were disappointing.

For the next round at Thruxton, Lowe took the carb off his Lotus 61, which sits in the garage at his Capelles home.

Lowe's next outing is at Brands Hatch on 27-28 May and he plans to change the fuel pump and perhaps invest in a half-day testing prior to the meeting.

'At the moment, every race is an expensive test session as you can find out only under race conditions if the changes are working or not.'