9 October 1999 - Autumn Gold Cup Silverstone

Justin was invited to contest the last round of the Privilige GT Championship in the Marcos Mantis Class on behalf of Brookspeed Racing.

It all happened at the very last minute and although it is a two driver race it was decided Justin would drive the complete 50 minute race on his own.

There is no problem with this, the only down side is the mandatory timed mid race stop, if there are two competitors racing the driver change is undertaken as fast as possible. If one driver is to compete the whole race a mandatory 45 second stop is imposed regardless, this eliminates any advantage gained by a team using one fast driver. This meant that things would need to go well if Justin was to have any chance of winning, he would need to build up a serious advantage by mid distance.

Having not driven since July, only one hours testing on Friday afternoon was not a great deal of time to get re-aquainted with the car, and get up to race speed.
But as they say, if you can drive, you can drive and qualifying went well.

Justin put the car on pole.

The start went well and Justin steadily pulled away from the rest of the class and by almost half distance had created a 10 second lead. We knew that to win he need at least a 12 second margin by the time he came in for his stop, as the race progressed everything was working to plan, and then disaster.

Coming through the complex Justin felt the steering shudder and the brake pedal went almost to the floor.
He came into the pits, early, and at this point obviously no one knew why.

Justin explained the problem and started to go through the stop procedure.

Out of the car, both feet on the ground, take a drink, back in the car, belts on, and wait until the pit marshal flagged him away.

Unfortunely it was not to be, the Team discovered the problem, a broken front nearside hub.

Justin climbed from the car and shrugged his shoulders, "That's racing," he said, but the dissapointment was clearly evident.

The whole Team was devastated.

After studying the time sheets from race control the lap times showed certain victory had just been snatched from his grasp.

But in motor racing as in many things nothing is ever certain.