Introduction- Great Expectations

They say the second season is the hardest. In your rookie year, you can be forgiven for a lot of things. You can spin off, make tardy starts, crash into people and have the track manners of a partially sighted geriatric Volvo driver and you will be excused because you’re “still learning.”

But when Fareham’s James Wren and his Dalmeny Racing team started their second season in the Castle Combe Formula Ford 1600 Championship in March this year, they knew that now was the time to start getting results. After partial campaigns in 1998-9, the novice plates were gone from the back of the striking purple Fareham Van Hire-backed Van Diemen. The fact that James had still not competed in more than ten car races, the fact that most of his rivals had been racing in this championship for at least three years, the fact that his rapidly-rising career had been dealt a near-terminal blow when a road accident left him temporarily confined to a wheelchair three years ago… in the famously short memories of the motorsport fraternity all these facts were an irrelevance. He had served his apprentice in the two preceding cash-strapped semi-seasons, if Wren wasn’t a regular points scorer in 2000 then he was likely to be written off by his peers as a perennial backmarker rather than a star of the future.

Nearly nine months later, James can look back on his sophomore season with a huge amount of satisfaction. Despite the championship attracting up to 40 entries for each race, Wren finished in the points in four of the nine rounds, came agonisingly close to scoring on two other occasions and ended the year 11th in the championship. More than ever before, James proved his abilities as a real fighter this year, battling his way into the points consistently in situations where drivers of lesser tenacity would have given up and settled for a minor placing.

Part two- The Perfect Start

The first race of the year set the tone for much of what was to follow: a difficult qualifying session followed by a scintillating performance in the race. Having been flirting with the top ten by the end of the 1999 season, James was hoping to pick up where he left off when the series regrouped for the first meeting of the 21st century. However, his incorrect choice of dry weather settings on a still soggy track surface left the Fareham Van Hire entry only 17th on the grid.

"The car was sliding everywhere, it was much more slippery than it looked," he said at the time. "I nearly went off several times. The experienced guys can judge track conditions better than me, I’m still learning about these things. It was frustrating because I was hoping to be in the top ten, not 17th."

To say that the race was a different story is to break records for understatement. This was one of Mother Nature’s more indecisive days, and as the field gathered in the collecting area prior to the start, even the more established and experienced drivers were stroking their chins and contemplating the skies, not pondering the existence of a divine power, but wondering if the incessant drizzle was going to continue and make the track slippery enough to require full wet weather tyres. Wren took a chance and switched to wets, only for a bad start to the race to drop him further down the order. Then…

“When I got to Quarry it was absolute chaos," James recalled. "We were charging in four or five abreast and there was a huge accident going on up ahead. There were cars and bits of car flying all over the place. I just committed myself to the corner and got through unscathed. I thought I’d made up a place or two but when the team told me I’d got up to 11th I was so fired up. Seeing that on the pit board was just the most motivating thing ever because there were two cars right in front of me and I knew I had a chance to score my first points."

Better still, he rapidly discovered that his choice of a wet weather set-up was absolutely perfect for the conditions. His natural ability shining through in spite of his inexperience, Wren wasted no time in passing Nick Jones and Barry Wort to move into ninth place, on course for his first ever championship points. However, this eventful day still had a few more twists and turns in store…

"Once I passed them I finally had some clear road ahead of me, so I really pushed hard because I could see an opportunity to get eighth," Wren explained at the time. "I left Barry and Nick standing, but then I misjudged my braking for the Esses. I didn’t want to turn in too fast and spin so I chose to go straight on down the escape road. I knew there was a tyre wall at the end and that you had to go through a gap between the tyres to rejoin the track, but I never realised it was that tight. I went in too fast and hit the tyres. The car seemed okay but I was back down to 11th. I wasn’t happy about that, I wanted my point back!"

There were just two laps to go, and Wren had Wort, Rob Redcliffe and four backmarkers between him and that elusive points scoring position. Passing Wort with a stunningly brave move around the outside at Foley, James dived past two of the tailenders in one corner, then found himself alongside Redcliffe and another backmarker on the way into the tight Bobbies chicane.

"We both braked stupidly late," James laughed. "Rob had to fly off down the escape road and I went over the grass, but I got the place back. It was an amazing race, the car was fantastic!”

Though too modest to mention it, Wren wasn’t so bad himself… It was impressive enough just to break into the points in such a close-fought championship, even better still to do so with such style. The post-race euphoria lasted a long time in the Dalmeny Racing camp.

“It left us feeling so great,” James recalled at the end of the season. “It permanently put to rest any doubts we had about whether or not we could do it. The disappointments of the morning were shrugged off and we had very high hopes for the next race.”

Part three- ‘Tyred’ Out and Frustrated

Yet for the next few months James found himself back in the midfield, struggling to qualify above the ninth row of the grid and then leaving himself far too much to do in the short sprint races, just as he had done in 1999. Round four of the championship at the end of May was the clearest indication of his problems. Yet again, Wren struggled in qualifying, lining up only 18th. However, this was the race in which around half the regular frontrunners went into kamikaze mode in the opening laps, with James benefiting from the carnage ahead to take another ninth place. He had kept pace with top drivers such as Neil Barnett and Wayne Poole, and only five drivers had set a faster lap than him in the race. Had Wren not been badly held up by a dithering backmarker with a dying gearbox, a sixth place finish had been on the cards. In a race situation, James had demonstrated again that he had the speed to run with the established frontrunners. The trouble was that all the time he was qualifying between 17th and 23rd, he was wasting his races fighting with drivers of much lesser ability, and his real pace was being hidden. With the frontrunners steering clear of each other and the barriers in round five a month later, James finished 14th, having again qualified well down the order. This was getting frustrating…

The problem had two causes. Wren’s budget is tiny even by Combe standards, so unlike most of the frontrunners he cannot afford to test immediately before every race and fine-tune the car. So whilst his rivals arrive on race day and already have the car set-up, James has to go into qualifying effectively unprepared. Once he finishes university in mid-2001, he will have more time and money available to devote to racing. Until then though…

“It’s just a question of being able to afford pre-race testing. That’s all it is, nice and simple,” James sighed. “When I finish uni and get a job then I should have some cash so I can test before every round. Until then we’ve just got to bide our time, do our best in the circumstances, then really let rip with proper time and money in 2002!”

And his other major handicap in the first half of the season…? Oh yeah, he was using a set of tyres so long in the tooth that they had probably been manufactured in the days when dinosaurs were still the dominant species…

“At the first race it was raining, so we used our wet weather tyres and it went well,” he explained. “But after that we used our dry tyres again and it wasn’t until after round five that we realised quite how much this was hurting us. So we dug really deep and bought a set of new tyres. They were still second-hand, but a lot better than the set we had been using, probably the newest tyres I’ve ever had on a racing car! You could really see the difference the new tyres made over the rest of the season. Shame we never realised earlier…”

Part four- Onwards and Upwards

This oversight corrected, James proceeded to storm the last four rounds of the year. Although only 16th on the grid for round six, this was still Wren’s highest placing yet and was achieved despite a red flag halting the session just as his new tyres were beginning to reach optimum performance.

In the race he was nothing short of a revelation. With no carnage this time, James had to fight for every inch. Going into the last lap he was in 11th, with the respected and experienced Hugh Elliott and Wayne Poole in his sights, and Gary Marsh and Alan Slater hounding his tail. Charging into Quarry corner, Wren, Poole and Elliott somehow ended up three abreast. James was in the middle, braked latest of them all and squeezed through into ninth. Elliott tried in vain to stay with him but spun off onto the grass instead. It was one of the moves of the season, and Wren’s expression was a mixture of joy, relief and disbelief afterwards.

“That was just a fantastic race, probably my best yet,” he beamed. “My lap times are quicker than ever before and I probably had the pace to go after Jon Adlam for eighth position if the race had been a bit longer.

“I’m really proving to myself that I can do it now. There were a few occasions when I was beginning to wonder if I really had it in me, but now we’re getting quicker with every race and really making progress.”

Round seven was a little more frustrating. Qualifying was again better, James lining up 14th and then vaulting into ninth with a supersonic start. Trouble was, that put him in the middle of the traditional first lap mayhem. With cars spinning on all sides as the field over-optimistically tried to take the Esses 30-abreast, James chose to back off rather than lose a wheel or two. He charged back to 11th, but these days anything less than a points finish was a waste of time.

Part five- That End of Term Feeling…

Only one meeting left then, the final double-header at the end of September. Things started extremely well as James put himself tenth on the grid for race one. This was good. Make a decent start, stay out of trouble and a top six finish could be on the cards. With the results of race one deciding the starting order for race two, and rain forecast for Sunday, a podium finish was not such a ridiculous ambition this time…

Sadly there are few happy endings in motorsport, and what happened in the race is best forgotten. A bad start dropped James down the order, and then he had to take avoiding action after a dive-bomb move by Alan Slater. A collision further down the field caused a red flag, but at the restart Wren “jumped the start in fairly hilarious fashion” and despite getting back up to tenth on the road, the time penalty for his over-optimistic getaway was to put him back to 15th. Which wasn’t quite what he had planned…

Never mind, a quirk of the rules gave him tenth on the grid for the season finale, and with the track now wet James had a second chance to take a career-best result. Again his start was less than sparkling, but by the middle of the race he was battling past a rather obstructive Hugh Elliott and into eighth position. Looking good…

“After I passed Hugh, it was the first time all race that I hadn’t been stuck behind someone slower,” Wren explained. “Coming down into Camp corner I must’ve thought I was the king of the world or something because I braked really late and went off over the grass. I don’t know what it looked like from outside, but it was a real heart-stopper from where I was sitting…”

…not looking so good. James rejoined in ninth, powerless to prevent Elliott repassing him as he squirmed back onto the track, having missed the pit wall by inches. It was something of a heart-stopper for the team personnel on the signalling ledge as well, forced to dive for cover as Wren’s Van Diemen slithered across the wet grass and headed straight for them. He would finish ninth, frustrated by the over-aggressive tactics Elliott used to keep him from overtaking again. It was not the first time that Wren had noticed the frontrunners being ethically dubious now that he was threatening them.

“You’ve got to be tough and pushy but you should still drive in a fair manner,” he said. “Sometimes some people are unsporting, but I suppose you just have to make sure you give as good as you get. And there are a lot of blocking tactics that only a driver can really see going on…

“That’s the way it is though. When you’re beating nobody, you’re everyone’s friend. When you do well, people who used to say ‘hello’ now just grunt at you. And the frontrunners really don’t like being overtaken…”

Part six- Cake Baking Masterclass

So, after nine races James found himself 11th in the championship, having scored points on four occasions. He had improved throughout the year, learnt from his rare mistakes, never damaged the car (a miracle given that banger racing often looks tame compared to Combe Formula Ford,) and knocked on the door of a top six finish on more than one occasion. He already possess plenty of talent, determination and intelligence, now he is adding the experience that will help him knock those final few fractions of a second off his lap times and get the Fareham Van Hire/Dalmeny Racing Van Diemen into the top six on a regular basis. Given that he has had to overcome the setback of that dreadful road accident, given that he is trying to combine his racing career with a degree course at Portsmouth University and given that his rivals mostly have twice the experience and twice the budget, Wren would never be short of excuses for a poor performance. Yet he always rejects such talk. Harder on himself than most racing drivers, James’ will to win is virtually unmatched. He’s pretty good at culinary metaphors too…

“It’s just a question of bringing the right ingredients together at the right time. We still haven’t found a winning mix yet but sometimes we do bake a better cake than others,” he explained.

“Looking back at the season, I can honestly say that we did our very best and the only thing I think I could have done differently was to occasionally drive a bit more aggressively.

“Our achievements pretty much matched our expectations, but you always want what you haven’t got, so a few more points finishes would have been nice! Next year though I want to be regularly qualifying in the top ten and regularly finishing in the top six, without losing our excellent finishing record.

“It’s great that people are now starting to take us seriously. Pretty soon they should be starting to fear us.”

Fighting talk, but James Wren and Dalmeny Racing have the steely determination to back these words up. He has come an incredibly long way already, but the very best is still to come...