The 'Rock was a challenge for Karen... Early morning rain had cleaned up any decent rubber that had been layed down during the previous day. The track surface proved to be very low on grip.



The Internaional circuit was being used by the Nippon Challenge, and as Karen was out on her initial qualifying lap she soon discovered the lack of grip and ended up spinning at the Tarzan hairpin.



Karen gathered herself and got stuck back in, being more wary of the track surface whilst still trying to get heat into the tyres. Unfortunately, just as she began to get into a rhythm, she noticed power seemed to be dropping off. In a short while she began to notice white smoke behind the car and before too long the cabin started filling with it as well! With power failing and visibility becoming an issue the only safe course of action was to retire to the pits.



The general consensus was that the turbo had failed completely or the turbo oil seals had gone. A turbo swap might have been conceivable if only we had a spare with us. That certainly might be resolved for future meetings but wasn't an option at Rockingham. Thus it was to be Karen's first ever DNS since she began racing in 2006. Despite doing only 4 laps with a failing car she managed to be classified in 26th place out of 33 runners.

Upon inspection back at TenguDo Motorsport HQ it became apparent the failure was much more severe than initially thought. Number three cylinder had lost its piston rings and the piston had been slightly melted. The rings had broken up and the bore was badly scored. The engine block was written-off. All the oil-smoke had been caused by oil seeping past the piston and being blown through the exhaust. A replacement engine was required before the next race meeting...