BTCC Round 2 Report - Upto the 'B' at Aldershot - 01/ 05 / 07

Round 2 of the season and thankfully the early weather forecast was wrong and we had beautiful sunshine all weekend in Aldershot.

After a less than fantastic debut meeting for my new car at Stafford earlier this month I’d changed just about everything in a quest for some more speed, in fact it’s more of a Mike-clone than a Cyclone! Thanks for the help mate ;-)

You can really see the line of grip round the track in this pic!

So after arriving and setting up early Saturday morning it was time for first practice and first impressions were very good. The car certainly had more front end grip and after a few little tweaks it was pretty good. The laptimes kept getting better and better throughout the day although this had a lot to do with the track cleaning up but still I was happy with the car, and clocked a best laptime of 16.76 which wasn’t bad on old tyres, certainly not as far off as Staffords times anyway!

One of the best things about this meeting was that we were all able to stay at the track on Saturday night so once you’d finished practice you could cook some dinner, rebuild the car, go for a spy on the competition…..and not have to bother packing up and driving to a campsite, ideal!

Busy pit table on saturday

Sunday morning and after a pretty busy practice session (mods and stocks on track at the same time is an eye opening experience!) and an entertaining drivers meeting it was time for qualifying. With new tyres mounted to the car for the first time this weekend it felt a bit different, if anything a little too stuck at the rear end but it was still okay and I could gradually pull away at the front although Wayne was flying through the order from 7th at the start and was ahead of me on the clocks until the last lap when he rolled at the fearsome chicane dropping him 4 seconds. So then, a steady first run for me with 18 laps in 317 seconds narrowly ahead of Wayne. Mike was top local runner at this point with 18 laps in 302 seconds!

The awesome sweeper

For round 2 we’d switched motors and geared up in the quest for more speed. Of course these changes were all for nothing as I rolled myself at the chicane on lap 1, d’oh! Wayne was next on the scene and performed an action replay of my roll for the crowd ;-) Still, we both landed on our wheels and could carry on at the front, Wayne looking quick until he had a small off track moment a few laps in which knocked his switch and turned the car off. (I expect you too have moved that switch before the next meeting too mate!) This left his car slowly rolling across the track for the following 9 cars to dive either side of before a marshal could retrieve it! Despite my first lap mess up my run was going faster until 2 laps from the end when I got a hit from a car I’d just lapped which unfortunately jammed the right hand side of the shell inside out and made it a bit awkward to drive so no improvement in round 2.

The pressure was on to improve in round 3 then, but it was all over before it started for one of the guys in our heat as he realised he hadn’t fitted a pinion to his car, argh! Round the first lap without problem this time then and apart from pulling over mid race to let Wayne through it was pretty uneventful, no big mistakes but a few small ones that each cost a few tenths maybe, still an improvement to 18 laps in 312 seconds for 18th overall and 8th in the ‘B’ Final (only 8 seconds off the ‘A’ this week, miles closer than Stafford), Wayne was 4 seconds faster in13th overall and 3rd on the grid in the ‘B’ Finals, nice one mate! Joining us in the ‘B’ was Sean Guy who’d be starting 5th, plenty of local guys in this one then! :-)

Up at the sharp end Jamie threw his new Mi3 round in a very impressive 18:301 for 7th in the ‘A’, one second and one place ahead of Mike who had to rely on his round 1 time after glitches of interference ruined his second and third qualifiers.

With the temperature rising it was finals time and not to understate it too much mine were a disaster. Knocked off track in the first one followed by a few driving errors meant last in the ‘B’. The first few minutes of the second final were going much better as I overtook some cars and worked my way up into the top 5 but then I lost the plot completely and dropped back to 7th. Still, putting my rubbish driving to one side for a moment at least the car was going better with a 16.8 best lap in both finals. I’m hopeful of a good result at Snetterton next time out, I always seem to go well there and the car seems good at high speed corners which is pretty much all Snetterton has so fingers crossed.

Meanwhile also in the ‘B’ Shaggy bounced back from a troubled 7th in the first leg of the ‘B’ to nab 3rd in the second leg with Sean hanging on for 3rd in leg 1 and 10th in leg 2.

As me and Wayne took up our marshalling positions on the infield Mike was the man on the move in the early laps of the ‘A’ final charging through to 3rd from 8th on the grid in impressive fashion, going on to finish 5th and then backing that up with a 6th in leg 2 to move himself upto third in the drivers championship. Wow! Jamie was having less luck in the ‘A’s with 9th in leg 1 and a broken car putting him out of leg 2 on lap 1.

In the other classes Jason, Paul Rose, and Paul Hopkins took 5th, 6th and 9th respectively in the ‘B’ 19T finals while Adrian and James were 3rd and 5th in the amazingly fast mod / brushless class ‘B’ final. Watching those brushless cars tear down the straight and around the sweeper was an incredible sight and I think all the drivers did well to keep them pointing in the right direction most of the time!

That’s all for this time, now we can look forward to Snetterton although the journey there from Devon isn’t much fun!

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