BTCC Round 4 Report - 'B' at Bumpy Broxtowe - 06 / 06 / 07

“Ross is gonna hate this” …… The words of Mike Doody as he took his first look at the Broxtowe track which was hosting round 4 of this years BTCC. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be until 4pm on Saturday that we finally arrived as I was working in the morning (Boo for Royal Mail! Strike, Strike, Strike! Sorry, different subject…) and I got my first look at the frankly horrifying Broxtowe track. It resembled Kerswell in style which is never a good thing as I still can’t drive round Kerswell properly after 7 years of practice so 1 hours practice was unlikely to do the job here! ;-)

Originally an off-road track which has been tarmaced meant a very bumpy track featuring huge rises and falls, banked corners, off cambered corners, evil kerbs….I took a nervous gulp then headed off to find some of our other south west contingent to copy say hello to.

Pretty much all our regulars were present except for Wayne and Mike Belcher who were too chicken to come and play. Or something like that, they’ll be at Eastbourne anyway ;-) So then, with the track closing in a little over one hour we finally got out for some practice and oh dear, it really is like Kerswell. Now then, lets try this fearsome jump they’ve all been talking about, I figure it can’t be as bad as they’re all making it out to be, doesn’t look like a stock would jump it to me so flat out down the straight, turn in, flat out down the dip, up the other side, over the crest….up……up…..up, turning right for the nest corner but the cars still in the air….off the track, down the ditch, into the catch fencing. Hmmm, bugger. I’d like to thank the poor guy who spent most of the next 5 minutes putting my car back on track for me as I tried to get the hang of the corner, thankfully I did eventually and after a quick setup change to lose some initial steering the car was going pretty well and I was feeling surprisingly confident with the track, yay!

Nice clean jump there (Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

With the track now closed that was it for practice so it was time for the traditional Saturday night ‘stuff your face with as much dinner as possible’, then a quick check over of the car before generally talking rubbish with anyone nearby ;-)

There was much grumbling as I got up at 6am on Sunday morning to get ready for practice. And even more grumbling as we lugged all the race gear from the van down to Mikes gazebo. Mike was to be found inside fully ready for practice after he got up at 5:30, unable to take any more of Charles’ snoring…which could still be heard from the tent next door!

Morning Charles

Practice went well and soon it was time for race 1. From 7th on the grid in the ‘B’ Qualifiers I made a steady start and overtook a few cars. The car was feeling much more responsive on new tyres and a best lap of 16.2 showed it, much faster than in practice. The qualifier finished with me 2nd with a time of 18 laps in 305 seconds, not a bad run but it could have been 3 or 4 seconds faster had it not been for a few late incidents (my bad ;-) In overall terms we were just outside the top 10 at this point, the only problem being that the top 11 cars had a bit of a gap over the rest of us so making the ‘A’ would be tough this week, even Mike finding it hard going at this stage resting in 9th place with 19 laps in 310 seconds.

Peak-a-boo!

The second qualifier turned into a complete disaster as the car had absolutely no speed whatsoever, and then I spun myself out just to finish it off completely!

Good air!!! (Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

So then, into the 3rd qualifier and there were some anxious looking faces amongst the south west racers, Mike nervously sat on the bubble in 10th whilst I had dropped deeper into the ‘B’s, Jamie found himself in unfamiliar territory in 21st ahead of Adrian, Sean and James occupying ‘D’ final spots at this point.

Les and James look on

With a respectable turn of straight line speed I set about putting a decent time on the clocks. The first task was to keep it on track for 5 minutes which I’m pleased to say I managed whilst also keeping the lines generally good all race and avoiding a few incidents. Unfortunately the run was only 3 seconds faster (18.302) with the best lap some 4 tenths slower than the first run, slightly puzzling but I was putting that down to the increasingly bloody hot weather at this point! Still, it was an improvement and got me upto 13th overall so no ‘A’ Final once again but we persevere. Making the ‘A’ by the skin of his teeth (I hate that saying, don’t even know why I used it) was Mike Doody whose second round time did the job for him by 1 second over Peter Austin who would take the dreaded pole position in the ‘B’ Final. Adrian and Jamie both set 18 laps in 309 seconds to lock out the front row in the ‘C’ Final while Seans debut meeting for the Mi3 wasn’t going to plan with 3rd in the ‘D’s (17.308) where he’d be joined by James.

In 19T Jason made his first ‘A’ final of the year in 8th place with his drifty cyclone, Paul H took 15th with Les and James in 31st and 35th

Jason enjoys the 'A' Final (Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

After one of those gaps between qualifying and finals that seemed to go on forever it was finally time to get racing. The ‘B’ Finalists shot off the line at the buzzer and I made my customary slow get away but got a good run through the sweeper and across the jumps which let me slide up the inside of Nigel Shaw and snatch 2nd place into the right hand hairpin. With another new set of tyres on the car was again feeling much more nimble and I’ll admit to being a little wary of it, not wanting to throw it off the track. Despite this it was going well and I stayed in 2nd for much of the race without too much bother, only losing out 1 minute from the end when the flying Matthew Tuplin came past, now there was someone defiantly on ‘A’ Final pace. So 3rd in the first leg then was pretty good and with new tyres the best lap was down to 16.2 again as it had been in the morning, the overall final time was also good, 18 laps in 300 seconds, only a second off Mikes time as it turned out who took 7th in his first leg of the ‘A’ Final. Perhaps I should have put new tyres on for that last qualifier, d’oh!

Tight first corner action in the 'A' Final (Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

Adrian took the win in leg 1 of the ‘C’ from Jamie in 2nd and Sean had a nightmare in the ‘D’ as a loose wheel left him last. James faired better though with fourth.

Blue is clearly the colour in the 'A' Final (Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

Leg 2 of the finals then and from second place on lap 1 I made a complete mess of things, I rolled myself over the kerbs and dropped back, then I spun it, then I had a few other scary moments all within the first minute to leave me miles back. After giving myself a good talking to I started reeling people in and overtaking them with a couple of good moves even if I do say so myself ;-)

A minute of the race to go and I’ve finally caught 2nd and 3rd I think, got myself upto 3rd and then……we all crashed. Typically I came off worse and bounced straight off the other cars onto the grass, by the time I got back on track I was all the way down to 7th and that was it. Race over and 4th over the two legs. Arse.

Mike in action in the 'A's (Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

Meanwhile in the ‘A’ Final Mike was flying with his new cells and set the 4th fastest lap of the race, a late mistake cost him 2 places but he still took 7th in leg 2 and 7th overall.

In the stock ‘C’ Jamie got his revenge by beating Adrian in this leg but Adrian still took the ‘C’ Final overall win with Jamie in second. James took 3rd overall in the ‘D’ Final with Sean in 7th

(Photo nicked from www.telsshells.com - thanks)

With the racing over for the day it was time to pack up before the prize giving and raffle where Jason won himself a car stand and the top prize helicopter escaped me once again….i’ll have it one week! Lol

Next up we have Eastbourne, a brand new track that looks very good in the pictures, I can’t wait to try it, hopefully I’ll have a bit more power for next time too, bring on that ‘A’ Final already!!!

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