Holy crap, I won again! - 05 / 11 / 06

Round 2 of the season then and the entry list was full of top names. Mike Doody, Paul Rose and Paul Hopkins were back from their recent outings at the carpet nationals while Jon Parsons and Robin Hammett joined us in stock this week. Added to the regulars of myself, Sean, Jason, Jamie, Wayne, Adrian, Paul B and co we had a very impressive standard of driving all day…even making the ‘A’ Final would be a major achievement.

How weird does that look?!?!?!

Out for practice then and I was testing out a rather odd development to the TC3…turnbuckles in place of shocks! I’d heard that people were running Xrays in this way over in America. Although this was with foam tyres which have more natural springiness (yes I just made that word up) than rubber but I figured it was worth a go for the laugh. It looked fairly comical as it vibrated its way round the track but somewhat surprisingly it was lapping at a decent pace, certainly responsive too!!! The only downside was it weighed only 1465g so after stuffing it with lead I took it out in the first qualifier like it. It was worth the effort to see the look on Sean and Adrians faces when they saw the car before race 1! I think they thought I’d finally lost the plot completely! Lol

It's just not right is it! ;-)

Despite being fairly quick it was quite difficult to race other cars with the turnbuckle setup and I made a few mistakes but still managed to win the heat on 19:306 after Mike forgot to put his transponder in. D’oh!

After a fast changeover I had the shocks back on the car for race 2 and it was going well until I brushed a barrier on the straight, wouldn’t have been a problem but it managed to wedge a damaged bit of the shell in between the wheel and the bumper, certainly caught Paul’s attention as I ploughed straight in towards his marshalling post at the end of the straight! Unfortunately the shell was still making it difficult to turn right for the rest of the race which cost some more time and left me on 19:304. Robin had taken provisional pole at this point on 20:312 followed by a mammoth scrap for second place with a good 5 or 6 drivers all having posted times between 19:300 and 19:305. Thanks to my mistake I was at the back of this group and staring at the ‘B’ so the last qualifier had to go well…and it did!

Mike led our heat away from myself, Wayne, Adrian, Sean and Jason who was having some problems with his Cyclone. Mike crept away up front but had a few scary moments towards the end of the run which cost him a couple seconds although he had still done enough to snatch second on the grid on 20:311, around 5 or 6 seconds down on Robin. Third place on the grid went to the ever fast Paul Rose who finished a second back of Mike but half a second ahead of myself who would line up fourth after I improved to 20:312 in the last qualifier, I was really pleased with that as I just had the feeling that was all the speed I had. Another second back we were to find Paul Hopkins in fifth, just ahead of Wayne who put in a storming last qualifier to make the ‘A’ with his new Cyclone, in fact Wayne had me glancing backwards nervously a few times in that last qualifier making sure he didn’t get close enough to jump me on the clock.

'B' Finalists ready for the off

Pole in the ‘B’ was Jon Parsons ahead of Jason, Paul Bond, Adrian, Jamie and a chap whose name I can’t remember for the life of me. Sean was to find himself down in the ‘C’ Final after a problematic day and a breakage in the final round of qualifying while on a better run.

Onto the finals then and I was relaxed and looking forward to it, although it took two attempts to get us underway as myself and Mike jumped the start on the first go. Well in my defence Mike jumped it first and I reacted to him going, which I know is a very silly thing to do, it’s not like Mikes Cyclone sounds like a warble but there you go ;-) lol

Off the line for the second time then and I got a good start and managed to take third place off Paul Rose into turn 1 before trying to hang onto the back of Mike who was chasing Robin out front. Behind me I had a very racy looking Paul Hopkins until he clipped a kerb and dropped back which let me concentrate on not letting the leaders get too far away. I could see Mike was riding his luck with the barriers a few times and they eventually bit and sent him rolling off which moved me upto second for a few laps until Robin also made a mistake which let me into the lead (yes, you did read that right, Robin Hammett made a mistake….first time I’d seen it as well) So, 2 minutes in and I was leading from Paul Rose who was close behind me, some laps I managed to open up a little gap before he’d close me down again, then the gap would open again. With about a minute to run I had a nice little gap and was pushing really hard as I could see Mike and Robin were sneaking upto Pauls rear bumper which is where they stayed until the last corner as Mike went down the inside of Paul. I’m told it was a good move but Mike lifted to allow Paul back through which let Robin take advantage to snatch second ahead of Paul and Mike. Of course I was completely oblivious to any of this as I was busy crossing the finish line to win, the most improbable win ever infact, I was/am absolutely delighted! :-)

Mike Doodys Mazda shelled bullet...I mean Cyclone!

So that’s it for another two weeks, I couldn’t have hoped for more from those first two meetings, the cars been great (so great infact that i've filled in a setup sheet and added it to the set-up section of this website here) and I’ve been happy with my driving which is a big relief as after 6 months off I was worried I’d be useless. For next meeting I may try a rigid front end with some stiff shocks on the rear, got to be worth a go,

See you next time :-)

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