Third again at TRAK Round 3 - 06 / 11 / 05

With November upon us already we were at the Acorn Centre for Round 3 of the TRAK Indoor series, featuring pretty much the same drivers as the South West Series this championship is very close and fast this year!

Practice The main objective of practise this week was to get some runs thorugh our new batteries which wern't quite upto speed last week. After seeing my car looked fairly slow in practise Sean kindly lent me a set of his batteries to try in the first round of qualifying for a comparison, thanks mate!

Qualifying

So with Seans batteries in the car we headed into the first round of qualifying. Sean led us away with me following in second. I was really impressed with the speed my car now had and for the first part of the race we opened up a gap but by mid race Mark had pulled us back in. Seeing this Sean moved over to let me go through, Mark taking advantage and passing both of us in the one corner, so it was all change at the front. I was able to go with Mark for a few laps until I found myself slowing as the motor was getting a touch too warm. By the fourth minute Justin had taken the lead and I was running second after Mark has nosed into a barrier and thats how it stayed till the end.

Throughout the rest of qualifying we improved in each round although we did drop back to fourth on the grid. Justin taking pole by quite a distance from Mark, Mike (who had pulled it all together in the last run) then me, Sean, Malcolm and Wayne completing the 'A' Final line up once more

Finals

We decided to change the set-up a little before the finals in the quest for more speed. We got rid of the toe-out on the front and reduced the toe-in on the rear as well as standing the front shocks more upright.

Into the final then and Justin led away from Mark, Mike and myself. Into lap 2 and Mark caught a barrier and dropped himself back into the pack and out of contention. Having had a few steadyish laps to learn what the car was going to do I started looking for a way past Mike, it came when he left a little gap on the inside of the fast right hander leading onto the straight, with the more positive set-up on the car I was able to tighten my line and go through the gap and into 2nd place. Mike hadn't given up though and we ran side by side for several corners in what was a great race. Fast forward a few laps though and I turned into the fast right hander at the end of the straight only for the car to grip roll, flying into the air much to my suprise, probably much to Mikes suprise too but he went under my flying car and took back second. I got myself pointing back in the right direction and carried on although the car kept threatening to show me it's underside again so I had to go a little easier into the corners. Despite this I was in a clear third which was good, although when I saw Mike have a little moment late on in the race I tried harder to catch him and managed to do most of one corner on two wheels before landing it back on all fours and carrying on. Crikey - I think i'll settle for third! ;-) Most pleased driver of the day was probably Wayne who drove a faultless race to finish 4th, won't be long before he's right at the sharp-end...

So another meeting over and the major piece of good news is that during the last runs of the day the batteries did just begin to feel like they're beginning to kick in, the car definatly feeling like it had a little more punch, hopefully there's a little more to come from them but they're at least going in the right direction, thanks to Nick at Demon Products for all his help. Also thanks to Sean for lending me everything all day ;-)

Hell of a race Mike! :-)

Next week we're at ST.Austell for Round 2 of the South West Series. I've never managed to get round their track at anything like a decent speed but fingers crossed this year will be different, although as Dads racing Birmingham saturday night and we won't be home till 3am on sunday morning I might well sleep straight through the first few qualifiers! ;-)

See you there...

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