'B' Final at STCC Round 2 - Southend - 10 / 04 / 05

The past weekend saw us at Southend for Round 2 of the Southern Touring Clubmans Cup Championship. We arrived trackside around 1pm Saturday afternoon and got our first look at a very daunting track. After spending several minutes trying to work out the layout we headed out for practise.

Saturday Practise

It was evident from lap 1 of practise that a West London set-up is far too stiff for the bumpy Southend track so after changing to softer springs and damping the car felt much better - although I was still having a tendancy to catch the huge Southend kerbs resulting in several accidents. Fortunatly I wasn't alone though as all the other drivers present struggled to come to terms with the track and were having there own equally large crashes ;) Several hours and several runs later I was getting into the flow of the track more and starting to think that I could complete the races on Sunday with no major incidents ;)

The Track

From the grid you have a straight into a bumpy but flat out right handed sweeper, then you've got to lose a bit of speed to turn into the fast chicane and then immediatly into the hairpin. A quick squirt on the power then slow it back down for a tight left hander, then it's hard on the power again taking the next right hander at full throttle over the bumps before slowing down for another left then a long right hander which takes you up the hill under the rostrum. Careful not to lose control over the crest of the hill as the car tries (and succeeds!) to lift off the road and then keep the throttle nailed as you turn right and dive down the hill into another flat right, there's only one line through here and the huge Southend kerbs are waiting to bite if you get it wrong. After the shot infield straight it's hard on the brakes for a hairpin left then another short straight before a kink left as you slow down for a hairpin right with yet more evil kerbs waiting to punish any mistakes. Accelerate out of the hairpin and you're onto the start finish straight for another incredible lap. I've got to say Southend is one of the most amazing, if destructive, tracks i've ever raced on and it's a great feeling when you get it right, it's a long lap too, 20 seconds in fact so lapping isn't too much of a problem which is a good thing.

The Southend Track - this shot not showing just how much of a mountain the track has!

Qualifying

After an early morning downpour on Sunday the track was all but dry for our first qualifier and it was an okay run with the exception of a few dodgy mid race laps where I got caught up with a few other cars. 14:302 put us 16th after round 1 of qualifying and I knew we could improve in round 2. Unfortunatly the car had other ideas and I retired before the end as the front left suspension fell apart. This gave us a big problem as we dropped down to 30th overall and unless we got a good third qualifier in we were looking at the 'C' final or lower. By the time our third qualifier had come round many other drivers had completed their final runs and knocked us down the order even further so we desperatly needed a clean run. I knew a steady drive would be good enough for the 'B' Final and that's exactly what I managed to do, picking my way through a few cars on the way to record 15 laps in 314 seconds. This shot us up the order to 19th and 9th in the 'B' Final. A close qualifying meant we missed 10th and the 'A' Final by just under 8 seconds but another few seconds slower and we would have found ourselves back in the 'C' Final so it could have been much worse!

Finals

Starting from 9th on the close grid the first few tight corners got very congested and there was certainly some close racing. After the first few laps I was running in around 6th place with lots of overtaking and re-passing going on. The cars were very evenly matched but unfortunatly I couldn't get on the power coming out of the corners without pushing the car wide which made it near impossible to defend a position as the others were able to just accelerate under me out of the corners. By three minutes in i'd slipped back to 9th but as we got nearer the last minute of the race a few of the other cars seemed to go off a bit so Iwas able to move upto 8th and get onto the back of the 6th place battle by the end of the race, unfortunatly just running out of time to make a move so an 8th place finish for leg 1 was the result.

For leg 2 we'd fitted a rear anti-roll bar to try and gain more steering on exit. It was evident from early on that this was a mistake as the back end of the car was very lively and I still didn't have any more steering on exit. Mid race we were still running in 5th place though but with the ill handling car and inconsistent laptimes I dropped to 7th place by the end of the race.

With the anti-roll bar removed for leg 3 of the finals the rear end of the car was much better and I was able to drive a steady consistent race to 7th place. My two best results were enough to give me 8th overall in the 'B' Final so 18th overall from the meeting of nearly 50 drivers.

We've come to the conclusion that are lack of steering on power out of corners is due to the diff settings (why oh why didn't we figure that out before the finals) so next Sunday we head to our local track at Kerswell to try out some new settings and get the car more competitive for Round 3 of the Clubmans Cup Championship which will be held at Maratime on May 22nd

See you trackside!

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