BTCC Round 4 Report - Stafford - 13 / 06 / 06

Round 4 of this years BTCC saw our local drivers heading north in somewhat different conditions to the storms encountered at West London last time out, blistering heat all the way this weekend! Take it away Sean...

Saturday morning and all ready for Stafford. I was running late and missed the meeting time at Exeter services. Justin was also late so we met everyone else further up the M5. HOT weather all the way and getting hotter was to come. Stafford was the hottest day of the year last year round and looks like this was 2nd year in a row. We all arrived at the track at 10am and found a great pitting area behind the rostrum. After setting up gazebo’s and tables we were all looking to go and try this ultra low grip track and see where we were going to get caught out. As usual myself and Justin went out first and found that the MSX and T2 now have severe rear end loss of grip but were just learning the track at this point. Both Paul's were soon to go out and have the same problems which were to be suffered by Jamie, James B and James M. Wayne took his MSX out and seemed to be a bit more stable than anyone else but everytime he tried to go past anyone he undercut the corners rather than drive into the back of anyone, this made his car jump in the air all the time which now was to give him the new nickname "Flipper". Mike with his Evo 4 looked quick but was getting severe glitches which were to become worse.

John Robson was kind enough to allow me to use an office to plug my TV into to watch the England v Paraguay game but due to bad reception I had to go to the local social club with a few beers to cool me down. Russ Williams, Andy Carter, Dewi Jones were to join me and Jamie over the road to support England or were they supporting Paraguay, I didn’t really know what they were doing there actually.

England celebrate a dodgy 1-0 win over Paraguay

After a performance to forget we all headed back to the track and now it was even HOTTER. Realizing after 2 or 3 laps that you shouldn’t drink and drive I took my car off and was aware that Justin was now much faster than before I left and now saw Les looking very quick with his 1/8th scale. In actual fact everybody was looking much faster with Paul Hopkins looking to shake his "under achiever" tag. The track was to close at 5pm with blazing sunshine and blue sky's and people think "WHY" leave the place open.

Packed up and heading towards our campsite we were all looking forward to hitting this track in anger the following day. When we arrived at the campsite we were greeted by "straw hat locals" and put our tents up next to a canal and soon had beer in bucket of water and sausages on the BBQ. Nothing else seemed important now but wrenching had to be done. After an hour wrenching we were back to the beer and food, but night drawing in and eyes getting tired the pillow was the next target. Waking the next day I was informed by the dude that we had visitors in the night in the shape of horses, badgers and foxes. Apparently an old man was telling his dog how he liked a barge on the canal. I thought at this time Justin has now lost it completely.

Arriving at the track at 6.45 we got our same pit spot and were soon out to put our last practise session in. My car was AWESOME and Justin admitted afterwards that he was now worried that I was quick.Both Paul’s went out and looked much quicker again, Flipper was again very stable and now picking up good speed as well. Mike was looking as quick and smooth as I have seen him but was again getting massive patches of interference. Both James's were going out and mainly coming back broken. Jamie went out and seemed to struggle but put some tidy laps in.
Drivers briefing and Tim Walden "Mr Schumacher" welcomed all from TRAK and thanked us for our support. Again he suggested we asked any of his drivers for help if we were having trouble, MMmmm yeh OK.

Some shots of the particularly flat Stafford track from the rostrum

Current championship standings went out the window and I qualified in the "D"s and Justin qualified in the "C"s. Both Paul’s were in the "C"s. Bearing in mind that none of the above 4 are outside the top 13 in there championships then this was strange to say the least.
Very pleased with the handling and speed of my car I was 1st out the blocks in my heat and was gone, soon to be lapping slower cars until I parked it in the infield on its roof with 10 marshals expecting the other 9 to get it, 8 seconds later I think the old man and his dog got it!! Justin went out and I have to say even by his standards was very fast and clean. After 3 minutes he had lapped the entire field and was to go quicker right through the day. Both Paul’s were to go out and qualify together with Paul H getting the much cleaner run. Paul R had great speed and stability but traffic was his downfall. James Bell and James Matthews were again to be unlucky all day with breakages and interference problems. Jamie changes cars during the day and didn’t live up to his full potential. Wayne "flipper" did a stable job and was also unlucky through the day with traffic. Mike didn’t get any better luck with his glitches problems which were to cost him. Les was again very quick and was the car which lasted the longest before the thermal cut out stopped his car.

After all qualifiers the following standings were:

Stocks.
5th Justin
25th Sean
35th Jamie
43rd Mike

19t
12th Paul H
15th Paul R
25th Wayne
43rd James M
45th James B

Gtre
5th Les

Finals

The finals were fast and furious and were as fiercely contested as usual. I got rammed a couple of times and rammed back a couple of times with cheers from our pit area which confirmed that I had hit the right one. But this section of my report will only be now allocated to 1 person as you read on you will see why.

Justin Landau. Where do you want me to start? Justin shot off in both finals from 5th on the grid straight to 3rd both times. His 1st final he fought and battled with Andy Carter for 4 minutes and 50 second. The race commentator only had eyes for this battle and was seemingly getting very excited by the closeness these 2 were running. The 2nd, 3rd place was swapping every lap with ooo's and rrrrr's from the fast growing crowd watching this epic battle. Some people seemed to forget who was actually leading this race and who else was in 4th place because there were only 2 cars being watched. Andy was to have the eventual upper hand in this final beating Justin by 0.1 sec on the clock. Back in the pits when Justin finished shaking we were looking at his motor which is a roar 27 from "Team Scream" with the label of "Team Express" (welcome to the stable dude) available from all good model shops in an area near you, we got the lathe out and put it away and got new brushes out and put them away. Justin decided to just leave it and lightly stick the comm and clean the already seated brushes.

2nd A final. As said before Justin shot straight into 3rd from the start and that’s where all the eyes were from the warble. Adrian Bidwell took an early lead which was to be never more than 0.5 second for the 1st minute. Justin sat in 3rd place for this time and seemed to be settled for this position until 1st and 2nd tangled for a split second which probably suggested to Justin that he could pinch 2nd place if this happened again. A lap later and a gap opened and a green and orange fronted car pushed his nose in and it stuck, going slightly wide out of the next corner but carrying enough speed to hold the place. Now Justin was hunting down 1st place and with taking chunks out of every corner I could only see 1 winner. As the buzzer went to signify the end of the race Justin was now putting extreme pressure on the leader with 4 corners to go. I knew Justin could come wide and carry loads more speed through the 1st corner and line up the next 3 as he had done to me through Saturday practise so I knew more than anyone that he had lined up perfectly for a move on the last corner onto the straight and in worked. The commentator was more than excited by now and congratulated the top 3 for a fantastic final. I would like to say "congratulations" to Justin for winning this unbelievable final and believe this will not be the last.

Justin obviously took drive of the day which is a great shame for Les as he took overall 2nd place in GTRE with 2 great performances against top Schumacher drivers. "Well done Les". Other people had good results and silverware. Myself 2nd in the C final and Wayne 3rd in the C final. I was also very proud of Jamie as Tim Walden made a point of congratulating me on my son's performance when he beat Tim in his final. Paul has probably dropped his "under achieve" tag for this round but beware that this can be given back quite easily. Paul Rose made back for some unlucky qualifying and made 4th overall in the "B"s with Paul H finishing an overall 6th

Again the weekend was made by the company which was great. Well done Lads and Ladies.

Thanks for that as ever Sean, i'd just like to also say a huge congratulations to Justin, I knew he'd suprise a few people at the nationals ths year but to put in such a performance so early in the season is incredible, especially when you think how little tarmac racing he's done. Well done dude :-)

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