Strong third at Plymouth - 12 / 02 / 06

Last weekend saw the RC brigade descend on Plymouth for Round 6 of this years South West Series. Hopes were high for this meeting as we had a new set of brushes…….honest to god that’s how little money I’ve spent on it this year, one set of tyres and one new set of brushes ;-)

Although fairly tight the track was manageable for a touring car, unlike some of Plymouth’s previous layouts. The car seemed quick but very lively in practice. I’m determind to live with this kind of setup as it is faster than my usual ‘safe’ settings which edge on the side of understeer. There was a good turn out despite the missing Mike, Mark and Wayne. I know Wayne deciding to stay home as he claims to be so bad at Plymouth and Mark was still busy jumping up and down on his Pro 4 after it broke down in every race at its debut meeting last week (Well he probably wasn’t but I’d have been tempted to ;) But Mike? Where’s my pit neighbour got to these days? ;-) Fortunatly there was still a strong field with regulars Justin, Russ, Malc, Sean and myself being joined by returnees Rod and Adrian while visiting driver Colin Witt and others would be looking to make it into the 'A' Final.

Into race 1 and I led early on before going to pieces and making a whole host of mistakes, losing me over a lap and putting me 3rd in our heat and 6th overall after round 1. Into round 2 and I drove much better in this one to go just over a lap faster for 17 laps in 315.04 seconds, this bumped me up to second overall behind Justin. Round three saw no improvement with a time half a second slower than round 2, although this was with 6 seconds loss with a roll early on.
		Absolutley nothing to do with Plymouth or RC racing..... but more details of Ross and Wayne's new car soon...

Improvements elsewhere had really closed the qualifying up now as Colin Witt went third with 17 laps in 315.05 seconds, just .01 of a second behind my time, next up came Malcolm, Rod and Russ, all also within a few seconds of my time.

Into the last qualifier and with Colin and Rod both failing to improve in their earlier heat it was left to Russ, Malc and myself to fight over second. In the early stages I thought I had it as I chased Justin and left the others behind but the slightest touch on a barrier rolled the car in incredibly slow motion and dropped me back behind Malc and Russ. We raced very closely for a few laps until Malc bit the wall coming onto the straight, Russ was straight through the gap but before I got through the gap was gone as Malc bounced back off the wall and couldn’t do anything to avoid me. One of those things but with me upside down in the middle of the straight and Malc also dropping some time it was left to Russ to take second behind Justin with me third ahead of Colin, Malc, Rod, Paul and Adrian rounding out the ‘A’ final after his return to touring cars from those awful wedge cars ;-) (Personally we think his return to touring cars is because he missed seeing his name on this site but he assures us it’s for racing reasons)

There was much anticipation before the final, on paper this looked like it would be one of the fastest and most competitive ‘A’ Finals of the season but in truth I was so wrapped up in my own little race I couldn’t really tell you anything other than what Russ’ rear bumper looks like as I stared at it intently for 5 minutes ;-)

From the start Justin and Russ were off at a good pace while I made a bit of a hash out of the first few laps to be honest and was fortunate to still be running third ahead of a train of cars. After calming down a little I was able to get into my stride a bit more and pulled away from Colin and the others fairly quickly. Up front Justin had put a slight gap between him and Russ while I was just over half a straight behind Russ at this point. Over the next 4 minutes I stared at Russ’ car, ever so gradually creeping back upto him. There was so little between the cars it was unreal, it really was just inch by inch. At 4 minutes I was almost there and I knew where I was faster and could maybe make a move but Russ kept it clean and didn’t allow me to get close enough to make the move. I’m told we weren’t far behind Justin at the end, I wouldn’t have known if he’d broke down 2 minutes in to be honest, whoever was 4th was also a mystery to me, all I know is Russ was second, I was third and we had a bloody good race :-)

So that was Plymouth - next stop Torquay, let's hope the recent speed continues........

Hey Sean, I did the whole report without mentioning you were in the 'B's.....oh.....right...... ;-)

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