So Close... - 21 / 03 / 06

After a depressing saturday evening of hot rod racing at Ringwood (see www.loramracing.co.uk) we were at Torquay on sunday morning for round 10 of this years TRAK Indoor Series. The car felt all wrong in practice so we fitted stiffer rear springs, skimmed the motor and dropped in a seventh cell....oops, not supposed to be mentioning that bit ;-) The result was a much happier handling car ready for heat 1 of qualifying.

I drove like a bit of a pillock at times in heat 1 but the odd quick lap was in there and I saw plenty of scope for improving on my 19:313 provisional pole time from this round. Leaving the car alone and just driving better seemed to do the trick and I managed to go six seconds faster for 19 laps in 307 seconds. The early part of the race was great fun as I could just about keep a steady gap to Mike before he rolled out of contention. The only change for round 3 was gluing the left rear tyre as it was starting to come off the rim in places and making the car a bit loose.
			Mike and Malc hard at work on their Pro 4's while Dad and Jason stare at madman with camera

Pole was pretty much guaranteed on the first lap when Mike slapped the barriers and dropped back so I was able to lap on my own for most of the race and secure pole with 19:305. Woohoo!!! Second on the grid was Paul Hopkins, 8 seconds back with his Schumacher Mi2 Euro Edition, some say the much improved performance of Pauls car was down to set-up work, others that it was Pauls driving, personally I think it went so well because I told him after practice that it's 'just crap Paul, buy a decent car and come race us again....' It was bound to go well after that, nothing like firing up the opposition! ;-) Adrian, Mike and Malc were all very close to Paul in qualifying with Sean sixth ahead of Wayne, Jamie and Chris, only nine cars in stock this week, a couple in open and a couple more in 1/12's, good racing there though.

Jason makes his point about the TC3 yet again as the car comes back from scrutineering after qualifying ;-)

Nine cars on the grid made for a busy 'A' Final as I led away (shock horror, haven't been able to say that for a while) with Paul in hot pursuit. Mike was running third for the opening few laps before damage dropped him out of contention making it very much a two horse race as Paul was still with me but not quite close enough to try and overtake as we approached the first backmarkers. I rolled myself after going a bit offline to lap Malc which let Paul slide through and take the lead. He wasn't too far up the road though and I was looking forward to really getting the hammer down and catching him up (always easier to drive faster when you're chasing as opposed to being chased) but half a lap later Paul clipped a barrier and was out. That left me miles clear in the lead but after a dodgy lap on my part lost a second or so Chris drove into the back of my car so hard after i'd lapped him that the rear of the shell turned inside out and jammed against the wheels. Thankfully Jason was on the scene very quickly to sort it out but i'd dropped to second behind Adrian. I made short work of catching him but there was still less than a minute of the race to go when i'd got upto his rear bumper, it's always difficult to pass with a stock on a tight indoor track but i'd got him a little offline and with a better run made a run down the outside into the hairpin, my intention being to cut back and be on the inside coming out the corner but Adrian was having none of it and decided to take his normal racing line into the hairpin, as a result the cars touched and my car was launched over the barrier and out the track. I was so pissed off I nearly just stopped then but I did get back on track and finish the last few laps to take second. A thoroughly big congratulations to Wayne on an excellent third and i'm not overly sure about the rest of the order, possibly Sean in fourth ahead of Malc, Jamie and Chris with Mike retiring early on.

Looking back i'm very pleased with the performance of the car and my driving in qualifying at least. I can't help it though, i'm still deeply pissed off with that level of driving. To be fair it's a situation Chris shouldn't have found himself in but others should know better. Still, we live and learn. It's Plymouth next week for the last round of this years South West Series, i'm not too sure how the points situation looks but I think a decent result here could net me third overall behind runaway leader Justin and second placed man Russel. I'm certainly up for the challenge this week anyway...

See you there :-)

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