And we’re back…with a bang! - 22 / 10 / 06

The Acorn centre in Torquay today played host to the first round of this years TRAK indoor championship, and while many of the other racers were showing off their flashy new cars and other gadgets I wasn’t at all jealous as I surveyed my pit-table displaying year old cells / motors and an old TC3 which has crashed more times than a ZX81, in fact it’s been brought back from the dead so many times now I’m thinking of calling it Christine. You know, from the film? Oh forget it, on with the report!

Out onto the track for the first time then and it has to be said I felt a little bit rusty having not driven anything for 6 months or so. In fact, looking down from the drivers rostrum at the cars whizzing around I was feeling a little dizzy but I thought I’d keep that to myself and get on with it! ;-) It has to be said anyone watching those opening practice laps would have mistaken me for a complete beginner (what do you mean I always drive like that?!?! Cheeky sods) as the car slid around on its shiny new tyres and I rather ineptly did my best to keep it out of the barriers. Fortunately by the end of practice and with the tyres a little more bedded in it all started feeling a little more natural again.

Brand new Cyclone going well for Shaggy

Into the first round of qualifiers then and starting second to last I was very pleased to be able to climb upto second early on before catching early runaway leader Sean Guy who was racing his new Tamiya something or other. He did tell me what it was called and I’m sure it had the numbers ‘415’ in the title somewhere but I’m buggered if I can remember the rest of it. Anyway, whatever it was called Sean seemed to be having a bit of a love-hate relationship with the thing throughout the day, first it was great, then as it deteriorated into ‘drift mode’ throughout the day it was deemed slightly cack but it was going well again in the finals which was good news. Smart new bodyshell too, plenty of pink and black present, don’t think I didn’t notice! Back to qualifying though and I admit to being pretty shocked to be out in front and even more shocked that our resident ‘superstar yank’ Justin didn’t catch me. Provisional pole after round 1, didn’t see that coming!

Smart new shell for Sean (Ross' crap photo with too much flash not doing it justice I must say)

Round 2 and off the front I did my best to leave Justin behind but we all know that just doesn’t happen so I let him through and managed to keep with him okay for a while until I clipped the inside of the fast right hander at the end of the straight which jammed the shell into the front wheel and gave Justin a clear run to take his normal pole position. I was still a delighted second ahead of Scooby Doo star Wayne ‘Shaggy’ Belcher who was driving his all new Cyclone. Despite the fact he’s had it a good month now the car wasn’t ready for practice so Shaggy had done extremely well to nab 3rd on the grid having only driven the car in two qualifiers! Nice one dude. Fourth fastest was Adrian who was beginning to look more and more like his old self throughout the day as he woke up and took on more caffeine ;-) Fifth was Paul Bond with Sean rounding out the ‘A’ Final in 6th.

Pole in the ‘B’ was Jason who was finding his Cyclone a bit of a handful in qualifying with his CS27’s not providing a whole lot of grip. He was flying in the finals though thanks to the kind soul who lent him some 22’s ;-) The rest of the ‘B’ was made up of our newest national star Jamie, fresh from his recent 2nd place in the ‘A’ at Ashby as well as Chris, James, Mike and quite possibly some others I’ve forgotten.

Another Cyclone - this time Jasons

With this being Justins last meeting before he jets off back to America we went with his idea of reversing the qualifying order for the final grids. Certainly made some interesting racing! ?

So, 6th place qualifier Sean led the first leg of the ‘A’ Final away from Paul, Adrian, Wayne, myself and Justin. I got myself into a spot of bother on lap one and found myself in the barriers at the back. Bugger ;-) Still, the car was great and I soon managed to get upto 3rd although Adrian and Justin were long gone. Fortunately for me Justin was behind Adrian for a few laps which let me close in and join the fun. Just as I was closing in on Justins rear bumper Adrian had a moment and spun which let me through into the lead. Justin obviously just wanted to have a play and we had a great few laps as he tried to get past me, eventually managing it before I tailed him for a few laps and then went through again. I thought I’d try and check out at this point and had a little gap when Justin made a mistake and dropped himself back so I had my win ahead of Justin, Adrian and the others.

Good old TC3 has last laugh! ;-)

The second final and this time I got the first lap just right, through into the lead by the end of lap 1 but a quick look back and I could see Justin had come all the way through with me on my bumper upto second. Bugger again! Knowing this was Justins last race here I was pretty determined to beat him for once and Justin obviously wanted to leave us with another win so this was an all out fight for the win. He had me under the cosh a bit for the next lap or 2 and I had to defend a little as I couldn’t quite punch out of the corners like him but then he had a little slide and gave me a couple car lengths gap, just enough to let me get on it. The car was fantastic and I managed to keep my gap of a second or so ahead of Justin until about 3 and a half minutes when he just started to creep in on me again, by 4 minutes he was there. Damm this car is gonna be wide I thought but there was no need as Justin slapped a barrier and dropped back. So that was it, I actually won, my first win since March 2005 and it was such a shock, I doubted I’d even make the ‘A’, must have been down to my new glasses eh? ;-)

In other news Adam Jewell topped the 1/12th timesheets all day with his nitro glycerine powered wedge thing. (That’s Brushless apparently) Open class saw Robin Hammett take the win in what was a truly bizarre class with Robin doing fully 2 times as many laps as some of the other competitors.

So that’s it for another 2 weeks, it was fantastic to see everyone again and I’m still grinning but it’s a shame we won’t have Justin racing anymore, he’s been the benchmark for so long. I’ll still be thinking he’s ‘just a bit further up the track’ for quite a while yet ;) Cheers Dude.

LATE NEWS! Congrats to Mike Doody on making the ‘A’ at round 2 of this years Thrashnals (carpet nationals) today, hell of a result! Now get your ass to the next TRAK meeting, we haven’t raced in ages! ;-)

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