BTCC Round 7 Report - Promised land at Cotswolds - 25 / 07 / 07

Weather warnings, record rainfall and floods, that’s all we’d been hearing on the news during the week leading upto round 7 of the BTCC at Cotswolds last weekend so it was with some anxiety that we finally left the garage in Exeter just after 12 o’clock on Saturday afternoon. A little later than I’d hoped to be leaving but the release of a new Harry Potter book had caused work to be a touch busy on the Saturday morning….if only I could wave a wand and make this rain go away!

Somewhat miraculously we found our way to the track in 2 hours (in brilliant sunshine) encountering no problems whatsoever. No doubt the flukiest piece of navigation and timing ever as we heard horror stories of 5 or 6 hours journeys for fellow drivers on Friday evening who only lived an hour or two away!

A 'road' not far from the track on Friday evening

First impressions of the track were simply an open mouthed ‘wow!’ The Cotswolds track certainly being the most impressive I have ever visited. Only finished last year the whole venue is top notch with onsite camping and a huge yet challenging and rewarding track to drive…...quite a tricky combination to pull off that one. Adding to the wow factor were the vast array of planes flying overhead, everything from Lancasters to Spitfires (so I was reliably informed) having just taken off from the Kemble airfield which is literally next door to the R/C track.

A large plane......okay okay so planes arn't exactly a specialist area of mine ;-)

Still, we weren’t here to sightsee, we were here to race so with the gazebo hastily erected (best not push our luck here) the car was prepped for a first practice run around 2:30pm. After walking up onto the biggest rostrum I’ve ever seen (they’ve certainly gone for the ‘bigger is better’ theory here) it was time to see if all the work done to the car before the meeting had paid off. (And oh it’s had a lot of work) Out of the pitlane, right into the first hairpin, onto the power, slide clean off the track onto the grass. Oh dear, I hope no-one saw that…

A truly massive rostrum

Back on track and I’m feeling uncharacteristically nervous of the car, especially at the end of the oh so fast main straight. Still, a couple laps in and it’s starting to feel better and the laptimes are beginning to sound slightly better. Another great feature at Cotswolds, you can hear each of your laptimes as you cross the line, can we have some more of that please! :-) It means you can try different lines and instantly get feedback on wether or not it’s faster or slower, immensely helpful. A best lap of 21.9 was the result from practice 1 with 22.2 being the most common laptime, I told you it was a long track!

A spitfire! I think ;-)

I believe the fastest times of the day were very low 21’s which had been set earlier on in the afternoon. Fastest local driver was of course Mike who was becoming increasingly frustrated at doing best laps of 21.5 no matter what he did to his setup! Shaggy popped over at this point to bemoan his lack of pace, stuck in the mid 22’s although a late change to a one-way would see him happier with his car.

With some soft anti-roll bars fitted I took to the track once more and the car felt better now, laptimes looking good too with the best time now down to 21.7 with plenty of laps under the 22 second barrier. In fact the anti-roll bars improved things so much I decided to fit some stronger ones for the last run of the day, the car felt much more alive and although more difficult to drive was ultimately faster and a best lap of 21.4 was getting properly fast, I even had a little ‘race’ with Gary Dyson at one point so I must be getting faster, normally he’s just a blur to me!

Mike gets some practice in

The traditional Saturday evening followed of sitting down and eating too much, the nights entertainment being provided by Mike and Charles as they stumbled around the pits inside their tent whilst trying to attach the inner to the already assembled outer, I haven’t laughed so much in ages and I’m just sorry I didn’t have the video camera to hand at the time!

Sunday morning and as I peered out the van window all looked well with bright blue skies overhead….unfortunately though the track was wet and not looking like it would be completely dry in time for race 1, certainly not for practice anyway.

A few braved the damp track for practice, Mike looking particularly good in the conditions, meanwhile I was being a girl and keeping my car dry ;-)

Drivers await the breifing....and that's the biggest version of that pic you're getting as I'm looking a little bald on top, either that or very blonde, i'm telling myself it's blonde...

A drivers briefing followed and a vote was held to determine weather (pun intended) we should go for normal FTD qualifying or a round by round system. I must confess I didn’t fully understand the round by round system; it seems I wasn’t alone though as Tim Walden explained it to the other 50 or so confused racers ;-) It was still a huge majority that went for the normal qualifying system though so with threatening skies it was going to be very important to get a good time in the first qualifier, it was still damp in places but it could well be the driest track we’d have all day…

'A' qualifying heat ready to go

I decided to gamble on 32’s with additive and tyre warmers for round 1 as only the last few turns were damp, I think it was the right decision although the car had too much understeer and was costing me lots of time, well that and the fact I lost 2 seconds with a grass tracking moment coming onto the main straight….there was grass everywhere after that!

So rather disappointingly I was down in 12th after round 1 but with the weather still holding round 2 would be faster and I’d improved the set-up slightly and managed to trim 7 seconds off my time after a very tight and enjoyable race managing to pick up a few places in my qualifier. The timing sheets were depressing though, 11th overall at the end of the round, 0.014 seconds away from 10th and the ‘A’ Final, and with black skies and spits of rain in the air that looked like it was going to be it, racing can be cruel sometimes!

Spanky in action...I do like that paintjob

One person who wouldn’t have minded some rain was Shaggy who was so high up the order in 7th he was feeling dizzy! And to think he’d been struggling on Saturday, there’s a man who knows when to pull it out of the bag ;-)

Maybe that wasn’t it though? Much to my amazement the rain pretty much stayed away, just a few spits every now and then as the final qualifier approached although I wasn’t helping my cause by not having fully charged cells in the car, they were close enough though :-)

Aided by a pre race pep talk from Spanky (“Just go for it”) and throwing caution to the wind I pretty much willed the car round for 5 minutes whilst praying the rain stayed away. The run was six seconds faster which was enough at this point but the ‘A’ qualifiers still had to go out for their final run so it was around 10 minutes of torture, marshalling and then just waiting until Dad finally appeared from race control with the final stock qualifying positions. (How did he get those? Lol)

I was staring at Dad who was still some distance away..

Me - “Go on then, where are we?”
Dad -“13th”
Me - “13th!” (Cue look of disbelief)
Several seconds of silence
Dad – “Nah, 9th”
Me – Sigh of relief. B***ard ;-)

The even better news was that joining me on the back row of the grid was Shaggy, while Mike would be in his now customary 4th spot on the grid. How about that then, seven rounds into the season and I finally get to race against my two best racing mates at the same time!

Although not a south west driver (I normally only cover us) I’d like to mention Jordan Howe at this point, now I normally like to think I’m pretty good at spotting talent coming through but it was Mike who nudged me earlier on in the season when we were watching a lower heat to say he was one to look out for and sure enough he’s been getting better and better. With the aid of some decent batteries this weekend he was absolutely flying, only 3 seconds off the ‘A’ Final and 14th overall, simply amazing when you consider where he was only a few short rounds ago, keep it up mate!

Joining Jordan in the ‘B’s we had Sean having a good day after a few shockers recently in 16th and Spanky scraping into the ‘B’s in 20th, not quite able to find his West London form, still not far off though.

Birthday boy Jamie was having an off-day in the ‘C’s (he’d make up for it in the finals though) while James was joined by the luckless Mike Belcher in the ‘D’ Final, Mike not completing a single lap during qualifying due to his interference.

Myself and Wayne lined up on the back row of the grid

Onto the finals then and it felt pretty odd going out with the ‘A’ Finalists having been marshalling for them most of the season. On the grid then and the race is underway, I’m not though as I’ve completely missed the start, bugger. Still, there’s some action up ahead at turn 1 and I manage to pick up some places and settle into 7th which becomes sixth a few laps later as a car ahead slides off onto the grass. Any hopes of hanging onto the positions are pretty slim though as the car starts getting affected by interference. I could stop it by holding the handset at an upright angle but I really struggle to drive the car like that, as a result I kept involuntarily lowering the angle of the handset only to have a massive glitch of interference which would remind to raise it again! With the problems I was pretty soon back in 8th place with Wayne behind me, I thought we were going to finish 8th and 9th but the impossibly fast ‘stock’ of ??/ caught and passed Shaggy on the penultimate before zapping past me out of the last corner to leave me and Wayne 9th and 10th while Mike held station in 4th to keep his podium hopes alive.

The second leg of the finals was much more like it, with the interference gone I could just concentrate on driving the car and managed to hang onto the midfield pack for longer this time, the highest I got this time was 7th but I lost the back end a bit coming into the hairpin which let Andrew Twigger through and as the next car in line was a very quick Mike recovering from an off track moment I thought I’d let him through to get on with his race, no point me holding him up for a lap or so as he’d inevitably come through anyway. I dropped back a little in 9th but closed back in on Andrew again as he had a little moment, I had a pretty good go at keeping up with him for the last few laps of the race but he was slowly creeping away so it was 9th again with Shaggy 10th after an early race roll, Mike taking 6th.

The really pleasing aspect for me was that my best lap of 20.9 in the second final was only a tenth or 2 shy of all but the top 2 drivers and I know the car could have been better. I still had too much understeer whereas on Saturday it had been perfect so hopefully with a better set-up and a few others things to try for Bedworth (like getting the new shells done and setting the discharger to the right settings) I can make the ‘A’ again and set about getting in the midfield fight. Thanks to Mike again though for all his help, I wouldn’t have been there without you mate :-) And while we’re thanking people thanks to Shaggy, the oracle of RC racing for helping me source all the parts I’ve ordered the last few weeks and to Terry at MRT for his tips on the ESC, and thanks to Dad for putting up with me bemoaning being in the ‘B’ Final all year! Lol

Sean in action in the 'B' Final

I’d like to tell you how Sean and Adrian got on in the ‘B’s but the results aren’t up yet so I won’t ;-) I can tell you though that Jamie won the ‘C’ Final after a couple of highly entertaining and very close races.

So it's Bedrock next then is it my mum just asked me. No mum, Bedrocks where Fred Flintstone lives, we'll be going to Bedworth. I tell ya, if it's not one thing it's your mother..... ;-)

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