BTCC Round 5 Report - Eastbourne washout - 26 / 06 / 07

Eastbourne, a brand new track for Round 5 of the BTCC and another venue where I had to consult a map to see where on earth the place was. The answer being just past Brighton and around a four hour trip for our South Devon racers, most of whom were already practicing when we arrived trackside at 12:30 (Note to self – must get up earlier next time!)

The all new track looked good, smooth and flat with useable kerbs and enough varying corners to keep it interesting. Things were looking good for me too with a best lap of 15.3 very early on in the first practice run which wasn’t too far off the pace setters at the time. From then on though it was just one of those days where whatever you did made the car no better. Different toe/camber settings, roll bars, diffs, spools and one-ways were thrown at the car to no avail as it simply refused to better a 15.3 or have any initial steering which was weird as everyone else seemed to have tons of the stuff.

A dreadful picture of the Eastbourne track giving you no idea what it really looks like

Meanwhile Mike was finding some speed at the end of the day putting in a series of 14.6’s in his last run while Wayne ‘Shaggy Oracle Secret Squirrel Big Spender’ Belcher was flying round with his scary one-way for a best time of 14.7, looked good too. Elsewhere Jamie was apparently doing low 14’s after Jason had worked some magic on his car. Jason not racing this weekend as he’d broken his ankle jumping the same fence he broke his wrist jumping a few years ago. Snigger ;) No seriously it’s doubly bad for Jason as it was also his birthday! Hopefully the blow up sheep and sheep shagger underwear he was given on Saturday night made up for it! Lol Failing that Bobby seemed to enjoy them anyway ;-)

Still, back to the practice and with everyone else preparing their cars for Sunday we were still throwing changes at my car and it was finally beginning to respond a little, it certainly felt better anyway although the laptimes were now at 16.0! Surely that had to be down to the fact it was now nearly 8pm and getting cold…….and dark. Or was it still crap? Up stepped Bobby onto the rostrum to shed some talent on the situation and after a few laps he stopped to describe the car as ‘a bit weird’ Couldn’t agree more. Jason had also hobbled up the rostrum to give the car a go. From my impressions the car was certainly driveable now, just not particularly fast but maybe it would be better with some new tyres the next day…

Oh dear...

…unfortunately that’s not something we were going to find out. Light rain at 6:30am Sunday morning got steadily heavier and heavier as me and Mike hid under the gazebo and began waterproofing the cars. There was no amount of waterproofing that was going to enable the meeting to be run though as after several hours the torrential rain persisted, flooding the track and turning the pits into a complete mud bath. Strangely enough I’ve just watched some video from the meeting and we’re all looking remarkably cheery and smiley considering we’d just driven a 400 mile round trip for nothing, just one of those times you’ve got to laugh or you’d cry!

How many people can you fit under one umbrella?

Still, two weeks time and it’s West London, I’m already looking for some setups to try, it’s got to go better!

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