South West Series returns to Torquay - 28 / 02 / 06

In a fit of enthusiasm not seen for many weeks I spent most of last Saturday putting the Xray back together for the south west series meeting at Torquay the following day. After 5 hours or so of work the whole car very nearly went out the window when I realised I’d fitted the front diff the wrong way round! Still, after a quick swap round and some set-up work it was looking more or less ready to race.

Into heat 1 and I was soon out front with a healthy gap over second place as a serious of bangs and crashing sounds signalled that the others were all getting a bit close somewhere behind. The Xray wasn’t feeling too bad but I made a couple mistakes before Justin and then Russ both caught, passed and left me behind. Mike also beat me on the clocks to leave me 4th after round 1.

I slowly got the car a little better as the day went on and ended fourth on the grid with 19 laps in 314 seconds, some 6 or 7 seconds behind Mike and Russ who I could just not match for speed on the day and around 13 seconds behind the flying Justin. Lining up in fifth was Adrian, followed by Jason (who had stolen Seans old Evo 4 for the day and relegated him to the ‘B’s) ahead of Paul Bond and Malcolm rounding out the ‘A’ Final. You only had to look at the first three of Sean, Paul Hopkins and Wayne in the ‘B’ Final to see what a close days racing it was!
		Justin was just an orange blur for most of the day...

As we rounded the first few turns in the final I was able to stay close to Mike before he grip rolled half way round the lap and slid down the order, Russ also made an error on the next lap and I could get through into second with a fair sized gap behind me but I still didn’t really have the pace and Russ was able to catch and pass me again without too many problems. That was pretty much it for action in the final from my perspective; I spent the rest of the race in a lonely third, getting left behind by Justin and Russ but with the gap behind to Jason and Adrian growing too. Paul Bond came home sixth while Malc was the last runner in 7th with Mike retiring :-(

A patriotic Paul Hopkins stops to pose while Justin gets in some practice laps prior to the final

There’s still some more work to do on the Xray but there’s a few things I want to try for next week which will hopefully make it more consistent instead of changing every few laps and hopefully also a bit closer to the front guys pace, if not it's going to be 'best offers' time! ;-) As Jason comically put it -

Jason - "Why are you racing it again?! It's crap!"

Ross - "But it should be faster than the TC3"

Jason - "It's not! It's crap!"

Ross - "But......."

Jason - "It's crap! That's it!"

Maybe he's right ;-)

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