BRCA TC National – Round 1 – West London (pt 1)

 

This weekend sees the beginning of the Touring Car national season and the weather (almost) held out for it :)

The format of the day is 2 rounds of practice and 3 round of qualifying on Saturday, with a further 2 round of qualifying and 3 finals on Sunday.

This year Lipo is allowed in the modified class, and I’ve entered this class, so I’m right in at the deep end !

We arrived at the track around 8am this morning and began to set up our pit area and equipment.

We had an EGM for the section where it was decided not to go ahead with the vote on reducing the Lipo modified weight limit to 1425 grams from 1500 as it currently is.  This is due to the Executive committee having the option of making the meeting and results null and void if it’s decided that the vote wasn’t a valid one.

I went out for practice on old tyres and was surprised at the way the car felt, normally it’s quiet bad around west london, but it felt “ok”

After my rounds of practice were finished, I went out for my first qualifying run, and as the track was drying out from a brief shower during the previous heats, I found it quite difficult to drive.  I managed to get some laps in, but failed scrutineering due to the height of the wing on the car.

Result: 38th (failed scrutineering)

For round 2, I made some changes and this made the car a lot more stable around the track.  I went out but only managed 1 lap as I made a mistake on the final corner of the circuit and broke a wishbone as well as a top deck.

Result: 37th (1 lap)

For round 3, I decided to keep the car the way it was and it felt quite good.  However, about 5 laps from the end, I noticed a drop in power.  Unfortunately, this happened in the penultimate corner with a faster car approaching from behind.  The car came into contact with mine.  I finished my run after that, but only managed about half speed around the remaining laps due to an electrical problem.

I ended up 29th for the round on 17 laps (my pb is 18)

This leaves me in the unenviable position of having to make the 2 qualifying runs tomorrow both count, for a good 3 out of 5 runs.  I hope I can get some good results in the morning session so that I can drop the two failed runs and improve my position in the finals later in the day.

Keep an eye out tomorrow as I hope to be able to post updates during the day !!