Yesterday was RD2 of the BRCA 1/10 IC national series at Cotswold and before I go into details I must say it was one of the best weekends racing ever. Summary report is at the top if you want a long read there is also that option.
Qualifying went really well and I managed to put the car on P3 to start the main final. The race itself was great finishing P2 just 0.1 seconds ahead P3 after 30 mins was amazing.
Saturday the car was great right from the start with good handling and performance, however after some recommendations from others we noticed that my car was slower coming out of slow speed corners. After a quick ratio change it was flying by far the best driving experience of an RC car I have had.
Sunday’s race day we ran in our finals tyres in practice in order to prepare for the main event and also to check the engine over to make sure we had the right balance of performance to temperature as I’m beginning to learn that temperature is everything. Q1 was good benchmark time to try to chase as I managed to get a GT car stuck in the grass which does take some doing. That still gave me a respectable time. Q2 was my best run of the weekend I found a nice rhythm and just made sure to stay clear of the grass and others to bring me a 17 lap run in 310.92. Q3 I followed the advice of Paul Bellinger and decided to sit in during the intense midday heat. Which gave me a great opportunity to actually spectate the fast guys and see what they were doing different to myself. Q4 having had a watch of others I tried to implement some of their stuff however I don’t think my tyres were quite there to improve on my time I set earlier, either way it gave me a chance to check over everything for a bit of piece of mind before finals.
Starting 3rd gave me a great opportunity for a good result. Although in a final I was yet to get a good start away from the line normally the car just bogs down or I have a bit of a disaster. But this time I actually got an ok start and kept my 3rd place for the opening lap. The laps rolled by and we had a healthy 3rd place throughout the first half. We decided to go for a safe fuel strategy and to just try to keep a podium position. Towards the end of the race we bumped up to second after Glyn had some mechanical problems, we knew he was closing down but weren’t sure when or if we would meet to have a battle. It was all alright until the last pitstop where we made a slight error and got fuel on the engine as well as the tank causing the whole car to basically start choking and dying, at this point we thought that we would just keep it going and see what happened lap by lap. Fortunately, after a couple of slow laps the engine warmed back up again and the pre pitstop pace returned. Although Byron kindly reminded me to stay calm he also said that Glyn is closing the gap to us. In the end it came right down to the last lap last couple corners, he made a move in the carousel to pass but I got the cut back into the hairpin and it was then a dash to the line. To finish a 30min race being within 0.1 of a second to someone is the most crazy feeling ever had and to finish 2nd as well I was absolutely gassed.
I would like to very much thank Byron for being pitman all weekend without your stops and tuning I’d have been nowhere and your radio banter even during the stressful final was appreciated.
I would also like to thank my sponsors very much for the support they give me to allow for results like this to happen:
Elite RC Racing (John Russell)