The much-loved month long Easter break I get from my university studies saw me travelling to the US for two weeks to visit friends from when I lived and studied at Oregon State University for the second year of my batchelors degree. This was followed by about a week and a half at home visiting friends from school who are still living it large in Berkshire. I figured I might as well do the whole long-break thing properly as this Easter was my last school holidays ever! From now on I just have my masters dissertation and then I'm forced out into the real world to do something called work? Or maybe it's called a job... I dunno, either way academia is getting ready to leave my life.
Unfortunately I didn't get an opportunity to do any racing during the break, so MMCC on Monday and RVRCCC on the Friday of last week was the first time I'd raced since the Chesterfield 12th National. Hence the blog turning into a bit of a blogging ghost town for the past month.
I seem to be one of these racers who needs to 'keep my eye in' with racing so I wasn't expecting too much on either the Monday or Friday night. Which is just as well really as neither performance was what I would call my best. I tend to struggle with being smooth again after a break from racing - I revert back to my lesser racing driver self and my thumbs become somewhat digital in nature. Throttle and steering receive 'on/off' inputs which of course doesn't lead to the quickest times.
Monday night at MMCC saw me qualify pole in the B final and only just winning it due to the confusion of myself and Adam. We were both very close at the end of the run and were swapping positions every other corner, so when we heard the beep (signalling last lap) we both pulled up laughing with relief... only to be greeted by shouts from our fellow racers in the pits that we hadn't finished yet. Blind panic ensued as we both tried to get back out there and finish our last laps, during the mayhem Adam got stuck on the track marking for a few seconds and it cost him a possible pole finish. I was lucky.
Friday night, and I was starting to modulate my transmitter inputs slightly better so my times weren't too bad. I qualified second behind Andy (admittedly a whole lap, or maybe 2... behind him) but then I proceeded to crash on the second sweeping corner off the line. My car launched itself skyward and landed neatly on all four wheels on the rostrum. Don't ask. The marshal then seemed unsure if he was allowed on the rostrum during racing, so by the time my eyes had finished silently screaming "HELP!" at him and I was back on the track, I was nearly two laps down. A set back I was unable to make up for during the 5 minutes.
However, I feel like I finally starting to get back into the swing of all things RC and with the first TC national rapidly approaching it's probably just as well. Looking forward to Monday night again now, and planning some testing sessions at our nearest outdoor track Halifax with mates in the coming weeks as well.
As always, I'll keep you posted.
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