Morecambe Time!

On Monday I was at Morecambe once again, it was a good night as always. Yes, I am aware I'm starting to sound like a broken record...

Slightly busier this week...

...with a temporary new member who performed admirably on his first visit.

Busy top qualifier and A final, but we managed to keep out of each other's way pretty well I think.

A few of us lining up for qualifying.

My evening went well, with my grip now returned I was able to qualify 4th in the A final (which is where I started the evening in qualifying) and finished 3rd with a lap improvement on my best qualifying time. Nothing of note to be honest, other than my car needs a bit of TLC probably, but I've not yet 'gotten around' to helping it out!

Aldershot BTCC this weekend, hopefully I'll have a little more to report from that, and as always, lots of pictures too. Looks like we're set for another glorious weekend of sunshine and warmth! Until then...

The Blackpool Track

Last Friday I ventured to the recently re-opened facility at Blackpool. Avid readers may recall that the Ribble Club used to be at this venue but unfortunately due to complex and messy circumstances had to exit stage left. Since leaving the torch has been passed to two old club members:

Danny Holmes and

Damien Holmes

They decided to start their own track facility up where Ribble left off and in about a week they: flattened the bumpy floor; bought and laid carpet; bought, made and laid track markings; bought and installed all the AMB timing equipment; made and installed pit tables and opened their doors to the public! Very impressive guys!

So, with all this work put into the new re-vamped venue it only seemed fair that I pay them a visit. Especially after the glowing recommendation it received from Andy Murray when he visited the previous week. I must say, despite some issues with my car (which we'll get onto later) I was very impressed. Not only was the turnaround time astonishing, but the quality to which it had been achieved was indisputable. On top of all of that, I grew very fond of the layout during the course of the evening!

The track area has been made a little wider and longer compared to Ribble, which has done wonders for making the infield feel less cramped and restricting.

Andy and I ceremonially resumed our Ribble pit places... well, I did, I think Andy just came along and sat next to me to be polite!

and we were joined by the Whur family on our pit table

My evening wasn't spectacular if I'm honest. I struggled with low grip all night again, as I had done at MMCC on the Monday night. The diff wasn't perfect, but it wasn't broken either so it couldn't be that.

Anyway, after three rounds of qualifying, two things happened. I qualified 2nd in the touring car B final, and at the end of the qualifying 3 my insert made a break for freedom out of one of my rear tires!

This fitted the hypothesis I was formulating in my head that my tires had 'gone' and were to blame for my grip woes of the past week or so. To be fair they are some heavily loved first gen. Sorex 32s from my 2009 outdoor season so they've served their time for sure. I popped some 3rd gen. 32s from the recent Cotswolds national on for the finals and was greeted with some delicious grip! As a result I was able to win my final, despite rolling the car twice when I got a bit keen with some apexes.

All in all a good evening, and I shall be back to Blackpool again no doubt. I'm hoping to somehow split my time between Ribble and Blackpool as they are currently both running on Friday nights.

Another quiet night at MMCC...

Well, as the title might suggest, it was indeed another quiet night in our little community hall in Morecambe, Lancashire. The evening wasn't quite as fun-filled as I might have liked, culminating in a rather nasty breakage for myself unfortunately.

The evening started much like any other; I helped a little (sorry Mark!) with setting up the track...

before seting up my pit space...

when Andy arrived and set up his next door...

then I pottered about taking photos of various things and people...

including Mark doing his usual pre-race prep...

during my travels I even stumbled across some mysterious snot coloured bot dots which had found their way onto our track...

By the time racing started I was sure it was just like any other night at Morecambe... I went out for the first round of qualifying and the car didn't feel too hot. I wasn't sure why as it had felt fine when it went away in the box at the end of last week. But actually, thinking about it, my car never seems to feel too good in the first round of qualifying, so I just put it down to low grip levels.

However, after the second round of qualifying things hadn't improved and I was about three laps down on 'the pace'. Unsure what it was I persevered until about halfway through round three of qualifying when I gently 'kissed' (or so I thought...) a barrier after a screwed up corner exit onto the straight. The result was essentially a write-off of that corner/end of the car.

As you can see above: bent mount (the other mount doesn't look too healthy either), smashed wishbone, and rather wobbly hingepin. The hingepin still looked this bad after T. Murray attempted to straighten it... with his teeth... well, a slight exaggeration but if you know the phenomenon that is T. Murray you wouldn't put it past him, the man is practically a demi-god when it comes to sorting and fixing things, 'nuff said.

I digress, so basically all that palaver put an end to my evening and left me to root around in the spares box hoping I've got parts to replace all these things. I think I have, barring one of the mounting blocks. Either way, I'm sure I can get me back on the road in some guise by next Monday at least.

Mondays at Morecambe

Despite my fun-filled weekend down South I managed to get my butt into gear and head to Morecambe last night. I was instantly glad I did as the night was filled with good close racing in my humble opinion.

Although it was a bit quiet last night, it was still pretty competitive. All the key players (excluding Adzy), and myself were there!

Qualifying was fairly standard; first round was a tad slippy but the grip came up quickly in time for round two and beyond. I was going well all evening, although lagging a little way behind the leaders Andy and Mark, and Dean too actually when he finally got round to finishing a run.

The upshot of all these goings-on's was that I qualified 4th in the A final. I drove a good clean run for the most part though and quickly managed to slip past Dean when he made a mistake and Mark too when he 'came a cropper' on an apex somewhere along the way. I managed to hold Mark back for a little while, but then a clipped corner allowed him through and despite my best chasing efforts I was unable to re-claim the position so had to settle for 3rd. Mark and I had some great close and clean racing though.

A quick glance at the MMCC website results section tells me that that was the end of the Spring Championship and furthermore, I finished 3rd in it. With Andy Murray winning it and Mark Carter in second place. A result I'm more than happy with J

Cotswolds National

This past weekend was spent once again in the beautiful surrounds of the Cotswolds countryside. I had an enjoyable weekend, with some great racing and a good result to boot.

The weekend began with the usual gazebo and pit tables setup malarkey...

... but once all that was sorted we all lined up to get our 'shiny' new tires. Thanks to Schumacher for quickly and efficiently sorting out what was inevitably a very messy issue with the control tires for 2010. I could complain, like a few others have, but what would that really achieve, other than to raise my blood pressure?!

Practice began as a mixed bag; the car felt great - and I had sorted my diff issues out from previous weeks but I seemed to be a bit down on speed. I didn't seem to be completely un-competitive, but I certainly wasn't quick either. I came back after first practice and double checked my gearing and speedo software but I was certain I hadn't changed anything and this was how I'd had it for the BTCC round a few weeks prior. I shrugged it off and thought I'd re-evaluate it during in second practice... about 3 laps into second practice I was definitely slower than usual and lacking power everywhere it felt. Then it hit me! When we race at Morecambe it's too small for full 10.5 power, so we turn down our endpoints as a lazy option rather than putting our 13.5s in! I had been going round on 75% throttle endpoint! I pulled up and fiddled with the transmitter for a moment before launching back onto the track at the speed I had now become accustomed to. Happy days.

After the obligatory drivers briefing, with a brief apology and explanation of the tire situation by Robin Schumacher, qualifying began. I went round okay throughout Saturday qualifying, but never got a particularly great time. I socred a 40, 34 and then a 54 - in the last round of qualifying my diff seemed to decide it had not finished being run in so starting slipping, making the car a bit of a handful. Those socres had me sat 36th overnight.

Sunday qualifying began after the much appreciated track scrubbing practice round. I knew I needed two 'better' qualifying results today to stand a chance of ending up in a final I felt I belonged in. Thankfully, I managed to pull the cat out of the bag, putting in two mid twenty scoring runs (probably where I should have been scoring all weekend if I could have kept it a bit cleaner on the Saturday).

Anyhoo, my final score put me 3rd on the grid for the D final. A good place to be sure, but last year I'm sure I spent most my time in C finals by the end of the season. And I feel pretty confident that I'm not slower than last year, if anything I think I've improved quite a bit L The explanation I've decided upon is that at least 10 people who are quicker than me have started doing ProStock this year - I know of at least one; my good friend Andy Murray who was once again at the sharp end of the A final this weekend.

I was very happy with my performance in the finals. I drove the first two rounds with very few mistakes and was aptly rewarded with a 2nd and a 1st. This meant that going into the last round of finals my only threat was John Toman who had qualified second on the grid just in front of me; as long as I finished in front of him I had won the D final!

John was standing next to me on the rostrum, so I did try politely asking him if he didn't mind awfully just pulling up at some point in the run and letting me have the victory... I took his laughter as a "No". However, on about the third lap into the final, when he was just in front of me coming onto the straight, from what I could make out, he made a slight mistake leaving a wheel on the grass which quickly dragged him simultaneously off the track and out of contention. At which point John said next me, "There you go Thomas" haha! That cheeky little comment was the highlight of my weekend if you're reading this John, so thank you J

All told, another delightful weekend of racing. As you can tell from the newly installed counters at the top of the blog, the next 'big' meeting I'm planning to attend will be the Aldershot BTCC on June 4th and the next club meeting I shall be at is Morecambe's next Monday. See you there!