The Aldershot track, once upon a time (circa summer 2006) my local outdoor club track
Myself, Andy and Dean travelled down early on Saturday morning, arriving at Aldershot around 10.45am. Once again we were pitting with Buzz because when you cram three people and their gear into one little car there isn't really any room for a gazebo as well! This weekend Buzz was trying out a new combined pitting/camping strategy with what came to be called the Bosomworth Residence for its sheer size.
The 'Bosomworth Residence' - barely fitting in a single photo and apparently dwarfing the usually giant CML gazebo. Talks are already under way for a North Wing extension to the residence for catering purposes at future events
The residence comfortably accommodates 4 pit tables and offers luxury sleeping quarters for upto four more, showers not included
Saturday practice was a mixed bag, everyone struggled with the sweeper initially. I got frustrated by it all and gave up after about three runs for the rest of the day. I'd like to blame the heat and a lack of sleep for my despondency, but really there are no excuses. Instead I wandered around taking some photos of the Bosomworth Residence and those who inhabit it.
Andy began his Saturday filing the superglue off his finger, he joined Dean in the canopy section of the residence
Andy and Dean's pit tables
My pit table, in the main section of the tent. My back was to...
...Buzz and his pit table
By the end of the day most of us were getting around the sweeper okay and work had begun and getting round the the rest of the track as quickly as possible, including nailing the tricky chicane before the entry onto the straight. We packed up and headed back to my parents' house, in the Reading area, for the evening shortly before 8pm on Saturday. Leaving Buzz and his Dad to enjoy a leisurely BBQ and drinking session in the grounds of the Bosomworth Residence.
The sun rises above a crowded Aldershot pitting area on Sunday morning
Sunday morning was a brighter and better day. As soon as we arrived I set to work sorting out the car I had given up on yesterday. Starting with a shock rebuild. I use some softer 'competition' o-rings in my shocks, which offer a delightfully smooth shock action, but require slightly more maintenance. I had not touched mine in at least two months and realised on the Saturday they were very squelchy. When I opened them up I was greeted by enough oil to only just cover the pistons on full extension. Not ideal, and likely the source of my sweeper woes from Saturday. I managed to rebuild the shocks with MuchMore 550 oil, change springs to XRAY 3.0s and 2.8s, adjust droop to 5 and 4, change ride height to 6.0 and 6.5, check tweak and camber (1.5 and 2.0 degrees) all before heading over to the driver's briefing.
"Welcome to the Aldershot BTCC boys and girls"
I then grabbed some breakfast from the very popular catering shed at Aldershot before getting ready to go out for round one.
The queue shows how popular the food is here, the burgers were certainly the best in the calendar thus far
Round one greeted me with a car that could at least get round the sweeper and respectably so, but some slight changes needed to be made to improve the car further. So I headed back to the Bosomworth residence to set about making those changes.
A different pit layout layout today in the tent as Andy had deserted us for the TOP Racing team gazebo... traitor...
TOP Racing... TOP by name, bottom by nature... J
My Sunday pit table complete with all the tools of the trade for my numerous setup changes
For the subsequent rounds of racing I changed my droop to 4.5 and 3.5 which significantly improved car handling going round the sweeper and also went back to my trusty HPI silver springs all round on the shocks, which helped the understeer I experienced with the XRAY springs. That was the setup I settled on for the rest of the day and I continued to improve round on round as I remembered the track layout and improved my lines and consistency.
Aldershot track complete with race info. LED display screen
Stefan C. shows us the 'right route' around and the 'alternative route' through the chicane before the straight in the final round of qualifying!
I ended up qualifying 10th in the C final, and finished 8th in the first round of finals - purely by virtue of the fact that 2 people did not start the race. It was by far my worst fun of the weekend with me making mistake after mistake, resulting in me spending a significant amount of time chilling out in the grass beside the track.
In the second round of finals I did much better, finishing third and completing my best run of the weekend 21 laps in 5 minutes 13 seconds if I recall. If I had posted that in qualifying I think I would have made the B final instead. My consistency was around 0.2 seconds and I didn't make a single mistake all throughout the run. A nice way to round out the weekend I must say, feeling more positive about a good result in the national now. Morecambe club racing tonight now, report on that later tonight. Until then...
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