West London BTCC

This past weekend I was down in Uxbridge, West London participating in the Schumacher BTCC. I went down with Andy on the Friday night and stayed with my parents nearby. We then traipsed off to the track early Saturday morning for some practice. We also met up with Buzz there, who conveniently rolled in with fish & chips around lunchtime!

Andy managed to set the record for number of practice laps on Saturday, travelling around the West London circuit 294 times. Dedicated. I on the other hand only managed 2 and a half 5 minute runs all day. Could do better. My excuse for the distinct lack of track time is that I had to change over my motor and fix a few bits on the car when I arrived, only to break it again halfway through my second go on track. C'est la vie.

Sunday morning came around far too quickly and before we knew it, we were track side once again. Andy as always was delighted to be there - we find it hard pull him away at the end of the weekend... honest!

Sunday morning started well and with a healthy dose of sunshine to boot! I decided to put some new boots on as Andy had concluded in testing the day before they were worth half a second a lap. Admittedly only for the first run really, then there was quite a big drop off. I ran an old set for the first round, thinking the track would need to be cleaned up and I probably needed the practice anyway!

When I put my new tyres on (first new set I've used at a BTCC meeting this year) I was not disappointed! My best lap improved by over 6 tenths and I was on B final pace. Fortunately I put in a quick clean run which, with the FTQ layout agreed on at the start of the meeting, put me roughly middle of the B final grid.

I think this shot of my pit table sums up Sunday afternoon pretty well. With intermittent showers it was a case of gambling how dry the track was going to be when you went out and what tyre combination would be best. As a result I did not improve on my time set with new tyres. Fortunately for me, not many others did either. When qualifying came to a close, the rain cleared and the had dust settled I found myself 5th on the grid for the B final. A result I was much happier with than my more recent finishes.

I'm not certain where I finished in the finals, I had bad luck on the first hairpin in both of them. Under braking to avoid running into the car in front I was flipped on my room by the car behind me in both finals. I know everyone is fighting for a position, but I can't believe these drivers cannot control their cars in close quarters. I suspect everyone just thinks its okay to drive dirty in the first few corners to get the position they think they so badly deserve. I disagree, but it seems a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" Hopefully my finals at the upcoming national will be more successful...