Ardent Winter Series Rd 6

I was playing pool with Andy on Saturday night, when he mentioned that he wanted to go the last round of the Ardent Winter Series tomorrow but had no one to take him. As I'd just finished blogging about how much fun I'd had on Friday night and how I could do it all weekend I thought I'd be a massive hypocrite if didn't head over to Ardent with Andy on Sunday.

So we went and grabbed his stuff after pool and headed back to mine in Manchester to grab what little sleep we could before we had to get up and head towards the infamous cattle shed. We worked out at about 12:30am that we needed to leave at 5:15am to get there for opening time at 7:00am... Needless to say, when my alarm went off for the first time at around 4:30am after about three and half hours sleep I was seriously contemplating changing my tune about enjoying racing again! Quick shower and coffee later though and we were on the road.

The new Ardent layout, complete with green bits and duck pond

I've not been to Ardent since a dismal performance at the Winter National there, but I was pleasantly surprised with the new layout - especially the addition of green bits to the track markings. They made the expanse of grey more bearable and a little easier to drive as the track felt more defined.

The dandy, albeit cramped pit facilities

Turnout was reasonable although nothing like the rammed first round of the Winter Series back in October 2010. I hadn't got particularly fond memories of either that first round or the more recent Winter National, however with my recent rebuild I was feeling hopeful of a slightly better result.

I went out for a practice unsure what to expect and needing to learn the layout a bit. The car felt much better than in previous outings at Ardent but not quite as nice as it had on Monday or Friday of last week. When I came off though I noticed the tires had started to come of the rims - a sure fire way to get an 'excitable' car.

I managed to fit everything I needed and wanted into my little pit space

Superglue and a bacon roll later I was out for the first round of qualifying and the car felt awesome. I was really pleased and it showed in my driving as I managed to run for the whole five minutes without any real drama. It also showed in my result as I found myself sat somewhere around 15th after round 1 - a drastic improvement from my E final at the Winter National!

Round 2 of qualifying was much of the same; more of me driving well and the car going well also. I improved my time by a few seconds, just missing out on a 24 lapper. Final round of qualifying saw the grip come up and I fell victim to a combination of bump and grip roll after running a little wide under the rostrum. The combination sent me tumbling off the track and made sure I didn't improve in round 3.

Lunch and then the final positions were posted. I had made the B final, just behind Buzz - I was 9th place on the grid. I had changed the ackerman on my car for finals and despite trying it quickly over the lunch break, it didn't work for me or the car. The car felt like it was understeering, but not in a predictable fashion - more washy and imprecise feeling. This meant I was unable to improve on my qualifying position and finished 9th out of 10 in round one of the finals.

Finals round two; ackerman back to the normal 5mm of spacing and tyres re-glued meant the car was back to feeling great again. I was going well, in 6th place chasing down Buzz in 5th when I got caught of a corner track marker. The person following me hit the side of my car and when I tried to drive away it was dead slow and didn't feel good. I pulled up and watched the finish to the race hoping the damage wasn't too severe.

Afterwards I found out that the impact had broken the side of my speedo, pushing the sensor cable out and the bending the sensor cable plug under the case a little. A screwdriver and a smidge of brute force later the car was working again thankfully (otherwise it could have been an expensive crash). Unfortunately it did dash my hopes of doing well in the finals, but didn't ruin the day. I was very pleased the car worked even at Ardent (where I know friends have struggled in the past) and glad I went with our spontaneous decision to race.

I did have more pictures, but my Picasa 1GB storage limit has been reached. I've just bought 5GB more storage but apparently Google are still processing my order, so I'll sort the pictures out tomorrow. Racing tonight again at MMCC - I'll keep you posted...