Morecambe Misery

I was at Morecambe on the Monday immediately following the Halifax national, but to be honest I wished I hadn't gone by the end of the night. It had started out okay, but numerous mistakes in multiple qualifiers had meant my final qualifying position left a little to be desired.

I then drove like a complete and utter wally in the final and at one point I seriously considered drilling the car into the brick wall at the end of the straight - I was that frustrated with it that the possibility of seeing it obliterated into a million bits felt strangely satisfying at the time. Needless to say I managed to resist the 'temptation' and opted for continuing to drive like a tool for the remainder of the five minutes.

Hands down, worst night of racing for a long time in my eyes. I'll leave it there. Hopefully something a bit more up beat can follow this post when I'm back racing in a week's time!

Halifax National 2011

Apologies that this post is a little late arriving, but sometimes life takes over and I can't be bothered to write it of an evening after work. Last weekend I was at the Halifax National, despite seriously considering giving it a miss given the miserable-looking weather forecast for the weekend on the Friday night.

My wet car has a very first generation brushless system in from SpeedPassion, so fixed timing advance and minimal other settings. I thought the lack of speed would be a problem because Halifax is so big, although it's usually a good thing at other tracks as it stops me trying to put down more power than grip available in the wet conditions. As it was supposed to be wet all weekend I was worried about having to race the entire weekend with my under-powered wet car. However as it turned out, it was fine. Although the weather forecast wasn't as torrential as it looked at one point, it was constant on/off showers all weekend keeping the grip levels extremely low for everyone (unless you happened to be in one of the lucky heats who had a nearly dried out track before it started raining again).

The constantly changing conditions actually mixed up some of the qualifying positions quite a bit, I had something like a top 13 run in one round (I'd normally hope to be high 30's) whereas Andy had a couple of 80-somethings and usually he'd be shooting for top ten all the time. The rain even meant Andy Cottom was officially 'fast' for one run at least!

We all started Saturday with both wet and dry cars out on the bench in the hope of some sunshine poking through at some point, but by the time Sunday rolled around I think everyone pretty much just had their wet cars left on pit tables - it was almost certain that even if it wasn't raining when you left your car to get on the rostrum, it was probably raining by the time you'd climbed the steps to look out at the track again.

Actually, unlike Cotswolds, the Halifax track tends to seem to absorb any water rather quickly so there's never any standing water. It's always just at that greasy stage. As a result, slicks and wets worked with equal uselessness to be honest.

I think I had something like a 29, a 13 and a 54 at the end of Saturday qualifying - a fair old spread, but I called it a good and headed off to settle in at the Premier Inn and get an Indian at some random place in Halifax town centre - we found it by following our noses a couple of years ago if I recall. When Sunday came around we traipsed back to the track to endure more of the same in both the weather and qualifying department.

By the time the dust, or should I say the rain, had settled I found myself with a somewhat underwhelming qualifying position of third in the E final. The first two rounds of finals were nothing short of dismal to be honest. 'Naughty' and I had to start at the back of our first final after some confusion nearly meant we missed the race altogether! I'm pretty sure I finished dead last in that race - my car felt awful - much worse than it had all weekend and the complete lack of rear end grip made it almost undriveable. I had to keep turning around to face the right way at each corner!

Although we made the start of the next round, my race was equally bad and I finished 9th out 10 I think. After we came off 'naughty' aka Mark Cruddas suggested I tighten my read diff. I checked and it was slipping a little so a quarter turn sorted that out. I had completely forgotten you have to do such things with ball diffs, so used to the convenience of gear diffs I have become.

My final final saw me on the track with a completely transformed car, I actually at least held my 3rd place qualifying position in that round. However, the damage had already been done and an 8th place finish overall in the E was my 'prize'. At least the weekend hadn't been the complete washout I had feared on Friday night. It's a shame I didn't end my 2011 national campaign on a slightly higher note though. Next year maybe.

MMCC @ Blackpool on 28s (well for a handful of laps at least)

I was racing at Morecambe's monthly Blackpool excursion last night. I say racing, I was there but minimal racing was completed unfortunately. I shall explain...

I arrive and unpack all my stuff and then decide in my ultimate wisdom that now was a good time to examine my rear diff which hasn't felt as good ever since it broke and had multiple parts replaced. So I take it apart and think I find a culprit gear, with that replaced I reassemble the diff only to find it feels worse than before! To boot, the diff is still in my hand when the 30 second countdown starts for my first qualifier (as we were running on auto) so that's the first race down...

Figuring I've missed the first race I decide that now it's out I might as well do a proper job and actually fix it. So, apart the diff comes again and I think I find another culprit gear. Put it back together and of course it feels even worse now. Getting a bit pissed off at the stupid thing I stand firm and refuse to race until I have at least got it back to the marginally broken feeling I started with, rather than something worse. My decision to stand firm is probably just as well considering round two of my qualfying has now started anyway.

All the old gears go back in, broken looking or otherwise and it once again only feels a little broken, so I say sod it and bolt it all together in time for the my first, but really third and final qualifier. About 3 minutes and 15 laps in a wheel falls off.

So, several hours after I arrived and with maybe 3 minutes of racing under my belt I find myself at the bottom of the bottom heat with the only thing behind me being a mardave. The shame. Not a high point in my racing career. After another 3 minutes of surprisingly hard fought racing I'm leading my final for maybe a lap before my wheel falls off again. FFS. I wonder why I bother sometimes...

Blackpool on 32's

This was my second week on 32s at Blackpool and what looks like the final week it for this layout before we have a change. The 32s are quite a bit slower at Blackpool Andy and I have decided. Perfectly possible to get them round but 1-2 laps slower than the 28s. On the plus side they stay stuck to their rims and don't seem to wear at all - that's why I'll be using them from henceforth (plus I have loads leftover from Nationals). At Morecambe there doesn't appear to be any significant disadvantage to using them.

I had problems with interference in the first two races, I isolated to being someone's 40Mhz transmitter and the problems remained after they changed crystal. I know 2.4Ghz should even be able to interact with 40Mhz, but my steering was being inconsistent; sometimes it wouldn't turn at all, or it was very delayed, or it would go halfway then jerk across to full lock of its own accord. It made the car impossible to drive and Damien very kindly moved me into the 'A final' qualifier for rounds 2 and 3 of the evening. It wasn't until round three that I was able to get a good run in and secure a place in the A final proper though.

Messing about with Whur Jr. and Whur Sr.'s pit tables to mirror each other. I decided this was a better use of my time than making my car quicker.

In the final a series of rolls both down the straight (don't ask) and round the sweeper ensured I finished where I started. Dead last.

MMCC Club Night

We had a pretty cool track layout at Morecambe tonight, quite twisty and hard to get consistently quick times on. Mind you, now I think about it, what Morecambe track isn't like that?

After some very scruffy qualifiers which were full of little mistakes and unnecessary entanglement with each other Dean and I ended up in the B final with Colin joining us. I managed to break free at the start of the race, but Dean caught up with for the final minutes of the race and he was right on my tail for the final few laps. Coming down the straight on the final lap I gave it a final push over the loop and stopped just short of hitting the wall, confident that I had beaten him. Dean however carried on round the track to the next corner and much to my dismay the computer announced he had won it! I couldn't believe it when everyone watching said the loop was not in it's usual spot and instead 4 feet further round the track! Bit of a rubbish end to what had been a good race, but I guess you win some and you lose some. Even more annoyingly though I then found out it was the last round of the championship (which I thought had finished literally weeks earlier) so I couldn't have 'lost' on a worser week!

I thought for pictures this week we could do a quick Morecambe pit table tour so here we go:

My pit table

Dean

Andy

Mark Carter

Mark Jordan

Kev

Colin & Pete

BRCCC Club Night

I had an eventful night at Blackpool last night. About halfway through the first round my gear diff broke, which was quite an impressive feat in itself. When I took it apart I discovered that one of the pins in the out-drives connecting it to all the planet gear had broken out of the slot in the back of the gear, bent the shim and subsequently chewed up the case and gear. Fortunately I had a spare gear diff, save the out-drives, so I used various bits from that to fix it all.

I then went out for the second qualifier only to break one of the spool out-drives after a few laps. I didn't hit anything really, honest, must just have been wear and tear. Anyway, I fixed that as well and tentatively went out for the final qualifier, in desperate need for a finish to keep myself in the A final. I pulled off a solid result and was comfortably in the A, where I finished in my usual position, behind Danny, Andy and Damien. Ho hum.

Cotswolds National 2011

My first national of the season started well enough, I went out for my three practice sessions and the car felt really good... surprisingly so, seeing as I had run out of time to do anything to it in preparation. I was feeling pretty good about life until I went to get my tires together to get them marked up for scrutineering, as I went to reach for my wet tires I realised I had left them and the wet car they were bolted to in my other hauler bag back in Manchester. Fantastic. You utter wally.

Needless to say that put a little bit of a downer on the weekend after that as we were all but guaranteed to get a very wet Sunday. Nevertheless I kept my head held high in spite of the circumstances and put it in some reasonable runs on the dry and sunny Saturday. All of them were within the top 40 if memory serves, which is about where I would hope to finish these days.

I do enjoy driving on the Cotswolds circuit, it has a nice flow to it and the surface is a joy to drive on compared to some of the other tracks in the calendar. The club guys all did a great job of presenting a beautifully maintained circuit and great facilities for the weekend.

The highlights of the Saturday for me though came from Mr Cottom, when he decided to don some ski goggles to protect his delicate eyes from the wind on the rostrum. He looked like some sort of home-made wannabe superhero, bless.

Andy was also kind enough to entertain us off the track too, he had a sticker on his shell which was just begging for a bit of sharpie editing. I, of course, was kind enough to oblige.

As predicted Sunday emptied the heavens down on us and after trying to share a wet car with Adzy didn't work out (he drove it through a small lake by race control in his first round which promptly killed it before I could use it) I marshalled my two remaining quailfiers before deciding to pack up and head off home early. This of course means I missed out on all the contorversy which followed and as I understand it, the situation has now been left as final results = the final qualifying positions. Which might not be too bad a result for myself with the three reasonable results I got on the Saturday.

All in all, not my greatest of racing moments but the usual banter in between races and on the Saturday night made it for me. So thank you to all my fellow pit mates for that.