American Racing Club
Mini’s at Falkenberg
Race report
Dateline Wed 8th/ Thu 9th December 2010
I’ve been joining these events recently as I’ve been gradually improving my speed and consistency in the Minis over the last few weeks. I’d driven a couple of sessions on some public servers for a laugh the previous night and despite being flipped on my roof in lap 1 at Zandvoort Club, I ran the fastest time in the race which would be 5th on the current leaderboard at RD and at Valencia national a time that would be in the top 10 of the current times there at RD. This is a simple track with only two left turns, fortunately (more later). A lap time of 50’s or so meant that everyone was going to be very close. Fortunately, the weather was kind to us and no rain materialised. Dumped my Zandvoort Club Setup on and out for practice. Slight adjustment to the gearing after a couple of warm-up laps and away.
Qualifying
I run full screen with Motec on a separate Laptop so when we switched sessions I assumed that we’d switched to practice 2 before quali. Fueled for the race off I went and set a 50.5 which was good enough for 7th place in the grid. Can’t help but think that there was a very low 50 in the tank. Note to self, check the session detail before setting off.
Race 1
Got a good start and picked up a few places before the first corner. Ready for 22 laps of wheel to wheel action. Only one real slip up and some goods consistent and fairly fast laps. This track is easy on tyres all round and wear is very light despite the mix of hard braking through T1-3 and fast sweepers for the rest of the lap. Once I’d settled into 7th spent all of my time chasing down Eric Estes. While I would catch him on the first sector, he’d pull out enough to stay ahead in the 2nd half of the lap. Eventually Eric N ran off track and I was up to 6th. Decided that in the limited time that was left, I should just consolidate 6th which is where I finished. Best lap was a 50.274 – my fastest yet.
Race 2
Sitting 3rd being Eric N, who I expected would get a quick getaway, I had high hopes for a good finish as my lap times were competitive and this is a tricky track to pass. Managed a good getaway and jumped Denis into T1, Eric had made an even better start and was already a second up. Ran wide in the 4th gear sweeper and was slow down the straight to the chicane, missed braking and saw Darius bearing down in my mirrors, rather than cut him off and cause an incident I left him some room on the inside and tucked in behind. Coming over the next turn (only lap 2 remember)the back went loose (as per my set up) and as I was about to catch it got a slight nudge from Saul spinning me into the tyre wall on the outside, I heard “suspension” and “aero dynamic damage”, what I didn’t hear was you have a puncture. So continued to run thinking that the canted steering ad problematic braking was because of the combined aero damage and suspension. Determined not to get a DNF, I ran on, hopefully not spoiling anyone else’s race for the rest of the laps, only when I took a look at DX sitting in the corner with around 5 mins to run did I see that the outside temps were at 140C and the pressure was only 22. I’d been running all of this time on a right front puncture. Lol If there had been more left turns on this track, I’m sure that I would have noticed earlier. Too late to change tyres now. Soldiered on for the rest of the time and managed to run 22 laps finishing 2 down from the rest of the runners.
Anyways, great racing guys, this is just a big kart track and ideal for these nippy little cars.
All of the team kit is on it’s way to Birmingham, AL for Fridays race at Barber motorsports Pk. More air miles pls.
Now 40 races without a DNF
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