Well race weekends don’t get much better than that!

The weekend began as usual with testing. RMA hosted a Trackday on Friday, so we took advantage of that. The RMA Trackdays offer a lot more track time and in some regards, a higher quality of driving is exhibited. We can’t time of course, but we wanted to try some different set ups on the Corsa on the short but demanding Brands Hatch Indy Circuit as well as experiment with tyre pressures. The race this weekend was a 45 minute endurance race, the first time this has been tried and we were conscious of tyre wear and fuel usage on both the cars. Having an RMA day allowed us to try race distances to ascertain what we could expect from the cars.

 

Overall, testing for the Corsa went well. Running out of fuel was a potential issue, nevertheless it looked like we could stretch the tank to complete race distance. Tyre wear, although aggressive, wasn’t bad enough to warrant compromising handling.

 

Simon couldn’t make the Friday RMA day as he was on duty for Dunlop. As a previous winner of the Dunlop Race Academy, he was needed to help judge this year’s competition at Silverstone. I won’t give anything away, however Simon seemed to think he would do well when he takes his prize of a drive in the Thruxton round of the Dunlop SportMaxx series in a couple of weeks time.

 

Testing on the Saturday went very well. Some extensive changes to tyre pressures saw a happy medium between wear and grip. The only real issue we had was fuel, it really was touch and go on whether the Astra would go a full 45 minutes on a single tank. Still, there wasn’t an awful lot we could do about it (there is no time to re-fuel mid race.) We devised a race strategy that saw us through. Simon’s times were excellent and it looked like we were in for a good weekend.

 

Qualifying

Leyton did an excellent job in the Corsa and was on pole for a lot of the session until Quentin put in a blinding lap in the Clio and knocked him down to P2 with 3 minutes to go, however 2/10ths of a second is barely a cars length round Brands to we remained confident that it was going to be a good race. Simon did equally well and watching the times he and Simon Gusterson were almost half a second ahead of Martin and John in the other Astra VXR’s and Sean in the Seat.  The real worry was Simon in the Megane, his car has a limited slip differential as standard and on a tight twisty circuit like Brands Hatch that would play well for him, and it did. With a few minutes to go he knocked Simon off pole by a mere 0.006 (Six Thousandths) of a second, that’s barely a cigarette paper, so we were in for a very close race. Two P2’s on the grid.

 

Race

The format of a single 45 minute race is new for SportMaxx, so with some trepidation we lined up. Simon in the Megane got a good start, then got out of shape going into Paddock Hill and spun. Simon then took the lead. The Class B Seat driven by Boyzone star Shane Lynch passed Leyton on the grid, but Leyton quickly got him back at Druids and snuck past Quentin’s Clio. By the end of lap one both Simon and Leyton were in the lead.

 

 

That’s where they stayed, Simon built up a 6 second gap over John Allison in the 888 Astra VXR and Leyton built up a 3 second gap on Quentin’s Clio before we brought them both in for their 45 second pitstop.

 

 

The stops went without issue (despite being told to turn the engines off, a bit mad for a turbo charged car when its red hot) and Simon and Leyton maintained their leads to win both classes. We were delighted.

 

 

With a few races of poor luck affecting our results this weekend was much appreciated, the whole team pulled well together to deliver the goods in a race that really tested the cars to their limit.

 

 

 

 

 

The really good news is that Leyton now leads the Dunlop SportMaxx Championship Class B with 105 points.  Simon has now recovered back up to 3rd in Class A with 88 points a mere 8 points behind Martin in second and 9 points adrift from Simon in the Megane. With three races to go there is all to play for.

The next race is at Thruxton in Hampshire on 7th September.

 

John