Our first round for 2011 was an unglamorous visit to Mallory Park.
The car was not substantially different to last year, with the exception of some tweaks to the rear setup and ride hight. The car felt good straight away, with sability through Gerrards and great traction out of the hairpin. In fact after a couple of laps, I was able to get full throttle in 1st out of the hairpin without any wheel spin.
Our qualify time was really good, a nice margin back to the next class F car of Duncan (0.52sec), not far behind the leading 3 mid engined cars and well under the previous lap record with an average speed of 100.89mph)
Our race came around at the end of the day when the rain had decided to make an appearance. I had thought it would dry out but it didnt which left us with a compromised setup which was not good enough for the wet conditions. We had too much roll stiffness which was a problem through the quick and long Gerrards corner which is where most the lap time comes from. From my bad start, I slotted into 6th place, just behind Paul. Matt had a problem with slowing into the Hairpin a few laps into the race leaving me following Paul and Gary.
I did manage to get past Paul for a short time but the car just did not have the grip level that he had and he was soon back past. Looking at his post race video, he had about half the effort that I required to keep the car on the track around Gerrards! (You can just about see the steering angle in the top photo!)
We had enough pace to keep with the two Contours in touch but my bad start meant I was out of touch with Duncan and without the pace to catch him up. In the latter stages of the race, Gary had a spin at the hairpin and Duncan hit the wall on the start finish straight. Thankfully I kept it in the track which meant I finished 3rd overall and first in class for some solid 15 points with which to start the season.
Our qualify time was really good, a nice margin back to the next class F car of Duncan (0.52sec), not far behind the leading 3 mid engined cars and well under the previous lap record with an average speed of 100.89mph)
Our race came around at the end of the day when the rain had decided to make an appearance. I had thought it would dry out but it didnt which left us with a compromised setup which was not good enough for the wet conditions. We had too much roll stiffness which was a problem through the quick and long Gerrards corner which is where most the lap time comes from. From my bad start, I slotted into 6th place, just behind Paul. Matt had a problem with slowing into the Hairpin a few laps into the race leaving me following Paul and Gary.I did manage to get past Paul for a short time but the car just did not have the grip level that he had and he was soon back past. Looking at his post race video, he had about half the effort that I required to keep the car on the track around Gerrards! (You can just about see the steering angle in the top photo!)We had enough pace to keep with the two Contours in touch but my bad start meant I was out of touch with Duncan and without the pace to catch him up. In the latter stages of the race, Gary had a spin at the hairpin and Duncan hit the wall on the start finish straight. Thankfully I kept it in the track which meant I finished 3rd overall and first in class for some solid 15 points with which to start the season.
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