Brands Hatch Indy - 14th May 2016 - TTRS Rounds 5 & 6

Following on from the high of my first Production BMW podium at Donington a few weeks Prior I arrived at Brands Hatch looking for another positive weekend.

As always I'd opted to enter the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons event on the Saturday. Headed out for qualifying with the aim of beating last years best time of 59.5s and hopefully qualifying towards the front of the 10 Production BMW cars in the field. Ended up qualifying 18th out of 29 and 3rd in class F behind Will Davidson and Mark Palmer,also Just behind one of my oldest friends James Salmon in his first race in his 306 GTI6. Pretty pleased to have made a significant time improvement over last year with a 58,800 second lap.

With Will opting to start the race from the pit lane it looked like the class F race was likely to be between Mark Palmer, Sam Strong and myself as we'd all qualified within 0.3s of each other. I got a reasonable start but couldn't find a way past Mark so had to settle for 2nd with Sam never far behind, at the end of the race just 1.642 seconds separated the 3 of us. Best lap time had again dropped slightly to 58.664.

Race 2 didn't go as well a poor start meant that Sam and Jamie Jefferys in class F along with the Lexus and mini cooper S of Matthew Newman and Richard Ibrahim got passed. Not wanting to risk the car for the PBMW Qualifying session later in the day I opted for a conservative run to 4th in class.

Donington Park - 24th April 2016 - PBMW rounds 3 & 4

After a pretty good day on Saturday in the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons races I headed out for the Production BMW qualifying session. Headed out behind Harry Goodman and made a point of trying to sick with him during qualifying as I knew he'd be near the front. I pleased to say I managed to stay close and Harry was on pole with a time of 1:26.464. I ended up 4th on the grid with a time of 1:27.129.

Unfortunately Rob Cooper who had qualified 2nd didn't make the grid as during qualifying he'd smashed the sump on a curb, despite managing to change the sump itself it turned out that the engine wasn't sounding good.

Robs loss however was my gain and as a result I'd line up on the grid with a clear view of the first turn. As with the TTRS races I managed to get a great start, looking back at the videos I may have lead a PBMW race for the first time (all be it for about 2 seconds and by about 200mm) However Harry held on to the lead through the first corner. Finished the first lap in 2nd place but through out the rest of the race dropped to 5th overall as Will Davidson, Matt Swaffer and Alan Wileman managed to get passed. Finished 5th but was promoted to 4th When Alan received a penalty for exceeding track limits. 4th was my best finish in a PBMW race to date so along with my best lap dropping to 1:26.601 I was pretty chuffed.

As with race 1 I started race 2 4th on the grid. Had another great race, Will Davidson and Harry Goodman managed pull a slight gap leaving myself, Matt Swaffer and Alan Wileman fighting over 3rd place. On lap 7 Alan made a small mistake and was out of the fight for 3rd. By this time I was starting to think about the possibility of my first PBMW podium. All I needed to do was keep Matt swaffer behind, Although Dave Graves was close enough that if we'd got to scrappy it would have been a 3 way battle again.

Please to say that I managed to keep the 3rd place and after over 4 years of trying I finally made it onto the podium.

Massive thanks to Rob at Gary Feekins Racing who have got the car handling fantastically and Jody Halse at Climax motorsport who built me the engine which has powered the car pretty much untouched for the last 3 years.

Donington Park - 23rd April 2016 - TTRS rounds 3 & 4

Rounds 3 and 4 of the 2016 championship took place at Donington Park on the 23rd April, unlike 2015 we would be running on the shorter national circuit which leaves on the Melbourne loop, Personally I much prefer the national circuit as it avoids the two slow hairpins.

Having had a rare chance to test on Friday morning I was feeling pretty confident in how the car was handling although wasn't aware of the exact times as the track time on Friday was a trackday so timing wasn't allowed.

My previous best time on the national circuit was around 1:27.7 so I was happy with a qualifying time of 1:27.537 which gave me 13th on the grid and first of the 12 class F production BMWs.

Race 1 - After a great start I was fortunate enough to build up a bit of a gap to the remaining PBMW cars in class F however whilst battling hard with Johnathon Atkinson in the E36 318ti, both Ed Giddings and Alan Wileman managed to close up the gap and eventually pass leaving me with 3rd in class. Best lap time had dropped to a 1:27.096 leaving the chance to break into the 1:26's looking like a possibility.

Race 2 was much of the same with a good battles with Alan Wileman and the 2 E36 compacts, Ended up finishing 2nd in class behind Alan Wileman

Clio Progress

Between rounds 1&2 at Snetterton and 3&4 at Donington we have somehow managed to find time to crack on with preparing the clio 182 for the 750 motor clubs championship. A decent days work and the Saftey devices 6 point bolt in cage was installed and we even found time to change the brake hoses for some Hel performance braided lines and bleed the brakes with some race fluid. 

Snetterton 28th March 2016 - PBMW - rounds 1 & 2

Set out for qualifying in what was probably the worse conditions I've ever experienced on track, Heavy rain before and during qualifying meant the circuit was completely water logged, unfortunately after a couple of laps this brought out the safety car which stayed out until the end of the session. This really mixed up the qualifying results as some were still able to set respectable times whilst catching the safety car. I ended up qualifying 13th but moved unto 12th after penalties were applied for people exceeding track limits. 

Race 1 I managed another good start despite the damp conditions, managed to avoid the clashes on the first lap and ended up finishing the first lap in 7th place. Had a good although slightly reserved race, ending up in 9th, however was then promoted to 8th when someone was disqualified for contact. 

With a dry track for race 2 and a starting position of 8th I was looking forward to another good race. Managed to find some space early on which although it was nice to not be constantly pushed from behind I did rather get into the trap of not pushing as hard as I could. Finishing a respectable 7th was good news for the championship but my best lap was down on the previous days TTRS race. 

All in all very happy to leave the first  event 6th in the championship and looking forward to rounds 3 and 4 at Donington Park. 

Snetterton 27th March 2016 - TTRS rounds 1 & 2

Qualifying was always going to be a slightly compromised as I hadn't driven the car since Gary Feakins Racing had fitted the new AST suspension, Steering rack, wishbones and set the car up. Headed out on a thankfully dry track. The car definitely felt different, turn in seamed better than I recall from last year and the wheel spin that constantly caused issues in 2015 seams to be very much reduced (only issue now is a reducing number of excuses for not finishing well). Ended up qualifying 16th / 30 overall 3rd / 13 in class F behind David Graves and Matt Swaffer. Happy enough with the result although times were a little off what I'd hoped for however after just 6 laps it was just a case of needing to get used to the new set up. 

After a pretty respectable qualifying session it was time for race 1, The track was dry so opted to head out on a dry stiff set up. All seamed to work well until the 5th lap when it satrted to rain by which time I'd set a best lap of 2:26.448 which was a good improvement of my best lap of 2:27.268 in 2015. At this time I was running 2nd in class behind David Graves with Gianluca Maretto close behind. Unfortunately the rain started to get heavier and the track became very slippery, especially on a stiff set up. On lap 6 heading into Riches I locked the  brakes allowing Gianluca Maretto through who immediately spun in front of me allowing me to regain 2nd in class, Unfortunately another lock up into Ogies and a brief venture onto the grass allowed Will Arif through which demoted me to 3rd in class, still a respectable result and happy to return to the pits without damage.  Certainly confirmed that running the AST's on a reasonably stiff setting was not the way to go in the wet.

By the time race 2 started the weather had started to improve although the circuit was still pretty wet and slippery, a fairy uneventful race just making sure the car survived the wet weather and trying to get a feel for the car in the wet whilst running the AST's on the fully soft setting. 

Winter 2015

Having finished in the top 10 of the 2015 PBMW championship the winter was time to look at moving forward in 2016, a podium is still the ultimate aim so fingers crossed.

The man change has been to sell the GAZ gold coilovers which were at least 6 or 7 years old and pretty old technology compared to the latest offerings from the likes of GAZ, AST and Avo. I'd often felt the rear suspension was the weakest link in the car through 2015 with me suffering Wheel spin in some very odd places and still hitting the bump stops more often than I'd like.

The decision was made to go for a used but fully rebuilt set of AST from Mike Tovey's 2013 championship winning car. The car is as I type with the 2015 PBMW champion Gary Feakins having the suspension fitted and a general look over. If nothing else I should have at least 1 less excuse

As well as the change to AST I've gone back to the Performance friction pads which I Personally preferred to the Mintex 1166's pads they replace.

For 2016 the Production BWM's have a choice of running the old Toyo R888's or the new R888r's. General consensus seams to be that the R888R is gong to be the better tyre so a set of those are also in the garage ready to be fitted before the first rounds at the end of March.

Also worthy on a mention is the end of year bash last weekend which took place in Northampton and as ever was a fantastic evening which remind me what a great much of guys make up the Production BMW and Toyo Tires Racing Saloons Paddock. I was chuffed to come away from the evening with a cracking trophy for first in class F of the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons for the second year running