Brands Hatch GP - 16th August 2015 - PBMW rounds 7 & 8

After a great day in the BMW compact on saturday, Sunday was time for the 7th and 8th rounds of the Production BMW championship. Saturday had proved to be very worth while in terms of learning the circuit and we headed out to qualifying in a positive mood. The car felt great throughout qualifying with no drama's so I was slightly disappointed to finish 19th out of 37. although the time of 1:54,549 was very close to my previous fastest time around the GP circuit.

Had a fantastic start to race 1 managing to get passed the 2 cars in front before paddock hill and had a terrific race throughout with Gregor Pryor and Ian Shephard , ended up finishing in 15th place with a best lap time of 1:54.083

The start to race 2 didn't go quite as well, I got of the line well but the door was closed to there was no progression, had another close race with Karl Graves and Gregor Pryor . Again finished in 15th place, was annoyed at the lack of penalties handed out to the two drivers in front who both left the track on numerous occasions, I guess that's just the way it goes but if we're going to have rules they should be enforced. Good news came in the form of my best lap time around brands GP in a Production BMW car falling to 1:53.786 and still holding on to 10th in the overall championship.

Brands Hatch GP - 15th August 2015 - TTRS rounds 9 & 10

The 15th of August brought our second visit of the year to Brands Hatch, only this time we were fortunate enough to be racing on the full GP circuit as part of the Lotus festival. Timing for the event was also ideal for me as it's my local circuit so made sense to give the compact I've been building for the compact cup it's first competitive run out, in actual fact it was the first time it had ever been used on track.

On arrival there where 2 other cars in class E of the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons series. A honda Civic and ford puma, I had a feeling that the civic would be quicker than me but was unsure on how I'd get on against the Puma. Also had around 8 class F PBMW car's to compete with as their laps times looked very similar to the compacts.

Having had the front geometry set and brakes bled by Gary Feakins racing the day before I went out for qualifying with fingers and toes crossed. The car immediately felt pretty good and not too different from the PBMW other than a little looser on the back. Finished the 15 minute qualifying session in 30th position overall, 1st in class E with a best time of 1:58.208, approximately 3 seconds slower than my best time in the PBMW last year but reasonable enough for the cars first time on track.

With a couple of minor tweaks on the damper setting I headed out for race 1, Had a great battle with Mark Owen and Edwin Scott in the PBMW's, although occasionally a little too close!. As predicted the power of the Civic on Class E meant I had to settle for 2nd in class although neither the civic or the Mini Cooper S of Richard Ibrahim ever got out of sight. Ended up 22nd overall with the best lap time dropping to 1:56.936

Race 2 didn't go quite so well, a broken engine mount meant I had to take things a little easy in the second half of the race however still manage to finish 18th overall and bring the fastest lap time down by another second to 1:55.975

Compact cup car update.

Well after a couple of weeks of hard work it looks like the compact cup car should be ready for it's first race. the cars now been fitted with EBC yellow staff pad, paged discs, some used R888's, TRS 6 point harnesses as well as completing many other little jobs to get it ready and most importantly a few stickers to look the part.

The Superchips ECU has also been fitted which removes the ABS and traction control.

Just an oil change and a few brackets to be completed and the car should be running in the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons race at the Brands hatch lotus festival in a couple of weeks. Ideally looking to fit s bias valve to the rear brakes but time may not allow for this. 

With the Compact almost ready to go it was time to find some new daily transport, so purchased a 2004 Renault Clio 182, In the back of my head to prep in for the 750mc clio 182 series but probably best to finish one project at a time. 

Snetterton - 12th July 2015 - PBMW Rounds 5 & 6

Rather unfortunately after a glorious sunny day on Saturday there had been a fair about of rain through the night and the PBMW qualifying started on a wet and slippery circuit. Finished the 15 minute qualifying session in a respectable 12th position out of 33, better than I often ran in the wet.

Race 1 started well, the weather had dried up and I got a great start. I was up to approximately 8th position when turning into turn 1, a slight miss judgement on my part saw me cut across Matt Wileman but wasn't far enough in front, tiny tap sent me off the circuit.

Luckily I managed to rejoin, and had a great run through the field to finish 16th, not the result I was after but was a lot of fun. Looking at the TSL timings my fastest lap time of 2:27.268 was up there with a number of the top 10 finishing cars.

Having made strong progress I was looking forward to the second race of the weekend, until the heavy rain began to fall about an hour before we were due to head out. Again I got a reasonable start but struggled with visibility and fell back to 17th, most of the race was spent desperately trying to keep the car on the circuit. had a fun clean race with Steve Turtill I did feel I could have gone slightly quicker but despite managing to get along side a couple of times could quite get passed.

Snetterton - 11th July 2015 - TTRS Rounds 7 & 8

Having missed the two Toyo Tires Racing Saloons rounds at Zandvoort it was starting to feel like a very long break from racing. Rounds 7 and 8 were increased in lengths to 20 minutes for race 1 and 30 minutes for race to with each race having a compulsory pit stop. With this being the case I decided to share the car with a friend who'd just got his race license.

With both of us having to compete at least 3 laps to qualify the 15 minute session was pretty busy meaning I had 1 out lap, 1 timed and 1 in lap. Ended up qualifying …., fairly decent start but couldn't catch the cars in front on the used tyres we'd decided to run on. Handing over after 4 laps and James headed out for his first ever competitive laps. For his first race he did a great job of defending from Callum Noble who at times managed to get along side and eventually pull a gap of 1.6 seconds to leave us in 17th overall

Race 2 was much the same with us finishing 15th overall after a couple of retirements further up the field. best time of 2:28.777 was a little way off the best times of last year but with limited running on old tires I was optimistic that the times would come down a bit in the PBMW races on the following day.

Brands Hatch Indy - 17th May 2015 - PBMW rounds 3 & 4

After a reasonable day in the TTRS races on saturday I went onto a busy indy circuit to qualify for the production BMW's, With a total of 36 cars on track finding space was always going to be key to a decent qualifying lap.

Finished qualifying very please to have finally managed a sub 1 minute lap of brands hatch in a PBMW, actually broke it 4 times in the 15 minute qualifying session. My best time of 59.530 was good enough to qualify 12th, was hoping to for a top 10 but content with 12th, especially as 10th was only a 10th of a second faster.

Race 1

Had a good start and during the first lap managed to get up to 11th but struggled a little with wheel spin and slipped a couple of place back, had a few good battles during the first 1/2 of the race with the 2nd half being dominated by the task of desperately trying to keep Ian Russell behind which I just about managed with us finishing 12th and 13th separated by just 0.437s

Got a fantastic start to race 2, started behind the always fast starting Mark Palmer and for once he didn't pull away like I was standing still. Exited paddock hill for the first time in 9th place, unfortunately lost a couple of places through out the race, mainly seamed to be due to horrendous wheel spin at clark curve causing issues down the main straight, most apparent when Matt Wileman manage to hit the back of the car under acceleration out of Clark corner while I was unable to get grip. Maybe the R888's down't last quite as long as I hoped. The second half of the race was yet again a case of desperately trying to keep Ian Russell behind me and retain 11th place, which I managed by just 0.214 seconds.

Brands Hatch Indy - 16th May 2015 - TTRS rounds 3 & 4

As with most rounds of 2014 I opted to enter the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons races on the saturday to use as test sessions for the following days Production BMW races. 

Arrived in a very positive mood after a couple of good results at Silverstone, 5 PBMW cars had entered class F of the TTRS races, I had expected Gary Feakins to be the pace setter in class F which proved to be the case with myself qualifying 3rd in class behind Matt Swaffer, reasonably happy with this result although would have been a lot happier had I managed to do a sub 1 minute lap, ended up with a qualifying time of 1:00.125. 

Race 1 proved to be fairly quiet but very useful in terms of track time, Ha d good battle with Jason Deniz in the MI16 205 at the start of the race and managed to finish in front of the class E E36 323 of Richard Ibrahim. 

Matt Swaffer had opted not to run in the races and Gary starting from the pit lane had pace I just couldn't keep with, ended up finishing 2nd in class and still not quite braking the 1 minute lap with a best time of 1:00.259. 

Race 2 saw just the 3 PBMW cars as Gary had chosen not to enter the 2nd race, I ended up having a good battle with the class E, BMW E36 323 of Richard Ibrahim in the first part of the race, ended up finishing first in class and got the pleasure of experiencing the podium at Brands Hatch