and good close racing.As suggested above, a number of the normally 'expected' regulars were unable to attend due to a variety of 'commitments' as well as Joe, who was also not with us this time, sadly due to being in hospital, which is rather unfortunate and Our thoughts and Best Wishes are most definitely with him, hoping for a speedy recovery and return to regular racing.
"Get well soon Joe" !!
I was also pleased to find once again that I had this Tuesday free to race and it was Great to see young 'Ziggy' able to attend as well.
As is usual at the HSC rounds of the SRC, the GT-1 class is held on the 'Big' track, with Retro's held on the 'Small' track.
GT-1's
Heat 1;
Here we had Bill, Ron, Stephan, (the aforementioned Ziggy) and a more recent 'Return' racer from the Past (who has often helped out Marshaling some of the recent Retro rounds) John, lining up to do 'Battle' in what turned out to be a VERY Close race.
I guess it's fair to say it took a little while for everyone to 'get in the groove' initially,... I for one was certainly kept 'Busy', marshaling the 'Lead-On' to the back straight
, it quickly 'settled-down' ? into a really close tussle between virtually the Whole Field and remained so right till the last bracket.For the first 4 brackets there was Only 1 Lap between everyone!!
It could be suggested that Ziggy was showing his 'form' early on, by being in 1st,.. 'JUST' at the end of the first bracket, only for Bill to move into the lead at the end of the next bracket and was ONLY in the 5th bracket, (with Ziggy having moved back into the lead from the 3rd bracket), that there was MORE than a Lap across the whole field !!, with Ziggy managing to eeek out a 3 lap advantage over Ron and John.
After not having a great start on Red (and WE ALL Know about the dreaded Red lane 'foibles'),.. lol John was slowly but surely moving up through the field and putting in a pretty good performance for someone that hasn't raced in quite some time.
By the end of the 5th bracket pretty much everyone had swapped places from 2nd down with Ziggy still holding onto 1st place and at the end of the 6th bracket, the first three had closed back up again to within a lap of each other, with only a small 1 or 2 lap deficit opening up to Ron and Stephan.
The Top three remained in the places they had acquired from the 6th bracket onwards, with Ron JUST 'Pipping' Stephan for 4th in the final bracket, but finishing on the Same laps !!
All in all, a pretty Competitive race, enjoyed I am sure, by ALL
Heat 1 Placings:
1st Ziggy 148 laps 2nd John 147 laps 3rd Bill 146 laps 4th Ron 143 laps 5th Stephan 143 lapsHeat 2;
In this Heat, we had Darryl, Gregg, Paul, Casey and Myself taking the start.
With the tyres on my Usual (and acceptably quick car) getting perhaps a bit Small in Dia' for this track and having carried my 'Other' GT-1 (which Needed New Tyres), with me to all of the recent rounds and really only using it for a bit of Practice, I had fitted a new Body (a Lola, which I'm Not sure I really like btw), figured I should at least try it out.
I therefore put the New tyres on the 'Spare' car and found it to be rather good and in fact marginally Quicker than my normal car, Plus it seemed to be Very 'Positive' (on Red and White) and Quick into and around the 'Donut' on those and the Other lanes, which was a somewhat Pleasant outcome, so decided to use it for the race.
This heat turned out to be quite a bit Faster than the previous heat but was at times, also quite close.
Gregg initially held a slight lead over Casey (on the same laps) with a slight gap to the rest of us (also all on the same laps) at the end of the first bracket, with Casey Starting his Move forward and Away from the rest of us by the 2nd bracket onwards, taking over the lead he would hold for the rest of the race.
The top 3 places, Casey, Gregg and myself then also remained the same, with a slight Gap slowly opening up to Darryl and Paul in 4th and 5th, with the two of them swapping places almost every bracket and only sorting the final outcome in the last bracket.
I was really quite Happy, finally managing to turn some Satisfyingly acceptable lap totals on Both Red and White and Slowly. Slowly edging Closer to Gregg (after a rather poor start on Yellow), to get to within 1 lap at the end of the 7th bracket, then had a disappointing run on Black alleviating any pressure he may have been feeling,..Especially after he had a Strange De-Slot on the Back straight going into the Bank and the race Almost Re-Starting again (after he had retrieved and checked his car), before he was back at his driving position, which, with his car on Yellow in the Bank, could have been a bit 'messy', to say the least lol
Casey meanwhile, was slowly but surely putting More and More daylight between himself and the rest of us, turning Very consistent lap totals and doing some Very consistent and fast times race long (all of his times being 5.2's only once dropping into 5.3's) for what proved to be a very convincing and dominant eventual Win.
All in all, a really quite enjoyable race, a fine win by Casey, with the final lap totals probably Not really showing how close it was at times.
Heat 2 Placings:
1st Casey 174 laps 2nd Gregg 167 laps 3rd Stoo 164 laps 4th Darryl 159 laps 5th Paul 158 lapsAs can be seen, the Overall Placings were as sorted BY the individual finishing positions of the two Heats.
Overall Placings:
1st Casey 174 laps 2nd Gregg 167 laps 3rd Stoo 164 laps 4th Darryl 159 laps 5th Paul 158 laps 6th Ziggy 148 laps 7th John 147 laps 8th Bill 146 laps 9th Ron 143 laps 10th Stephan 143 laps
Retro's
As there were Only 7 starters (Darryl, Gregg, Stephan, Bill, Paul, Casey and Myself) and enough spare bodies to provide 'marshaling', only 1 x heat was held.
I was hoping to have finished a New car for this event, in the hope of getting in a bit of Race testing on it, along with a New Motor, but was perhaps typically 'Slack' and didn't manage to get it finished in time, but put the New Motor in Old Faithful, to try it out, which initially didn't really seem to be Much better than the previously fitted one, although it Did Improve through the evening but I think I will have to do some testing of Gear Ratios (at least with regard to Old Faithful), as I am Not sure 10:28 works that well for that Car/Chassis combo, when compared to the same ratio in the car Fox and I ran in the Enduro.
In all honesty, this was probably NOT the 'Cleanest' race held on this track of recent times, and at some stages, seemed to recall the First Heat of the GT-1 race at SSME !!,..
Mind you, there Was some Good racing in amongst the 'Melee' and 'Attrition',..
, with the exception of the First Two, the final outcome being Quite different from the placings at the end of the 1st bracket, being;Darryl, Gregg, Paul, Stoo, Stephan, Bill and Casey.
As suggested above, the opening few brackets had a Lot of 'Track Calls' and whilst Darryl was beginning to establish himself in 1st, it was still relatively close from 1st thru 4th uptil the end of the 4th bracket where it started to get a bit more spread out and the numbers started to fall away.
After having a somewhat disastrous beginning Casey finally 'Called it a Day' after the 4th bracket, with the Front End of his car seemingly causing him no end of grief.
Darryl had managed to get a couple of laps on Gregg and I had managed to get up into 3rd and occasionally within a Lap of Gregg, with Stephan doing a pretty good job only a lap behind me until I managed to get a small gap in the 5th bracket.
The attrition continued, with Paul also Dropping out after the 5th bracket and Bill also experiencing some issues in the 7th bracket and not continuing in the 8th, leaving just the 4 of us to the end.
Gregg had managed to keep Darryl within a couple of laps for most of the race and I had managed to get Almost onto the same lap as Gregg, until virtually the final bracket, with Darryl putting in a great last bracket of 24 laps sealing Gregg's fate and Gregg also managing to gain a couple of laps on myself (finishing on Black) in the final bracket.
Steveo' also seemed quite pleased with his performance turning a PB total for the evening,.. Well Done !!
Retro Placings;
1st Darryl 177 laps 2nd Gregg 172 laps 3rd Stoo 169 laps 4th Stephan 164 laps 5th Bill 126 laps 6th Paul 98 laps 7th Casey 69 lapsAll in all, once again, another enjoyable, friendly and cordial event at HSC, with Both tracks 'typically' in Great 'Condition', so thanks (once again, must go out to James for his Efforts and to the Marshals for their great Efforts !!
NB: As can be seen in the Pics of Casey's cars below and perhaps in a similar fashion to the Original JPS 'Gold Leaf' Lotus's? the Great "Chrome" effect on His cars, (which Looked Great), cannot be seen (As Chrome), so don't really show exactly how effective they Looked 'In the Flesh' as it were.
