oOple Invernational Race 2010

June 24, 2010 · Posted in Off Road, Racing · by simon

Day 0: Friday

I got Kathryn up at 6-something o’clock and hit the road sometime before 8. First stop was Fleet, where we loved baps (bacon and egg ones), and had a little dance in WHSmith.

Amazingly, we managed to miss the rush hour and we were on the M1 in no time.

Milton Keynes Tesco Extra provided a food stop and a quick wee at Leicester was our last stop.

So yes, it was an epic journey of services. The Chuckle Bus was enjoying it’s new brakes though.

We got to RHR at half three, so that only took all day. Everywhere seems to take all day to get to in the bus…

The track was already busy, lots of people practicing. They’d laid out a track that used most of the track features, and there seemed to be a ring of fire too…

The circus tent was up and nearly full, we chose to park the chuckle bus up and be anti-social and not pit in the big tent.

I got out there and had a few runs, the track was okay, tricky, but nice, and the double to step up was a nice compbination to get right.

I introduced Kathryn to Tom Cock, I said he was going to be the winner this weekend. She took his photo. He grinned. [He won. My 'you are going to win' services are available for a fee.]

I’ve just broken the 511 by flinging it off the end of the straight into the fence, and the gazebo is about to blow away…

Time now 6pm, till loads of practice time left…

A run with the cougar went okay, slipper slipping too much, couldn’t make it over the double!

Friday night was uneventful, chips were consumed. Crazy Bob and Steph arrived, Steph put the tent up whilst Bob had a practice with the Cougar.

Day 1: Saturday

We’d booked in for a variety of classes between the three of us, but as Mark wasn’t here, Bob n I decided to share the 2wd entry, and each run 4wd on our own.

Saturday was a timed practice followed by 4 qualifying rounds, each of 6 minutes.

The weather was mostly glorious and by lunchtime the shorts were on.

The Cougar was going alright, Bob proving that he could drive it, and I was proving I’d forgotten how to. Bob decided the slipper and diff needed adjustment, and the run after that I managed to strip the idler gears within the first couple of laps.

I blamed Bob’s adjustment crisis for that, but it transpires that a lot of Schumacher’s were stripping idler gears. even Tom Cock was struggling, he melted three sets on his Cat, leaving him to run his Cougar in 4wd! We think the peculiar sandy soil of the farm-based track caused excessive chafing on the gears.

In the 4wd I had some decent consistent runs, very similar speed to Rob, and the 511 worked well, apart from one round that I broke something and didn’t complete the run, but for the life of me I can’t remember what. I should have written this at the time, but I was being grumpy about the poor 3G connection so left the laptop in the bag.

In one run the car wasn’t steering very straight at the end of it, then I remember I heard a crack when I hit something, I’d managed to break a front wishbone, and bend the hinge pin, but still managed to put in my fastest time of the day!

The RHR track was great, and it rewarded steady precise driving. No charging around, crashing was too easy for that, it was all about not crashing. Not quite as fun as going for the big air, but more rewarding to have nearly clean runs – a rarity it seems in off-road

At the end of Saturday we seemed to be sitting around 50-somethingth which was pretty good for us, we’re used to being last.

Saturday night we enjoyed a gourmet barbeque, and a little alchohol. Some people watching something to do with balls, and Kat and I had some quality time in the chuckle bus

Later in the evening the disco got banging, and we managed to miss the flaming hoop of fire related fun. And we also missed all the excitement relating to dog-walking, whilst sat around with Griff and Mrs Griff and their wee doggies…

Being lazy we failed to hold a team investigation to the occurrencies of that evening… It remains a mystery.

Day 2: Sunday

I woke up at 6:30 or something, and it was tipping it down, so I went back to sleep. When I finally got up the rain was easing, and people had been racing toy cars in the wet. So we’d missed the final round of qualifying.

Finals were planned, three legs of them! And a raffle was held, and I didn’t win a Fandango, which is a shame, as I have a fancification for such a beast… I also didn’t win a motor plate.

Where did we qualify? They’d done 11 car finals, which was entertaining, and meant that in 4wd Bob was F5 and I was GQ! Yay! In 2wd Bob and I had got it into the F final! F6.

Bob was feeling decidedly dodgy after Saturday night’s entertainments, so I took the first run with the Cougar. And I bloody well won it! I somehow chased around for a while and ended up clear of everyone, so I just drove steady and stayed there, winning by a decent margin, nice!

Then I was out with the 511, and sitting on pole, I trickled it around the first couple of corners after the warble, and slowly pulled out a bit of a lead, and somehow won that too! Everyone behind me was crashing all over the place, whilst I just drove around without hitting anything.

That was the highlight of the weekend for me, winning my first legs in both classes, I was happy whatever happened now.

And now it did indeed all happen, the heavens opened and it got rather wet. Bob and I got caught out in our next 4wd runs on yellows, and didn’t have good runs at all.

We’d received a gift from the wealthy land owner, he’d taken pity on us as there was no potatoes ready in his fields for us to steal. He gifted us 3 eggs (not a whole half dozen, note), from the bottoms of his very own chickens that roam around the grounds of his mansion.

So we did eat some rather gourmet salmon and eggs for brunch, we camp like kings in the Lazy team, often the food takes priority over the racing. I carry it well though.

Bob came in 4th with the Cougar somehow in the 2nd leg, even after crashing everywhere.

The 3rd leg was postponed due to torrential rain, and I packed all my stuff away, I wasn’t fussed about where I came anymore, and was getting rather tired.

Up top Tom Cock took legs one and two of 2wd, and Nathan Waters surprised everyone by driving his Fandango in circles around Lee’s 511, well, it was actually amazingly close.

There was some shouting by a man on a table, and it transpired they were going to run the last round, but I didn’t bother. Bob went out though, and broke his car nicely. By this time it was tipping it down again so we packed up and slunk off.

It was a shame it all kind of whithered away with the rain.

I didn’t see trophy presentations, but the trophies were fantastico, but only for the A finals! What’s all that about Jimmy? You gotta give us crap drivers something to compete for!

In the event, the team produced some unnofficial potato based oOple trophies, for my F & G leg 1 wins! I was most honoured to receive these creations, and will be submitted the ideas for more farming based trophies to Mr oOple for next year.

All in all a fantastic event, I LOVED that we had open practice before the event, though running two classes at the same time was tricky, but fun!

Kat’s been running around taking photos as usual, here they are. They’re handy for the things I forgot to write about. A picture is a thousand words, so here’s 234,000 words…