Awesome day out at TORCH for Team RCLazy
Finally made it to TORCH for their all day event. You know the idea, this is what happened.
Arrived at 8ish and what a turn out, no space for parking near the track so I dumped off the racing gear and bag o’ bacon with Si. Nice to see young Dan Horton roll up for a nice relaxed intro to off road. He stole my RB5 and drove it like it’s never been driven before – more of that later.
First things first – breakfast. Si had a champions breakfast of cornflakes and a chocolate mini roll (in the cereal!).
I stuck to Sprite and chocolate. Get some real milk for a cup of tea Si! Especially now you’ve fixed the melting fuses in the chuckle bus controlling the fridge!
Drivers briefing gave us 4 rounds quali and 3 finals for everyone Yay! Good work gents, plenty of time for charging and chilling. 6 (pretty) full heats with some notable TC drivers arriving fresh faced and eager to get budgie racing!
Bob was nowhere to be seen but apparently was at a disco in London town and Digweed was splendid. Apparently?
Round one was a shocking result- me qualifying first and beating Phil Williams by a mere two seconds. Great racing Phil. Dan started out a tad excitable but a -30% expo curve calmed that down nicely. Si’s wheel fell off.
Round two pretty similar and Dan was storming through the field and had a very respectable 3rd in his heat.. Si rebuilt his diff. Sorry wrong car, he has gears now and is loving his lack of balls.
I have to stop getting cross with marshalls. Even the ones who applaud your crash before picking the car up, stand around chatting or have to do some sort of rain dance before strolling across an empty track to get you. I know it was my fault I crashed, but purlease at least look like you care. Rant over.
Anyway, soon enough it was lunch, another champion feed of chocolate, and bacon.
Si had made A4 while I was A2 in 4wd and Petit Dan had made A10 in 2wd. A fantastic result for him with my buggy first time out. By this point I had had to hide chocolate from Si, now I know why he was cross with my choice of lemon cakes for the Stotfold national!
Finals went pretty smoothly, nice victories for me in the first two legs and an interesting starting technique from Si. Si’s Fandango literally back flipped on the line. Something to do with a locked slipper and a 5.5 on max acceleration. reminiscent of Lee Martin at Stotfold. Is Si a future Euro Champion in the making? Well done to Lee for clinching the double in Austria, go team Tamiya! Dan moved up 2 positions to 8th overall and looked really in the swing of things before handing the car back. I was amazed it never went that well for me!
Si had found the chocolate again and was feeling pretty sick after an entire tub of mini rolls.
My best moment of the day: being asked if I dominated at the nationals after winning the A final 4wd. “Err… no” I replied “I was over joyed with 92nd.” “Oh.” came the response.
Nice raffle to end the day, sorry you didn’t have the winning ticket Si. So close! All in all a thoroughly brilliant day thanks to the TORCH guys for a splendid day out.
Sorry no pics, left the camera at home. Very Lazy.
Written by mark.
Stotfold: 2010 BRCA National Series
Now I’ve cleaned, repaired and tested my cars from the punishment they got at Stotfold, I thought it better time I blogged that.
Friday
Mark and I travelled up on Friday evening, later than usual, so it was dark when we arrived at Stotfold. I managed o find it without Sat Nav, result!
We were clearly the last people there, and the caravanners had left us a tiny gap at one end next to the toilet. Awesome! No, really, it was fine, just the right size.
A bit of a chat and then off to sleep, the chuckle bus rolling with two single beds, and a pile of car stuff and bags down the middle. Cosy.
Saturday
I hadn’t slept well, far too excited, but I was surprised to see folk walking the track at 6am. Nutters.
We were of course in Heat 1, so booking in was done, and out on to the track for practice. But, it was rather damp. I chose to miss the first practice session.
Why? Wrong tyres. We only found out that everyone uses Schumacher Greens in the wet at Stotfold. We niaively thought it was Ballistic Greens…
We got some tyres glued up for the second practice, and boy was it a slippery track, the rain not falling, and the track was greasy as hell. But only in certain areas, depending which way the astro was running.
Okay, fair enough.
Drivers briefing was illegible, Mr. Worseley, use the commentators microphone? Yardy also offered to take our stuff to the Euros. Nice, but unecessary, it’ll be many years before we’re good enough to go.
Round 1, first heat out, oh joy, the car was fine, going around happily. But then it decided to go straight on at one corner, but then okay again. It did that a few times.Until I finally put it in the fence. Next to Rasey’s feet, of course. “Crabby, we need to have words.”
Turns out just a stripped servo horn. No worries.
Round 2, that was uneventful, the car went fine, I finished the run.
Round 3, ahh, yes, it all happened. Just before Heat 12 of Round 2 the heavens opened, and all play was stopped. By the time we hit the track it was rather puddlesome, despite the fine brushing skills of (mainly F1) drivers.
My car bundled round enjoying the grip that the rain gave (how does that work?) until it stuttered to a halt. Water in the somewhere.
Round 4, and would you believe it, the heavens opened once more. The brushing was this time less thorough, leaving lots of phat puddles, and my car didn’t last too long this time, again stuttering to a stop.
I spent some time with WD40 and bluetac, in an attempt to get it dried out.
But, all to no avail, I was 2nd from bottom. Not my best performance ever, then…
The finals came about, and just 2 people showed up for the 4 car L final. Graham Blitzboy Smith was the only one with a working car though, as mine failed to get to the end of the straight, my electrics still failing to perform.
Oh well, never mind. All eyes were on the A final, Tom Cock was sat marshalling, and he needed Ellis to come 2nd, and when Kev Lee brought home the bacon, Tom was relieved, and hands were clapped.
Awesome result Tom, you got it done!
Barbecue and general drying out happened on Saturday night. Along with a little Durango preparation for Sunday. The forecast was dry.
Asleep by 11pm!
Sunday
Awoke 5 minutes before the alarm, a glorious night sleep!
Slightly nervous about running a brand new car for the first time at a National. I didn’t even have a shell, but Jimmy had kindly oOpled me one, thanks!
Out in heat one for Practice again.
The Durango was just superb, seemed very similar pace to Mark’s 511. It needed a few setup tweaks, and the track was drying quickly.
Round 1, I ran Schumacher Greens, and the car was flying. Until the commentator started saying I was quickest in heat, then I got the shakes, and made a few mistakes. But, amazingly I was quicker than Mark with his 511, which is unheard of, Mark is a quicker driver than me, always has been.
Round 2, track dry now, so I was onto a nice new set of yellows. I didn’t drive too well though, all quite ordinary. Popped a ball cup off a few times, replaced it just in case.
Round 3 the car was great, and Round 4 too. Nothing to report!
A the end of Qualifying I was squeezed to K1, by Mark in J10! How close! And amazingly, I’d had a 76th in one of the rounds, which was quite shocking, I’ve never been in double figures before.
So I was loving the Fandango by now.
Final came, and I was on pole. Buzzer went, but my car didn’t. Shit. Before we knew it a B44 was in the back of me. The B44 didn’t come off well, the Durango had a tiny scratch.
But, the Durango didn’t work again. I’ve no idea what happened, it was fine on the practice lap, and then just had zero power on the line. Ouch.
But no matter, I love the Durango, it’s so quick in the corners, so responsive, and I think it suits my slow thumbs, as it reacts quickly, catching up with my inputs!
Mark had a storming run in the J final, qualified 10th, he was quick and careful and ended up finishing 2nd! Awesome drive!
Something happened in the other finals, I’ve no idea what really. We shot off after the 2nd leg of the A final, amusingly Simon Moss took the win using Nathan Ralls Cat! A hard charging Neil Cragg didn’t give him a moment peace, but all credit to Si, he didn’t put a wheel wrong.
The drive home took ages, we spotted traffic on the M3, so came off and took a different road.
The weekend was ace in the end, the Saturday rain left me feeling a bit damp, but the Durango pace left me full of hope. When’s the 2wd coming out?
[Pictures to follow.]
Written by simon.
oOple Invernational Race 2010
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…
Written by simon.
Eden Park Raceway: 2010 BRCA National Series
Round 3 of the BRCA Off Road National Series was the closest to me, at Eden Park Raceway.
Friday
I set off on Friday morning, faffed around in Southampton area for a few hours, and picked up Mark in the afternoon. He was late, as he was having his hair done. Something about looking good for photos, or for Griff, or something.
We rocked up the M3, and onto the M25, at this point Miss Sat Nav changed it’s mind and shooted us up the A3. We subsequently got lost, and Miss Sat Nav kindly stopped talking to us until we got back onto a road she new about.
Far too long later we were there, and found a nice spot near a couple of other chuckle buses. They like to gather, you know.
Mark had brought a tent from the 1960s, so it was a riot of poles and flysheets for the next two hours whilst we erected it.
Installation complete, we phoned Dominos and they delivered pizza, to the wrong sports club. Somehow it arrived at the right sports club still hot and tasty after an hour on the back of a moped.
Beers were consumed and I went to bed. Only to be woken at 2am by a gang of maurauding drunken louts.
Saturday
It was scorching by 8am, and I was of course first out to practice. The Cougar is now my 2wd weapon of choice, and it went just fine, though I did fail to see that a corner was tighter than I expected and vanished off track a couple of times.
The track is a mix of astro, tarmac, concrete and cobbles. It’s nice and entertaining to play on, but a little hard on tyres, I’m a bit cheap, so I’d prefer a less abrasive surface, something like ice or teflon perhaps?
My morning was a catalogue of steering related trauma. Apparently I’d incorrectly installed the servo horn, The Team corrected my errors, and I managed a few laps in round 2. I had it all to do…
Round 3 and 4 went okay, I completed them at least, and I was finally learning the track.
I ended up, of course, in the bottom final, the L final, position 4. The crowd was out in force, so I had to perform, and brought home the bacon with a convincing win!
The win was mainly down to Rasey bullying the rest of the competitors verbally on my behalf. Jo Cockill’s car literally just falling apart at the onslaught, giving me the lead.
Mark did some racing too, and brough his RB5 home in 3rd in the K or something. Amusingly my time in my final would have been 2nd in the K…
I left it all a bit late, but hey, a good finish to a swelteringly hot day.
Saturday night was 511 preperation, and a nice BBQ, whilst waiting for my Kitty Kat to drive up.
She rocked up at 10pm, after apparently being driven through a dozen farm yards by her Tom Tom. White wine was purchased to calm her down and all was well.
Sunday
There was thunderstorms overnight, but it hardly wet the ground.
4wd practice, out at 8am again of course, and I made the most of my first session by ripping the front wishbone off on the first lap. I was getting the breakages out of the way early.
The second practice run was fine though, the car worked.
Now was time for Crazy Bob and Mrs Crazy Bob to arrive, they’d been doing a 12 hour bicycle endurance race on Saturday in Bristol. They were quite tired and grumpy…
We fuelled them with tea and bacon and sausages and things from Cafe Tadaa and they were all well again.
The rest of the day went very smoothly, my car worked well, and all three of us were remarkably similar performance. We all ended up in the K final, which is my highest result yet!
There was a glorious raffle, and between the three of us, we took home 5 prizes! Nice! We all certainly got out money’s worth!
Everyone’s a winner in Team rcLazy!
The final was good, I Qd 10th and finished 6th, good enough. Mark came a very close 2nd, and Rob was just in front of me. I was cathching him, but kind of went off the boil or something.
We legged it quickly, well, I say quickly, it took forever to load all the stuff away.
We thought we’d use the wisdom of Kat’s Tom Tom to get us out to the M25, and it amusingly took us back through all the farm yards, up and down epic hills. The van’s brakes are being replaced this week, before going up for the oOple race next weekend
I managed to lose my keys at Fleet, which caused fleeting panic. The nice mute cleaning man had them safe.
Epic weekend, great racing, great atmosphere and no sunburn, hurrah!
Here’s a load of pictures taken by Kat…
Friday
I set off on Friday morning, faffed around in Southampton area for a few hours, and picked up Mark in the afternoon. He was late, as he was having his hair done. Something about looking good for photos, or for Griff, or something.
We rocked up the M3, and onto the M25, at this point Miss Sat Nav changed it’s mind and shooted us up the A3. We subsequently got lost, and Miss Sat Nav kindly stopped talking to us until we got back onto a road she new about.
Far too long later we were there, and found a nice spot near a couple of other chuckle buses. They like to gather, you know.
Mark had brought a tent from the 1960s, so it was a riot of poles and flysheets for the next two hours whilst we erected it.
Installation complete, we phoned Dominos and they delivered pizza, to the wrong sports club. Somehow it arrived at the right sports club still hot and tasty after an hour on the back of a moped.
Beers were consumed and I went to bed. Only to be woken at 2am by a gang of maurauding drunken louts.
Saturday
It was scorching by 8am, and I was of course first out to practice. The Cougar is now my 2wd weapon of choice, and it went just fine, though I did fail to see that a corner was tighter than I expected and vanished off track a couple of times.
The track is a mix of astro, tarmac, concrete and cobbles. It’s nice and entertaining to play on, but a little hard on tyres, I’m a bit cheap, so I’d prefer a less abrasive surface, something like ice or teflon perhaps?
My morning was a catalogue of steering related trauma. Apparently I’d incorrectly installed the servo horn, The Team corrected my errors, and I managed a few laps in round 2. I had it all to do…
Round 3 and 4 went okay, I completed them at least, and I was finally learning the track.
I ended up, of course, in the bottom final, the L final, position 4. The crowd was out in force, so I had to perform, and brought home the bacon with a convincing win!
The win was mainly down to Rasey bullying the rest of the competitors verbally on my behalf. Jo Cockill’s car literally just falling apart at the onslaught, giving me the lead.
Mark did some racing too, and brough his RB5 home in 3rd in the K or something. Amusingly my time in my final would have been 2nd in the K…
I left it all a bit late, but hey, a good finish to a swelteringly hot day.
Saturday night was 511 preperation, and a nice BBQ, whilst waiting for my Kitty Kat to drive up.
She rocked up at 10pm, after apparently being driven through a dozen farm yards by her Tom Tom. White wine was purchased to calm her down and all was well.
Sunday
There was thunderstorms overnight, but it hardly wet the ground.
4wd practice, out at 8am again of course, and I made the most of my first session by ripping the front wishbone off on the first lap. I was getting the breakages out of the way early.
The second run was fine though, the car worked.
Now was time for Crazy Bob and Mrs Crazy Bob to arrive, they’d been doing a 12 hour bicycle endurance race on Saturday in Bristol. They were quite tired and grumpy…
We fuelled them with tea and bacon and sausages and things from Cafe Tadaa and they were all well again.
The rest of the day went very smoothly, my car worked well, and all three of us were remarkably similar performance. We all ended up in the K final, which is my highest result yet!
There was a glorious raffle, and between the three of us, we took home 5 prizes! Nice! We all certainly got out money’s worth!
Everyone’s a winner in Team rcLazy!
The final was good, I Qd 10th and finished 6th, good enough. Mark came a very close 2nd, and Rob was just in front of me. I was cathching him, but kind of went off the boil or something.
We legged it quickly, well, I say quickly, it took forever to load all the stuff away.
We thought we’d use the wisdom of Kat’s Tom Tom to get us out to the M25, and it amusingly took us back through all the farm yards, up and down epic hills. The van’s brakes are being replaced this week, before going up for the oOple race next weekend
I managed to lose my keys at Fleet, which caused fleeting panic. The nice mute cleaning man had them safe.
Epic weekend, great racing, great atmosphere and no sunburn, hurrah!
Here’s a load of pictures as usual…
Written by simon.
Laugh? He Fell Off His Chair! (at TORCH)
I was having a crisis about the Tamiya 511, so I wanted to do some TORCH astro and try and get it sorted. Oh, and I wanted to try Bob’s Cat, just in case my crazy idea of buying one happened…
It was a stupendously hot day, Kat and I got too hot just on the drive over at 7am, and by 9am it was a scorcher.
I flung the 511 around, and it seemed okay, the Hupo setup seemed to work, perhaps a bit twitchy though. Later in the day I ran Bob’s Cat, and between us we faffed about with tyres, and they both ended up good.
Thankfully I loved the 511, it was ace, and had some very nice runs with it. The final was the best run of the day for me, coming in 2nd behind a far too quick Steve Brown, ie I won, cos he doesn’t count. Yay!
Comedy incident of the day: Bob falling out of his chair backwards, without letting go of his staggered ribs.
Here’s a bunch of pics Kat took, including of course pictures of flowers and weeds.
The TORCH track is looking a little unkempt, but don’t worry, new astro has half arrived and soon the whole lot will be re-laid with new astro! Awesome, then a changeable track layout with more features will be created.
So it’s a bit of a work in progress right now!
Roll on next week when TORCH is hosting an all-day meeting (they usually finish at 1pm), and fingers crossed some chaps from EPR will be coming down to challenge Steve’s track records… Even Ellis “hero” Stafford was checking his calendar…
