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.
Petit Race 2010 Day One
Day 1 started at ridiculous o’clock – it began with a 5. We were at the venue just after 6am and the man with the voluminous voice was informing us gently of practice formalities at 6:30am, waking us all up nicely.
One round of in-heat practice was all, the first heat out at 6:45am. The track seemed fun, but hard. The corner platform onto the large tabletop was pretty immense, what you did on the way into the corner pretty much determining where you would land on the straight. And you’d be hoping to land on the straight, not in the wall, window, or on-coming track.
I broke it big style over the tabletop after a handful of laps, snapping a rear wishbone. I was not alone, many many people snapped off the table top, the most spectacular by hitting the window and shearing off the whole front end…
We were further awoken with driver’s briefing with many rules and many reasons to find yourself going home. Mainly involving smoking, drinking and fast food…
Round 1 and I was in heat 11 of 14. This was WAY too high a heat for me. And in round 1 I managed a total of 2 and half laps. Snapping it off the corner platform, breaking a shock top and a turnbuckle. Nice.
So basically I spent the whole morning wrenching on the thing. I put the 4wd together too.
Round 2 was better for me, as much as I actually carried on going around for a whole five minutes. Slightly dispiriting was the leaders had done 50% more laps than me…
Set up changes ensued, rebuilding rear shocks, change of front tyres and we’ll see how round 3 goes…
It’s 4 rounds and a final.
Oh, what are the top guys doing? It seems to be all about Elliot, Shin and Lee… I wont ask Shin for his RB5 setup, as I suspect his thumbs are a touch better than mine…
Round 3 was better, enjoying the run and then went large over the tabletop and snapped the rear wishbone, again. Checking out the quick guys it seems they don’t go large and land it on the down ramp. I’m not yet sure how one does the throttle control to do that…
Mark’s getting it done for a GQ it seems (oh no he didn’t), I’ll be more like LQ…
Round 4 was a repeat of practice: I broke a rear wishbone.
So the scores on the doors…
I was 9th in the L final. There was only 4 in the M final. How amusingly shit!
Mark was in the I final. Rob was in the J final. Gray was in the H. (We had money on Gray being in the B. How wrong we were!)
The finals happened without event, things broke, Rob came third, nothing much else happened.
Then we all got a bit tired and went back to the hotel after watching the A finals. They were jolly impressive, so quick, and so consistent. Impressive stuff. I had to think that touring cars look easy in comparison…
Oh yes, we also wrenched away on 4wds in some sort of attempt to make them work for tomorrow. Looking forward to it. I reckon the damage will be even bigger.
Maritime is just brilliant, well run, tight ship, good communication, ace food, easily the best carpet venue in the UK.
Look! More photos!
