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…
