Doldrums at Donnington, but Another Class Podium

I guess its is a measure of how far I've progressed this season that I can go home with a 2nd place in class B, (which I'm delighted about)... but still be dissapointed with my performance and feel that I wasn't "On it" at Donnington.

Anyway the full race report follows.

Prior to Donnington I loaded yet another iteration of the modified fuel map to continue the development on this part of the car.  The other major change I made was to change the front sprocket to a 16 point one.  This gives me a diff ratio of 16:54 or 3.375 which is slightly taller than the ratio I used at Cadwell and should have given me a theoretical top speed of around 130mph.

However my telemetry indicates that my maximum speeds were only 113 mph at 10580 rpm at the end of the back straight, which is really hurting my lap times when compared to the fast guys.  There was however a strong headwind which wouldn't have helped . But most telling really is the fact that when reviewing the video I am woefully slow in Coppice, which hurts my corner exit speed and hence my speed at the end of the straight.  I simply was too cautious and not sliding it around enough in that part of the track.

I did the all comers race as a way of getting some testing time in before the RGB race.   Proper testing is hellishly expensive at Donnington so this seemed a reasonable alternative.  As it turned out I managed a 1:22.58 which is a full four seconds better than my last visit here 2 years ago.  This put me 9th on the grid.  The grid generally reflected the general performance differentials of the series... 10 of the first 11 places were RGB cars, then next half dozen or so the Hot Hatch boys and girls (for whom this was actually a championship race)  and then a melange of various other Tin Tops.  Judy from RGB had qualified a bit further back and was surrounded by no less than 10 Toyota MR2s so she was in for some fun.

One issue with being on the track with so any Tin Tops is that you realize just how low, light, fast and insubstantial an RGB car is when compared to even a Golf, it's like racing cliffs of steel.   This was brought home to me when I nearly got wiped out by one of them on the green flag lap as we weaved to warm the tires. I think I was in her blind spot or below the line of her mirrors.

Anyway no harm done and in the race I got a reasonable start as the RGB boys lead, unsurprisingly by Derek stormed away from the grid. I stuck with Ilsa Cox the only Hot Hatch to be in amongst the RGB pack  for a few laps,  But then Neil Constable Berry and Phil Alcock from RGB had a coming together at Redgate and I backed out of it.  I was in this race to test... not to fight and possibly damage the car.... so I let a few Tin Tops through while I started to focus on particular corners like the Craners and Old hairpin.  By the end I pretty pleased with coming flying down the Craners with only a slight lift... when I was last here that terrified me :-)

Anyway I improved my laptime to 1:22.10.

RGB qualifying was pretty good, I managed to find myself in a bit of gap, behind Tim and was pleasantly surprised to find that we held station for a considerable portion of the practice session.  The track was slippery due to oil dropped in a previous quali session and one of our group also dropped a bunch of oil so by the end of the session it was pretty slippery between Redgate and Old Hairpin.  

I managed a 1:22 3 which put me 14th on the grid and second in class B.  Paul Rogers set Class B "pole" with a 1:19.92 and was fourth overall.   Most surprising of all Tim was 3 places further back.  The first time I had ever out qualified Tim on equal terms :-)  that was worth a "Whoo Hoo" and an appropriate amount of Paddock gloating :-).

In the race I got my customary crap start and Tim got a flyer,  passing me before we even got to Redgate, I also lost a place to Phil Alcock, and then 2 wheels on the grass at Old Hairpin slowed me just enough so that I avoided the Tim as he span into the gravel at McLeans.   As mentioned earlier my main problem was that I was not carrying nearly enough speed through Coppice.Redgate,the Craners and Old Hairpin were all OK or good... but elsewhere I just didn't seem to be on it enough. The car wasn't sliding under me and in essence it felt too controlled, too easy.  Which is a sure sign that I'm not pushing hard enough. One notable battle was with Rob Grant (again) We had a couple of laps of me closing him down and failing to be brave enough to pass him under braking.  but eventually my better line through old hairpin told and I had the momentum to get him under the Bluebird Bridge. Then I was chasing new boy James Walker in his Class A busa Powered Westfield... but he retired on Lap 6 and that broadly left me racing myself, although I had to maintain enough speed so that Neil Constable Berry didn't arrive in my mirrors (but I suspect he was being a bit circumspect after repairing his damage in the all comers race)

In the end I finished 13th overall, 2nd in ClassB and six seconds ahead of the Neil Constable Berry, but I felt I could have found most of those extra two seconds per lap between me and Paul Rogers. And I was a bit disappointed with my performance.  To top it off there was no trophy for 2nd in Class B due to the somewhat depleted entry. 

However on the plus side... another personal best lap time by four seconds, another class podium, I out qualified Tim, beat Neil and brought it home in one piece. All good positive things :-)