Jun
14
Round 3 report – Night Fight at blyton
night scooby
After a mixed start to the season and with the teams previous history at Blyton, there was a edge of caution for the first ever night race in the british rallycross championship at Blyton (lincs)
“I was told to keep it tidy, don’t do anything silly and keep out the barriers” commented Simon ” We spent quite a lot of time in the practise sessions adjusting the suspension and brake setups to get the optimum feeling from the car for this event”
The first 2 heats where competative and Simon enjoyed a close race with Steve Mundy in heat 2 which so the pair seperated by only a single car length at the end of the race. But it was when the light faded and the TV coverage went live that Simon showed his true race skill behind the wheel of the 550bhp Subaru Impreza. As the cars launched through the first series of bends Simon was initially slow off the line, but picked a perfect inside line onto the first loose section and steered up the inside of 2 other cars to claim 3rd place by the end of the first lap. As the race developed Simon caught and applied massive pressure to David Binks in his Fiesta supercar, pushing him all the way to the chequed flag, and the time was quick enough to claim a “b” final front row.
Simon took his front row B final start along side the similar speced Subaru Impreza of Gareth Wood and Chris Langley in his Escort Cosworth (Steve Hill was due, but retired the car with a technical failure)
As the B final got underway, Simon was again unfortunatelly slow away from the line with a massive amount of wheel spin and tooked into 3rd place. The turning point was at the start of lap 2 when Gareth and Chris tangled and the Newcastle driver came off the worse and was spun out (or so Simon thought). Simon then set about chasing down Langleys Escort, but the race came to him when a headgasket failure down the back straight forced Chris to retire. At this point Simon totally backed off to save the engine and was cruising the final laps to the final, until…. Gareth Wood reappeared in the mirrors. “I was totally caught napping” Commented Simon “I thought Gareth was out of the race, so I got the shock of my life when I so him in my mirrors making a move round the out side of me! At this point I knew I had a race on my hands.” Simon made a move up the inside of the white impreza into the final corner and held onto the lead for the final lap, soaking up massive pressure from a charging Gareth Wood.
From winning the B Final, Simon took his place on the back of the 8 car grid and followed the pack into the first corner. “There was dust and cars everywhere” said Simon “but all i knew is that i had to chase the leaders down as the recovering cars would be hunting me down, so it was a pure race to the flag” For the 3rd time of the day Simon found himself chasing Steve mundy and on the final lap, at the final corner, he made a ambitious lunge down the outside to try and steal 5th place from the Ford focus driver. The car was broad sideway into the corner and Impreza ended up coming over the line backwards, but still claiming 6th and progressing to the Superfinal.
The superfinal was slightly less eventful and Simon again claimed his best result in the supercar class in 6th postion after a fun few laps playing with Jamie Lea from the supercar class and again chasing Steve mundy and Mad Mark watson.
Simon would like to thank all the friends / family and team / sponsors for there support and this result is for them.