Hampshire Cup - Surrey and Hants

With a cloudy start to the hour long journey, the sun began to break through as we arrived at track for what would be the Hampshire cup at the Surrey and Hants Radio Car Club!

Myself and Will Johnson were in attendance with both of us running our 22-4’s in the 4wd class and myself also entering the 22 2.0 into the 2wd class.

I put both cars down in practice as they were from the last maritime indoor meet to just get a feel of what the cars were doing. Straight away both cars felt slightly over damped so before practice could end I managed to get both cars back out with lighter oils to make sure I made the right move and, horah both cars were much better straight off the mark but still needed work. So before round 1 could start I placed softer springs on both cars and raised the ride height very slightly. I also changed the rear wheelbase on the 2wd as I felt I had a bit too much on power rotation. (by the finals It turned out my tyres were further gone than I believed!)

Round 1

2wd :- The small changes I made before this round really did help me get the car sorted out. But driver errors meant I didn’t get the time in I wanted to, but still managed a 4th in round and got me in a good banker.

4wd :- Again I made the correct move with the small changes I made before round 1 got underway. But I was suffering with the rear of the car sliding and then biting and turning the car over, the slide I liked, the bite I didn’t! I only managed a 5th in round but felt the car had the pace on the rest of the field!

Round 2

2wd :- For this round I left the set up as it was, as I felt I just needed to tame and learn the track as the car felt fast. But too many mistakes meant I only managed a 12th in round which far underlined the true performance of the car as the driver let it down!

4wd:- For this round I removed the outer row of the rear tyres to see if this allowed the rear to slide a little more. Straight away I could lean on the car without it biting so badly on me. This roud I managed 2nd in round just due to the consistency of the winner and the couple of mistakes I made, but I felt I could take the next round with how the car was.

Round 3

2wd:- This round was cut short due to clipping a metal barrier and tearing the rear corner off! So with 2 bad rounds I had to make round 4 count!

4wd:- I hadn’t ever raced with the guy currently in the tq spot so I followed him around the track to see if he had pace or if I had the pace on him and found straight away with a small amount of pressure he made an error and I cruised away with tq for the round and the fastest time of the day, meaning if I could take tq in round 4 I could take pole for the main!

Round 4

2wd:- I knew I needed to just get round safely to get a spot in the main so I cruised round just to get a top 10 time in and managed 6th in round which secured me 7th overall. By this point I had recognised my rear tyres were shot and that they wasn’t doing much anymore, so fresh boots for the finals it would be.

4wd:- Starting 1st, I started to cruise away from the field and felt I had the tq spot in the bag until…….. the wheel overtakes the car! Couldn’t believe it and all comes down to checking pretty much everything bar the wheels nuts! Live and learn as they say but I still had 2nd place in the main knowing the pole sitter didn’t do well to pressure and knew what I had to do!

Buddy race

One of the most fun parts of the day was the buddy race! Myself and Will teamed up to run my 22 2.0 in this and must say, we spent the whole run laughing. We got 3rd place but everyone else ran with what they were comfortable with, sticks, Will doesn’t run a wheel handset and that’s what we used, so that’s our excuse.

Finals

2wd leg 1 :- Got off to a good start making my way up to 4th and hanging onto the leaders. The car had changed a lot with the new tyres so I had chronic on power understeer which meant it was difficult to drive quick. After a mistake and a few great battles I got a 5th place.

Leg 2 :- I changed the rear wheelbase back to longer for now and put a stiffer set of rear springs on to counter the understeer on power. As leg 2 got away I had a huge moment with another driver trying a pass on the kicker jump as I wasn’t having any of it sticking to the inside which tipped my car over forward and put me at the back, driving in anger for the rest of the final, putting in a good drive from then on I came home with a 6th putting some great passes on people.

Leg 3 :- As the final got away I managed to find (with luck) a lot of grip and traction through and off T1 and passed 3 cars in an instant, already pressuring 4th I made a pass at the end of lap 1 then when 1st and 2nd collided I avoided the crash and put a faultless drive in to take the leg 3 win. Which put me level on points with 2 others for 3rd place, but with a win under my belt and a faster time I managed to squeeze a 3rd overall. Very happy indeed!

4wd leg 1 :- Knowing I had the faster car I put the pressure on the pole man from the off, 4 corners and he clipped the apex letting myself and will pass, were things didn’t change and we bought home a TLR 1-2 for leg 1

Leg 2:- Was the same in leg 2 as leg 1 with a mistake early on from the pole sitter but another driver got between myself and will so he was level on points, with my 2nd leg victory I wrapped the Hampshire cup up with a win for the TLR 22-4! Knowing my job for the 3rd leg would be to support my team mate.

Leg 3:- As we got under way, Will got jumped by 4th place and as the pole sitter made a mistake again, I made a gap as if not to allow any chance of upsetting Will’s chance of getting 2nd, in the end after a few mistakes from both of us, it ended up being a TLR 1 and 3 for the 22-4!

Was a very enjoyable meeting with some great results for TLR! Next up is the 4wd SE regional at den park in 2 week’s time!