ProLine Challenge UK – Slough, London

Last time I was at Slough, was for my 2nd ever European Championships. I remember I qualified in the 1:4 finals, and would have bumped to the semifinal, had it not been for 2 flameouts, after both pitstops. With one I would have still made it. I remember being stoked about that. Miguel Matias won the race, also with a flameout after his first pitstop I think. It was a record hot summer week at that Euros, for the PL Challenge it was not record hot, but it was dry, and the track was great. The layout was much better than it was at the Euros, although there were still no good jumps on the track. Add jumps, and Slough would be one of the worlds best tracks I think.

I hooked up with my UK-connection, Jess THE Mess Saunders, and Adam THE Big T-Shirt Lewis. We were supposed to go testing as both of them were going to run THE Car for the first time, but it rained, so we all took over Jess’ place and wrenched. They both gave me a hard time, and a years worth of abuse because they actually had to work. They thought I would just show up with brand new cars ready to go. Hah, no such luck!

 Jess was over it pretty quickly. He is so lazy.

Practice and Qualifying

The week before there was a National at Slough, so I felt a bit off the pace at first, as everyone else was dialled in. I soon got the hang of it though, and THE Car basic set up that I had come up with was ok. Throughout practice and Qualifying we kept making changes to the cars, and this was one of those races, where everything we did, made the cars better. For Adam, we were joking, that we should put the weight at the back, and then see if it was all at the front after the race. No offence Adam, or Dr Smooth, but lets say he tends to find stationary objects to smash into. In any case, we put the weight back, in an effort to make THE Car more stable, and it worked, Adam was happy. (And the weight was still at the back after the race.) Jess had a lot of ideas he tried, and he was going really well. I also tried his ideas, and specially moving the rear shocks out on the arm, and outwards on the tower, was a good thing for this track. It really increased the cornerspeed. The last qualifying round was already really good, and I was looking forward to the mains.

Mains

Saturday evening there was a Mechanics Race, and Mr NeoBuggy Phil decided to enter the race with THE Car. He hasn’t driven in a few years, but seemed to get the hang of it quickly. Giving THE Car to other people to drive has been a huge benefit in the development process, and the feedback I get keeps getting better. The results show this also, as Phil finished 2nd! Great drive Phil!

Phil had some interesting line choices

Adam was first up from the 3 of us, together with my mechanic Kim Larsen in one of the pull start mains. He actually finished the main without breaking, but unfortunately, didn’t bump up. Neither did Kim L

Jess qualified for the quarter finals, but he easily bumped to the semi. We ended up being in the same semi final. After the 20min semi, I made the main, but Jess unfortunately didn’t make it. I had good runtime, and only stopped once, which helped me to 2nd place.

In the A-main, I did something I have never done before, I stopped at 10min for the entire 60min main! That was great, and I made up some ground due to that. At this event I think I was driving quite well at times. I have sucked for the past couple of years due to not having the same car for a long enough time, and because of focusing on everything else but racing, but I was happy to realise that I may actually be getting back up to speed. In the main lack of racing showed though, and I had one bad lap! Really bad, with probably 3 crashes. Also I had some issues with one lapped driver who immediately after I lapped him wanted to try and get stuck under my wing. Awesome! Other than that I was happy. I ran XTR Calibers for the main, when most others ran M3s, which was interesting.

Bloomfield and Boots were the class of the field at this race, and clearly faster than anyone else. I am already looking forward to next year, to see if I have the speed to race with them.

Thank you to everyone, Kim, Jess, Adam, Marc Night, Tony Rudebits Evdoka, Jamie Booth, Phil and the RWCC Crew.