GT12 Nationals R1 & R2

Leading up to this race I had put so much time into creating a car that would work in any conditions. I had been to Chesterfield, Hinckley, midlands raceway, Leamington and Milton Keynes clubs, trying to find a setup which felt great at all of them. I felt confident in the car, just maybe not myself. That said, it was a car and setup that could be shared to all the guys who wanted to run a Schumacher, and all my awesome team mates.

We were however heading for Eastbourne, a club that is a local for many of the top Zen racing stars, so knew it would have to go perfectly. It did! :) I managed to TQ and win on Saturday and Sunday taking maximum points from R1 and 2.

Firstly, thanks to my dad who travelled across the country to come and repair my VW golf 2 days before so we could get there!! :) He also came to Leamington club with me, the first time we had gone racing together properly for years which was awesome :) I won that club night and it was nice to show him that I've improved in the last 6 ish years :). He wouldn't say it directly but I knew he could tell a difference :D

We arrived on the Saturday morning to be welcomed by a super prepared team, led by Mark Jewitt, with a pit plan and organisation to help everyone in the team work together and help every racer using a Schumacher most effectively. That was just awesome. thanks Mark :) The team atmosphere and unity was like I've never had at a race.

Anyway, onto the racing. I could go on about so many racers who had stunning weekends... (Nathan Goodban making the A final for the first time, on both days and finishing 6th, and my good friend George Brewer for finishing 11th and only 1 second off the A final on Saturday.. or the A finals filled with 7 Schumachers each day)... But its my blog and I won, so ill be selfish and talk about my own racing :D

With one practise on Saturday, I could instantly feel the setup work I had done had transferred to this track too, the car felt effortless from lap one. My plan was to concentrate on small details from here on in, I knew nothing major was needed in the car setup. Such was the drivability of my car on Saturday I could TQ every round of qualifying and win the final, only playing with additive throughout the rest of the day, I used SXT 3.0 and went from 13mm up to 18mm by the final. This gave more steering and I could attack the track harder without risking understeer.

On Sunday, armed with slightly more confidence than the start of Saturday, I now knew all I had to do was drive cleanly and I would be fast.

Q1- Awesome start, P1 and a solid clean run where everything felt perfect.
Q2- Crashing in the early laps, I lost 6 seconds and couldn't take TQ of this round. I decided the understeer was seemingly too much, so decided on quite a large change.
Q3- I TQ'd this one with Nickel side springs. This is much stiffer than the silver I was on previously, and to be honest, it felt too much. The understeer from Q2 was replaced by over steer at odd moments, probably when I used slightly too much aggression going into the corner.
Q4- I opted to go back to the silver springs. So much easier to drive, just a touch of understeer. I knew the car was sorted for the finals but wanted more pace. My solution was replacing 15k with 12K in the side dampers and front kingpins damping, this would give the car slightly more steering and allow for a faster response going into and through the corners.

Sundays final started great, I could stretch a gap early on and was feeling more confident, but sadly, I clipped a hairpin pushing me really wide and into the dust, all my advantage was wasted, but luckily I maintained the lead, but with a now hard charging Ollie Payne right behind, I fell back into the cautious driving that allowed me to win the day before. In doing this, I still managed to build a gap, and eventually, Ollie tapped a few boards trying to keep the pressure on, so I had some space to calmly finish the race out. 

Taking 2 GT12 nationals this weekend, marks only my 3rd and 4th ever wins. I still can't believe how awesome everything went, but am so thankful for all the help and support I received. Thanks so much everyone!! :)

Roll on rounds 3 and 4 in 6 weeks time, but until then, lots more racing!!