[Gareth]

Race Report

Round 3 of Mod coincided with a ball kicking competition in some remote part of the world which inexplicably a few of our drivers decided would be more fun to watch than race.  So it was a select group of 17 on the grid for this round. 12 Mods and 5 Tuners.  

We also saw the debut of some of the brilliant bodies bought from Jeff Louie in the States.  It’s been a real privilege chatting to Jeff over the last few months and getting to know him.  He has now kindly made international shipping available for us so if you’d like to buy a body ready to put on your car, head over to biglou1 on ebay.  

   

   

The track was one we have run a few times in the past and is always enormously fun.  The switchback under the bridge catches the eye out as you expect your car to be blasting towards the top end of the track when it is actually barrelling into the treacherous infield section. As usual the lanes offered varying challenges with yellow needing caution in the infield and white being tougher in the final sector.  One important thing to note was that crashing in the infield, sent your car to the outside of the track where it was safer and easier for the marshals to reset you.  Which meant you would be heading back into the infield again instead of up and over the bridge.  

   

After his blistering performance last time out, the clear favourite for the Mod victory had to be Terry but in one of the most baffling decisions ever he chose to rebuild his car and threw away the armature he raced last time out.  I’m sure the rebuild will come good in time but he was definitely suffering pace issues as Oliver eclipsed Terry’s heat runs by 1 or 2 laps per heat.  Oliver too had seemed down on pace in practice but utilising some of that precision driving we’ve become so familiar to from both Oliver and Ryan ensured he extracted the maximum in all 4 runs. 

   


At the half way stage it was Oliver 3 laps clear from Terry, myself, Mike McCann and Matthew.  Matthew had a stripped gear set on one of his first runs so was clawing back pace.  Tracy, Pete and James were all on 35 laps which was exciting to see.  

   

In Tuners Andy was well clear of Alex, John, Kevin and Chas.  


Matthew’s new gears really suited his car and proved to be the only other driver capable of matching Oliver’s lap counts as he eased to second overall.  I remained 3rd while Tracy pipped Terry for pole in the B final. 


In Tuners Andy clinched pole but John eased past Alex for p2.