The cars weren't too bad straight out without any changes, but throughout practice after trying different combinations of tyres we were all set.
The format of the weekend was to be 4 rounds of qualifying on the Saturday followed by 1 round on Sunday and 3 legged finals for everyone.
Rounds 1 - 3
All three of us (mark, abi and James) were fairly consistent James had a few problems with his car kept cutting. Abi decided to try mini pins (not as bad as we thought) and me and James stuck to yellow mini spikes front and back.
Round 4
Due to us driving consistently the decision was taken to try different things, I went with 2wd front spikes and new rear yellow spikes, new jc wing and jc body shell, abi and James went with new tyres as well. This transformed the cars we all managed to improve our times to the delight of all of us.
So at the end of Saturday we were all lined up together abi 29th, James 30th and me 31st.
After the BBQ and car cleaning, diff changing on the Saturday night it was decided an early night was needed, all this fresh air kills you.
Our pitting corner of the field
Sunday morning again like Saturday was open practice for an hour and half. I decided to bed my car in after a diff oil change on practice 1 (10k front 5k rear) but then decided to change in my spare diffs which contained 3k front and 2k rear, the car was alot more direct on the track and would probably be quicker in the reminding qualifier but it fealt too edgy for me so i decided to go back to the original diffs.
Final round
On to the final round of qualifying we all improved our final times after the changes before round 4. The cars were very settled through the fast parts of the track.
On to the finals we go, I would line up 8th on the c final grid very happy with this, abi 7th and James 2nd. I thought at best before the finals I would be able to gain a couple of positions.
1st final, again there would be the first corner drama in front, James getting rammed from behind would be an unstatement, abi got caught up as well, I managed to slip through without any trouble where I would contest 3rd position for most of the race to which I would duly finish (my best times of the day as well), abi would finish 5th but James would fail to recover and only managed 8th.
On to the second final, again James got caught up on the first corner and had to wait for passing cars before marshalling, I managed to drive alright for a couple of laps but a few silly mistakes soon put pay to any decent finish in this round of finals. Abi drove like a diamond pushing for a win but just lost out by 1.4 seconds. Me and James had a drag race to the line see photo enactment below of what happened
3rd and final round of the c final, James finally managed to turn his 2nd on the grid to a good finish of 3rd. I managed to get up to 4th with 2 laps to go, but a silly mistake with no pressure dropped me down the field and ended up 7th. Abi had a decent race and finished 6th. Overall Abi finished 4th on the same points as 3rd with a 0.13 slower average, I finished 7th and James finished 8th.
Overall I am presently pleased with my performance especially after the previous weekend at this venue, qualifying in the c final and managing to finish 3rd in the first of the finals. I was a little disappointed with the other 2 finals but mistakes will happen, but with less frequencys hopefully.
Track photo of a final 4wd
This was the second round of the Oople Series which is in its first year of being run and we have throughly enjoyed ourselvers at it, its just unfortante we are unable to complete the whole of the series. We are defintely looking foward to next years series.
My set up from RHR http://forum.teamxray.com/xform/index.php?act=view&ID=98&setup=xb4
Link to series results so far http://www.oopleracing.com/2013/index.htm
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