So the first race weekend of the 2024 season is behind us. Had we left Croft on Saturday, it would have been on a high. Pole Position, Fastest Lap, Lap Record and top step of the podium for me in the TTDI Sequential, and Ryan with a 3rd place (so close to 2nd) in the Manual car for the RoadSports race, it was a dream start.
It all fell apart in the Club Enduro Championship race. I had shifter issues putting me out from ~30s in the lead, and at the same time the dodgy BGA Head gasket gave way while Dylan was driving, so Ryan didn't get chance to even race on Sunday.
Adam had a similar rollercoaster weekend in the TimeAttack. Saturday he dominated the Club 2WD Class (as we expected to do) but then was moved to Club Pro for Sunday and struggled against cars with twice the power to weight.
A few weeks later we were back out at Cadwell for the next round of TimeAttack. I decided to prove a point with the TT, showing we didn't need a factory built race car to win in Club 2WD. Point proven.
We had to regroup and get back on top of things. We decided to fit a brand new engine we sourced from a guy in Scotland who planned to fit it to a Crafter Van! Then to make matters worse, during a trackday at Silverstone, less than 2 weeks before their first race in Roadsports with us, Michael and Lewis had an issue with the Golf that turned out to be the same Ryan suffered at Donington. The Camshaft had snapped, throwing the belt off and ruining the engine.
We've got another three brand new CUAA Engines, but they were sat in Holland awaiting collection. DHL decided to not show up 2 days in a row and then it was a National Holiday, so there was no chance we would have the engine in time to swap it. This meant rebuilding the one removed from Ryan's TT after the head gasket failure, this time with a good quality gasket!
So with less than a week to go, we had two cars that needed engines and one that needed a gearbox. Who needs stress?

This weekend would also have it's own challenges logistically, as we are at Silverstone for 45 Minutes of RoadSports on Saturday and then need to travel to Brands Hatch to do the ClubEnduro on Sunday!
Ryan was on his own for Roadsports, and Dylan would be sharing with Ryan for ClubEnduro. Michael and Lewis were just doing Roadsports, so would not be joining us for the Sunday. Again I would be doing all the driving in my TT, hopefully with a sequential back in it if it turns up in time!

A layout of the Silverstone National Circuit is below. Some people call it the magic triangle. It looks a pretty straightforward, but it is an incredibly difficult circuit to master and the laps just keep coming, with an expected laptime of just over 60 seconds.

The TT TDIs have a declared weight of 1177kg, and being in Class A can only have ~285bhp/ton, which works out around 325bhp on the Championship Dyno. Weight is without the driver, Diesels have a 1.05 power multiplier, and Petrol powered Forced Induction cars are required to run at 5bhp/ton lower than the class maximum (i.e. 295bhp/tonne for Class A), so we are ~10bhp/ton down on Forced Induction and 15bhp/ton on NA Cars.
The Golf would be running the same Power to Weight as it did in 2023, so would be right at the top of Class B. Fingers crossed it has as much success with the guys as I had!
The 750MC now uses TSL for timing.

Full Race Day Vlog

We have a full Vlog from the weekend, with snippets of the races:

Testing

With a hectic schedule, we did not factor in any test time. The test schedule is also pretty poor with Silverstone, only 3 sessions and no way of booking just the afternoon, so we decided to treat the Roadsports race as a test for Sunday.

Roadsports Qualifying

33 cars were out on track, with a few pinch points meaning getting a clear run would be key for Quali, and it turned out to be. My first flying lap was on the pace, a 1:02.718, but 0.4s off the #18 of Mauger in the Sequential Cupra TCR. He'd been testing Friday so had a bit of a jump on us! A couple of laps later I was into the 1:01s but not close enough to get Pole.
Ryan was dealing with the traffic as well, and as always slower to get on the pace, something we are working on with the data so that he can push in clear air early in Qualifying. He was in the 1:03s but knew there was more time in the car.
I got down to a 1:01.783, 0.03s from Pole then had traffic so pitted for pressures. They had come up so we dropped them and I came back out looking for a gap. Every lap I either made a small mistake costing a few tenths or had traffic, and I never got back into the 1:01s. I would have been happy with how close it was, then Mauger improved on his last lap so I was 0.2s off, not as happy with that!
Ryan eventually got into the grove and on his penultimate lap punched in a 1:02.596, enough to secure P3!
Michael and Lewis struggled a bit with understeer, their tyre choice going against our advice, but they still managed to get in the top 10 and P5 in Class B, a position they could make work, especially considering it was Lewis' first ever Quali session!
My rear light decided it no longer liked being attached to the car and had flew out at turn 1. With no spare, we needed to retrieve it ready for the race!

Looking back over the session, I spent too much time on push laps and not cooling the tyres down for another run. Ryan needs to push harder early on to find the limit.

Michael was a naughty boy with Track limits at Turn 1, prompting a call to the Clark of the Course for a reminder that 3 track limits in the race would cost them a 5 second time penalty, escalating further if they keep hitting them. One of the laps was marginally quicker than their best allowed time, but not enough to promote them on the grid.

I had pole a couple of times briefly, but couldn't match Simon overall. Hopefully I could get in front at Turn 1!

Pole was not contested at all in Class B, the 235i putting in a time that most Class A cars would be proud of!

Qualifying Laps

Our fastest Quali laps are shown below:

Roadsports Race

The race was not Live Streamed by the guys at AlphaLive this time which is a shame, hopefully the are there for the next round!

So my Roadsports Pole streak was stopped after 1 round, nightmare! Ryan could make it work from Row 2. My tail light was a bit battered, but still worked so we were good for the rest of the weekend!

Going into this round after winning at Croft, I had a 15s penalty to be served at the same time as my mandatory 60s pitstop. Mauger ahead had 10s for his P2 at the last round, as well as another 10s for his Sequential Gearbox. I was on a H-Pattern so did not have this. Ryan would need to be in the pits for 5s longer than everyone else. It should spice things up a bit!
With Mauger controlling the pace to the line I was visualising getting in front at Turn 1 and hopefully disappearing into the distance! I was on the outside for Copse and managed to keep my nose ahead. The Cupra pulled alongside and had the inside line at Maggots, so I took the normal line and was able to switch back and get in front down the Wellington Straight.
Into Brooklands Mauger made a mistake and allowed Ryan through. So by the end of lap 1 it was a Darkside 1-2! Fingers crossed it would stay that way! In my attempt to get away, I set the fastest lap of the race on the first lap and continued to push, but we quickly got on to the Class D cars so it was all about who managed the traffic best. the gapped ebbed and flowed depending who got through the best. Ryan was still ahead until he lost the back on Lap 6, allowing Simon back through. They stayed pretty close for the next few laps, Ryan taking the second spot briefly on Lap 12, before dropping back a bit as he struggled in the traffic.
The Cupra dove into the pits on Lap 18, but we decided to stay out until the very end of the window, with 15 minutes remaining. A safety car now would have won us the race.
By this point I had pulled a 9s gap on Ryan, and importantly a 7s gap on the Cupra before he stopped. With 5s longer stationary as well, I was hoping for a big gap when I completed my stop.
On Lap 28, with the pit window almost closing, we both entered the pits, at this point I'd got a 13s lead on Ryan and had at least been matching the Cupra's laps after he pitted.
Michael had started in the Golf and was up to P9 for most of his stint, jumping up a few places when his rivals pitted. He handed over to Lewis on lap 29 and they had a decent stop. Somehow the 235i managed to do a stop that was much quicker than everyone else (other than Phiroze who tried to do 1 minute line to line instead of stationary, and still was under that! Penalty incoming for him!

We'd decided to change the front left tyre in the stop as the fast long right handers here were killing it, and the guys did a great job to do it in 75s, but looking at the analysis above, Mauger was still in the pits 1s less than me, when he should have been in 5s more. We either lost the time on the run down the pits at 60kph, or we timed the stop slightly too long. Ryan's should have been 10s less and was 12, so I think we lost time in both stops, a few seconds doesn't sound much, but it is harder to make up a second on the track!
With all the stops completed, I had led the race for every lap so far, and Ryan was in P2, 0.7s behind me and the #18 car just over 5s behind. All I needed to do now was match their times and bring it home!
For the next few laps the gap varied by a few tenths here and there, again down to who got the traffic. On Lap 36 I started to suffer the dreaded Silverstone fuel surge. The long gradual right all the way from Luffield to the finish line shoves all the fuel away from the sender, and the car was dropping into limp mode. I could reset it, but this cost me valuable time so the gap was dropping by chunks now. Ryan was having the same issue and dropped behind the Cupra a few laps later.
The gap was less than 3s with 5 minutes to go. I had to keep pushing but also make sure I was not using too much fuel, and weave around to try and slosh the fuel back to the right hand side of the tank to prevent the limp mode!
Lewis put in a solid stint, keeping out of trouble and was consistently in the 1:07s, which was similar to the 2 guys in front. However they needed to be in the 1:05s to challenge the Scirocco and 1:04s for the 235i. Crazy times from a Class B car in traffic!

I held on, by a much narrower margin than I would have liked! Unfortunately Ryan was too close after ther pit stops to hold him off and finished in P3, meaning the podium was the same as at Croft!

The laptimes were pretty good at the start while we had no traffic to contend with, then they went all over the place in traffic. Look how super consistent Ryan was at the start, three basically identical lap times in a row, and he matched it again on lap 32!

Some yellow flags seriously hurt Michael, as did the traffic. When you don't have as much straight line speed, you have to make the overtakes on the brakes instead of the straights, meaning you lose so much time.

The lapchart takes some reading, but you can see the gaps changing between me in the #1, Ryan in the #6 and Simon in the #18.

The position chart shows our progress, leading all the way to the end and Ryan so close!

No safety car period in this race, and my lap on the first flier stuck for the duration, as after probably lap 4 everyone was in traffic!

Again there was not much contention for the fastest lap in Class B!

Fastest Laps

Our fastest race laps are below:

My ​fastest lap of the race was a 1:01.958, enough to take the lap from Chris Mills in 2021, most likely not on A052 Tyres!

Excellent work from our guys, getting both cars back to winning pace after the disaster at Croft. They worked double hard and made it happen! We had to then get the cars reprepped and head 2hrs South to Brands Hatch for the Club Enduro Championship Race on the GP Circuit. No rest for the wicked!
Michael and Lewis were given Drivers of the day, recognising how well Lewis did on his first ever race, and the efforts of the guys sorting a full engine rebuild in 4 days!

Photos courtesy of Jonathan Elsey Motorsport Photography and 750MC

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All the details and dates for future races we are entering can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.

27 06 2024

• #Blog_Racing