Brands Hatch Indy - Roadsports - 750MC - 26th August 2023

A nice 2 week gap since the Snetterton RoadSports and Club Enduro races (which you can read about by clicking the image below), we were back down South for the standalone RoadSports Race at Brands Hatch again, this time on the Indy Layout.
This time I would be in the Golf, Ryan in the TTDI and Dylan back in the RS3 TCR.

Below is the layout of the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit:

The Golf would be running in Class B, which is 240bhp/tonne without the driver. Diesels have a 1.05 power multiplier, so theoretically we can only have ~228bhp/tonne. We have 283bhp at the flywheel with a 1242kg minimum weight, bang on the money.
The TT TDI has a declared weight of 1140kg, and being in Class A can only have ~285bhp/ton, which works out around 325bhp on the Championship Dyno.
The TT TFSI can have a maximum of 295bhp/ton due to Petrol Forced Induction cars having a 5bhp deduction.
The RS3 is in Class A but has the restriction of being in homologated spec, so the fancy Carbon Fibre doors, boot and bonnet had to be replaced with the factory items. Such a shame, but we will use them in the future!
The 750MC uses TheResultsLive.co.uk for timing.

Testing

Ryan was coming back from a trip to France so there was no time for testing, we were going straight into Qualifying!

Roadsports Qualifying

The weather was glorious (as it is always down South right?) with the threat of rain at some point during the day. With 26 cars on the short and tight Indy circuit, it was going to be about managing traffic as much as putting in a good lap. The lads got the Golf and TT to the assembly area first and second, then the RS3 not far behind. The risk of pushing too hard on the outlap would be the rest of the pack still exiting the pits as we crossed the line, so I controlled the pace and warmed up the tyres. As I went to turn into Mclaren, Alec in the Ginetta dove down the inside to get track position. We were very close but I didn't think anything of it.
I pushed hard immediately as I knew we'd have 1 or 2 laps before coming up to traffics, and I was right. First lap was a 54.40, then a 53.54 before hitting traffic. I found a bit more space and put in a 53.37 and 53.31 before getting more traffic and pulling into the pits for tyre pressure checks.
Dylan needed to clear a few cars before getting on to his hot laps but was right on the money, by lap 8 doing a 51.80, had a few more laps to find space for a 51.72, then spent the rest of the session struggling to get a clear lap.
Ryan was into the low 53s and high 52s early on, but also struggled with traffic. He was also hampered by the VBOX OLED not showing his delta, so he did not know if he was on a fast lap or not. He found out this was due to the setting to ignore laps of less than 1 minute, which was set at Snetterton due to some dodgy delta times caused by a GPS issue. He ended up with a 51.83, only 0.11s off Dylan's time.

Alec in the Ginetta took a bit longer to get into the 51s as he was on Direzzas that need a lot more warming up. He eventually did a 51.33 which on first glance looked unobtainable for us, but looking at the data, the TTDI could get into the high 50s with a good lap stitched together, so it was looking good for the race in Class A!

Packer is going to be my main rival. Phiroze is on Direzzas so was a bit off the pace. The time keepers had erroneously put me down as a Class A car, so he thought he was on pole by a fair margin so did not push too hard. We will see in the race!

Unfortunately the 'incident' on the opening lap of qualifying got the attention upstairs, and I was called up to the Clark's office at the end of the session. They also wanted Alec's onboard as well as using the circuit CCTV.
It looked a lot worse outside of the car than inside, and in my opinion it was clear that I was warming the tyres, so Alec took the risk to send it down the inside (something he agreed with) but I was still given the following penalty:

Qualifying Laps

Our fastest Quali laps are below:

Roadsports Race

The race was not Live Streamed by the guys at AlphaLive this time for some reason, they are back for Donington.

A front row for the RS3 was great, and the TT is not far behind with the pace to keep up with the leaders. I am also not too far behind on Row 4!

For getting on the podium in previous races, we all had various penalties to be served at the same time as our mandatory 60s pit stops. Ryan and Dylan had 10s each, I had 20s against Packer's 10s. I needed to make up as much as that before we pitted!
Up front the start was pretty even, with everyone getting away in the order they started. I made up a few places as the Lotus and Integra were struggling on cold tyres and I had the grip immediately. Ryan went all the way round the outside for 3rd place against Phil in the Cupra. At turn 3 I saw Dylan go for the lead on the inside, and Alec in the Ginetta closed the door, spinning himself and allowing Dylan to carry on. He was nearly collected by Ryan, but luckily everyone avoided him and he was able to get going, unfortunately all the way down at the back of the pack! Knibb had managed to jump the TT to get what was now 2nd back.
I was on Ryan's rear bumper a few times as Dylan, Phil and Ryan were battling away up front. My first flying lap I was looking close to the lap record on 52.99 as the safety car was deployed due to a Leon stuck in the gravel at Turn 2.
On the restart it was pretty lonely for me, I just set about doing quali laps every lap, trying to get that lap record before the tyres went off or the forecast rain set in. I got it on Lap 11 just before the traffic was too crazy and some spots of rain, just enough to give a little understeer. Jonny in the Class A Lotus behind did not seem to struggle as much in the greasy conditions, so managed to get through. I was not racing him so I did not battle, I needed to keep that gap.
Ryan had passed Knibb and was quickly on the back of Dylan. It was clear the TT had much more pace so Dylan did not put up too much of a fight. They both needed to get their gap before the pitstop as well.
Just before the end of the pit window, the safety car was out so we all piled into the pits (we can do the mandatory stop under safety car in Roadsports, unlike ClubEnduro). Unfortunately I was stuck behind a Class D FordKa, that was going pretty steady into the pits. This meant the 10s+ gap I had pulled on Packer was reduced to around 3 car lengths.

The pit stops went to plan for us all, and for some reason Packer had a very long stop, so I ended up in front of him still in the pits, with just the KA between us. This was going to be helpful at the restart if the leaders went early.
Ryan came out in a net second place behind Knibb, and Dylan in 3rd.
At the restart I pulled a huge gap on Packer and was hoping to maintain that, but after my first flier, disaster struck, my boost pipe split open and the car struggled back to the pits. Even if the lads got it fixed quickly, the race was basically over. Post race investigation showed the actuator had failed whilst in the pits (probably due to heat soak), this caused the turbo to overboost and eventually split the silicone hose.

Meanwhile Ryan was absolutely flying in pursuit of the Cupra, and Dylan was being bullied by the traffic, almost being written off several times, once being squeezed towards the pitwall then again being showed into the gravel at Paddock Hill Bend, completely on the lock stops sideways! He was lucky not to write the car off!
Both cars got to the end, with the TT in 1st position and Dylan in 3rd!

Dylan's woes with the back markers put him 25s off the lead of Ryan. The TCR is clearly not a quick as the TT now, and drops off more as it hurts it's front tyres. I am sure we can play with the setup to improve things slightly, but the car is quite easy to drive close to the limit, and since it is rented out, we want to make sure it is not too dangerous for whoever gets in it!

Ryan's pace towards the end of the race was mega, in the mid to low 51s when he had no traffic, while Phil was closer to the 53s in the latter stages.

Every lap I did during the race (except 1) was quicker than Packer, which is exactly what I needed to do to overcome the 10s extra penalty I had for winning the last few races, but it was not meant to be!

Fastest Laps

Our fastest laps from the race are below:

At least my race lap was enough to (just!) beat the lap record from last year! 52.92 vs Rob Boston's 52.99. Ryan also absolutely smashed the Class A record with a 51.38. 15 of his laps in the race were quicker!

The next RoadSports and ClubEnduro rounds are at Donington on the GP Circuit near the end of September, plenty of time to get the cars sorted! The TTFSI and RS3 are available as well if you want to get involved!