After a great result at Silverstone, we had a 5 week break before we out again, this time for a 100 minute Club Enduro Championship race on Saturday at Oulton Park.
I would be driving the #1 TT on my own, with Ryan sharing the #6 TT with Dylan again. We'd secured a P1 for the #6 last time out, which put them second in the championship. I'd only managed 3rd after getting battered and a fair bit of damage to the suspension making the car handle like a shopping trolley. We do a full teardown in the Race Day Vlog below.

Below is the layout of Oulton Park, we would be doing the full (International) layout:

The TTs have a declared weight of 1197Kg and 342bhp. This works out ~285bhp/ton 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 the Petrol Forced Induction and ~15bhp/ton on NA Cars.
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

We had another afternoon test booked, with two 30 minute sessions hopefully plenty of time to get a feel for the track and ensure nothing is hanging off the cars!
The first session was basically a write off, I got one reasonably quick lap in before several red flags, and Ryan didn't get any in. It was starting to become a typical Oulton test day!. The next one was much better, I got into the 1:48s for both stints and Ryan the mid 1:49s, both on old front tyres. I expected Pole to be in the low 48s.
With not too much to change on the cars, a bit of toe and damper adjustments going into Quali, it looked like an easy evening for the guys until they checked the cambelt on my car and found a small issue that they could not ignore. A full stripdown was needed and they ended up still working well into the early hours. Luckily they chose not to stress us out with it so we were able to sleep soundly, fresh for the early start on Saturday!

ClubEnduro Qualifying

The guys did a great job and both cars were ready in plenty of time and almost at the front of the queue in the assembly area for Quali.
My first proper push lap was a 1:48.692 which put me on Pole, but I knew there was a lot more in the car. I went again immediately but pushed wide on the exit of Old Hall, Turn 1. I wasn't sure if it was wide enough to trigger the sensor so pressed on and put a 1:48.306 on the board. Well clear of anyone else at the time. I came into the pits for a tyre pressure check and decided to swap to my race tyres to scrub those in as well, and go for a push lap if anyone beat my time.
Ryan had done a 1:49.114 which for a while put them just behind me in P2, but slowly the TCRs and BMWs started to dip into the 48s and knock them down the order. It was time for Dylan to jump in, who had skipped testing due to work commitments.
Dylan was right on the money and got close to Ryan's time, then smashed it with a 1:48.497 to easily secure P2. However, around this time I was asking Reuben to make sure my lap didn't get deleted. There was a bit of confusion as TSL had put Dylan down as being in my car, so on first glance at the timing screen everything looked OK, when in reality my lap had been deleted and I was demoted to P2 behind Ryan and Dylan. I'd had a feeling it was going to happen so had attempted to do another push lap, but both times got blocked by the #22 Browes TCR that ended up P4.
So in the end, I had to settle for second position, behind Ryan and Dylan. I guess it could have been worse!

All the laps for the top 8 are below. You can see I was not the only naughty one with track limits. Even Dylan lost a few as, but none were faster than his Pole time.

I'd held Pole throughout the session after my second lap, until Dylan put in a beast of a lap as mine was deleted. If I am going to lose it to someone, it may as well be them!

Qualifying Lap

Our fastest (legal) Quali laps are shown below:

ClubEnduro Race

The whole race was Live Streamed by the guys at AlphaLive which you can see below:

You have to go back to P12 and Class B for anything other than a VAG or BMW on the grid! Ryan would be starting from Pole, but on the inside. I believed the outside would be better for turn 1, especially if Ryan needed to defend from anyone attacking behind. We'd got a plan and were going to stick to it (hopefully)!

As I expected, the outside of Turn 1 was the place to be, as that gave me a decent run on Ryan into Cascades. He didn't defend so as to give himself a decent run down to Island Bend at the end of the straight. Not expecting the #33 Clarke BMW to be anywhere near him since he started 5th, but since it is a monster in a straight line, he was on Ryan's bumper and managed to pass him before they turned left. Not to be outdone, Ryan fought back immediately and got down the inside at Shell Oil.
For me it was pretty straightforward, over the next few laps I pulled ~6s on Ryan as he battled with the E46, sometimes losing the position but gaining it back before the end of the lap.
As we got to traffic, I was too cautious and lost a few seconds to the battle behind, with the gap dropping to less than 3s at times, depending how I got round the traffic vs Ryan.
By Lap 19 the pit window was open and Ryan was given a break as the BMW pitted. I thought it seemed quite early, and looking back at the lap chart, it had dropped a fair bit back to Ryan. When he had finished his stop, he came out in front of me, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to get the measure of him, however it was immediately apparent that there was an issue, as I easily passed him as we climbed Clay Hill. He eventually retired the car with smoke pouring out of the exhaust.
At this point, with the fierce battle he'd been having, Ryan was 24s ahead of the next car, the Jones / Gadsby BMW Compact which seemed to be struggling this weekend. If everything went to plan with the cars, it was looking like a good weekend! Ryan and Dylan needed to serve a 30s success penalty at the same time as their stop, so Ryan needed to pull a decent gap on the rest of the field to reduce the number of overtakes Dylan would have to do. I had a 10s penalty for coming 3rd so barring any issues, I should be well in front.
On lap 24, close to halfway through the race, they pitted to refuel, change the tyres and get Dylan in the car. I stayed out until they were all sorted then came in on Lap 28.

The Browes Cupra #22 had stayed out so inherited the lead, until they pitted on lap 34. Once they were in the pits, I was back in front with a 37s lead on Dylan. 20s of that was their extra stop time, the other 17s most likely Dylan getting up to speed as well as the traffic. It is so tight at Oulton that if you come across a car to lap at the wrong moment, you can lose countless seconds.
As we both were not taking too many risks with the lead so great, the gap ebbed and flowed until Lap 45, a Class B Audi TT decided to break down at the Hislops Chicane. At one point I could see the front brakes were fully on fire! With the car is a dangerous place, the Safety Car was deployed. Not ideal when we had a pretty sizeable lead!
I knew there would be a decent amount of cars between myself and Dylan, and I hoped he had the same between him and the #25 of Darren Ball, who had made his way into 3rd position. He did, and he was not troubled for the final 5 laps. I sensed an opportunity to get the fastest lap point with no cars in front of me, and managed to beat the laptime twice in a row immediately after the restart. I could have done it again but Reuben had seen on the live stream that I was pushing again and begged me to slow down!

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