69 drivers made the trip up to the greatly improved multi suffice track at Swindon this Sunday to fight it out for round 4 of the Tyro championship.
A lap of the new Swindon track
Going down the astro-turf straight you turn right into the 45 degree turn 1 flat out for the brave ride the banking till you reach turn two and a hairpin right down a drop off. A short straight back towards the rostrum and into a fast left-hander and over the double jump trying hard not to over jump it as the next turn is a tight left, back on the gas and the track drops away before you turn right onto a raised corner the short back straight lead to the next jump. Jump this and land onto the tabletop right-hander, next is the bomb hole drop into it before turning left and jumping out. The astro ends here and it on to the dirt over the bunny hop and into the twin left-handers short blip before the hairpin right over another bunny hop and round the log right handed sweeper before the hard left right left flick back on to the main straight to complete the lap.
Now This is becoming an all to familiar sight around the DIRT tracks in the UK not to sure on why they needed for Astro Turf?
The practise round got under way at 09:30am and with most of the other drivers watching to see what the new layout was like heat one took to the track. The standard of the heat was not the best but you could see the faster lines and the speeds needed over the jump. My practice was ok although I could tell I was in for a hard day in my heats as I was some way faster than most of the drivers and thus would spend most of my day in traffic.
Qualifying was to be a Keith Robertson master class with him and his hyper 8.5 taking all 3 rounds. Behind him though was a very close run thing with the likes of Greg Hill (xRAY XB808) and Jimmy Davis along with Marc Knight fighting it out for spots in the A. Drive of the day in qualifying has to go to Chris Deacon using his track knowledge to very good effect making it straight into the A main.
My qualifying went well but knew I was losing time on every run due to the very slow traffic in my heat.
Overall Qualifying Top 10
1 Keith Robertson 2 Greg Hill XRAY XB808
3 Lee Bunker XRAY XB808
4 Jess Saunders
5 Marc Knight
6 Matthew Lewis
7 Brian Burrows
8 Jim Davis
9 Chris Deacon
10 Pete Stevens
(click to enlarge)
So with the 4 bumping up from the b the 14 car grid was set for the 30 minute a final. All 14 car took to the track for the 4 minute warm up when it started to rain sending pit crews running to find wet tyres. Do you change on not no one on the rostrum knew what to do. Keith and myself spoke and decided not to change as we didnâ™t think the rain would last more than a minute or so. The only drive to change to a wet tyre was Jimmy Davis.
Keith Robertson led the field away from pole and along with Greg Hill and starting pulling out a lead. I kept my grid spot and tried to hang on to the front two but the car was a real handful on the wet astro Jimmy on the other hand was loving the damp track at this point and started to power though the field and on lap 4 passed me going in to the bomb hole, but the track was drying all the time and I was to pass him back inside the lap. The top 3 pulled away from the rest until after the first round of pit stops no real drama in the pit to say of but once back out on track Keith suffered a cut ľ of the way round the lap that would kill any chance he had for the win. In the midfield a great scrap between Jess Saunders, Scott Michaels and Pete Stevens was taking place then the now very hard charging Keith Robertson made his way back past them all and back into the top 3.
Greg who was not marshalled once in the 30 minute final took the win from myself in second making it a great one two for our GRP powered XRAY XB808â™s. A great comeback from Keith rounded out the top 3.
A-Main Final Results:
1. Greg Hill XRAY XB808
2. Lee Bunker XRAY XB808
3. Keith Robertson
4. Jess Saunders
5. Scott Micheal
6. Pete Stevens
7. Brian Burrows
8. Jim Davis
9. Robert Cork
10. Richard Palmer
A great days racing and many thank to all the helped put on the event see you all at round 5.
