Despite the weather forecasts of poor conditions all week, we had a superb day, going to be plenty of people with red faces due to sunburn believe it or not, one starts to wonder what these forecasters actually know! Arrived at the track at 7:30am and within a shortwhile it started to rain, got the gazebo up just in time, however while it was heavy, it was only short lived and had stopped by drivers briefing. so the first round of qualifying was going to be damp, but by the 2nd round, the gazebo had been moved back as we were getting quite warm under it! The track was almost totally dry by the start of round 2 so the lap times improved dramatically and by the 3rd round it was at 28deg C! Actually reaching 31.5deg C during the finals! Qualifying progressed and clearly the finals were going to be tight and close, with 7s splitting the top 3 in 21.5 and 6s the top 3 in 13.5T, and so it was, with lots of close racing and some great racing from the all the juniors in both classes in particular young Jak Sansom in the 21.5T and Daniel Vaness in 13.5T, both stars of the future.
(Pics by Colin Thompson)
The Eastbourne club have done a superb job of upgrading the track, with new blue/white double tiered and shaped kerbs on every corner so riding kerbs was possible everywhere, but get greedy and it would bite, not by tossing the car off the track, but just disturbing it so that you lost sufficient time to not do it again! So in qualifying to get that prized ftq required a brave but faultless drive, it was that close that one foot wrong and it was going to be tough to make it up.
21.5T Podium 13.5T Podium
2nd: Dominic Shore 1st: Darren Tickner 3rd: Mark Trinder 2nd: Bryan Loynes 1st: Mark Fuller 3rd: Daniel Vaness
Pics by john Fuller
I didn't get time to watch the 21.5T racing as I was busy prepping our car, but have asked some of the more senior drivers in that class if they could provide a short report, any times guys ;) The top 5 FTQ slots went to: Darren Tickner, Mark Trinder, Lisa Keen, Dominic Shore and Trevor Bailey.
In the 13.5T the top 5 FTQ went to: Mark Fuller, Bryan Loynes, Rickey Copsey, Daniel Vaness and Tom Reynolds. In final 1, Mark took off and led from start to finish with a battle going on behind him between Ricky and Bryan. Ricky's car cried enough and he pulled off leaving Bryan to take second and Tim Hancock taking 3rd followed by Daniel in 4th. In round 2 it was again Mark who led from the start, only to take too much of one kerb after a couple of laps which let the closely following Bryan and Ricky through together, there was then a full on race between Ricky and Bryan with Mark watching closely from 3rd waiting for the inevitable for half the rest of the final, then following a forceful pass on Bryan by Ricky, who was lucky to go through into the lead with Mark behind and that's how it ended with Ricky, Mark, Bryan and the 2 A final juniors Daniel and Ben Mannell coming in 4th and 5th. So into the 3rd final it was between Mark, Bryan and Ricky, any one of them could take the overall win. Mark once again led from the front and was now clearly dialled into the track, he increased his lead each lap, making the apexes with pin point accuracy, clearly having learned from his mistake in the 2nd final. At approx halfway he was well into the lead, nearly half a lap up on Bryan and starting to lap other finalists. Another epic battle was taking place between Bryan and Ricky which was ultimately slowing them down, then another DNF for Ricky let Daniel take 3rd place, closely followed again by Tim. So, it was Mark on 2pts, Bryan on 4pts, but Daniel and Tim on 7pts each and Daniel taking it on countback.
Complete results will be posted as soon as possible after they have been converted to STCC format! A big thanks to all the drivers, it was great day, and a big thanks to the Eastbourne support team who did a great job, including the timekeeping at short notice due to Andy suddenly being unable to make the meeting. Last but not least, to the "food guy", it was a great opening round in all respects, thank you everyone.
Mike Smith
Round 2 is on the 27th May at the Adur club, so get your entries in. This is a wonderful track that produces excellent racing. The drivers who raced there last year demanded we return again as they liked it so much!
Corally/STCC 2012 Round 1 - Eastbourne - 
A polite reminder........
in Fixes/Tweaks/Bugs by admin, 20-04-12 18:26
