A big thanks to the Eastbourne club for hosting the first round of the 2010 STCC, and to Andy for timekeeping and getting the Live Results and Video broadcasting up and running. Services and weather permitting he will be doing this at every round so I have added a separate page for this service to the results.

Complete meeting and club championship info are now online on the results page.

TC2 Class - Winners	TC3 Class - Winners
1st: Bryan Loynes 2nd: Mark Fuller 3rd; Ricky Copsey	1st: Tim Hancock 2nd: Malc Hall 3rd: Andy Robson

Well it's up and running, and what an eye opener, very close racing in both classes, and there are some fast cars there too! The Eastbourne club worked hard to present a good track considering it was almost under water after a major storm in the locality on Wednesday night. Grip, well the track is known for it's challenging levels of grip at this time of the year so setups and lines were paramount to ensure a clean run. We arrived at the track at around 7am, greated by full paddock and some overnight dew on the track, but the gentle breeze would see most of that completely gone by the time free practice was underway, and sure enough by the time the first round started it was a completely dry track, which it stayed for the whole day apart from a very light sprinkling during the very last 2 final heats, but it was so light it didn't have any effect on the racing at all.

Early rounds consisted of most of the fast runners reworking their setups for the cool temp and low grip level, tyre preparation was important. I heard of all sorts of things but in the end the simple approach worked best. We used one set of tyres all weekend, that included 9 or 10 runs on the Saturday, trying to sort out the new car layout with straight arms as it was the first run with these, and suffering with massive rotation most of the day, then another 8 runs on the Sunday. Having sorted out the handling I think most people would agree on how well the cars gripped once you had it sorted. We found that tyre warmers were not the answer either if you are wondering, as we found it was easy to overcook them using these and stopped after one run and only used them again on plain cleaned tyres on the very last run due to the now low air and track temps

You will have to forgive my lack of heat detail as I was rather busy sorting out the preparation on the Corally! The TC3 guys were very fast, and Tim Hancock was quick to lay down his intentions by streaking off in the qualifying and doing the same in the first 2 finals. Being his local track might help as he was 15/100ths a lap quicker on average lap times than the second FTQ place of Rob Sawell who was in turn 10/100ths quicker than 3rd place FTQ of Richard King. With the eventual overall 2nd and 3rd place overall finals winners of Malc Hall and Andy Robson, qualifying 5th and 4th respectively. With the STCC being broadcast live of both the results and the racing video stream Malc took the opportunity to wish his wife a happy 27th Anniversary, and very touching it was too, and she replied live via the chat box with the timekeeper who publicly relayed her response, ahh who says racers have no romance - nice one Malc! Right back on topic - Tim took the first 2 finals, and fast running Richard King who suffered a few mishaps in the first 2 finals had obviously got the bit between his teeth for the 3rd final and sat on Tims tail for the whole race, Tim just could not shake him off, finally Richard passing Tim on the last lap for a very close and well deserved win.......Next time Richard, I'm sure...... 

In the TC2 class, qualifying fell to the eventual FTQ of Bryan Loynes as the track improved, with Ashley Wiffen and Mark Fuller in 2nd and 3rd respectively. In the finals, the first one went to a rapid Bryan, closely followed by Mark then Ricky Copsey, the 2nd final was the same result and by about the same margins, the last final went to Mark whose near one lap lead was a sign of an improving car and gearing. Bryan was second, followed by Markus Askell in 3rd, the the overall results were Bryan followed by Mark 2nd and Ricky in 3rd.

Southend club have taken the early lead in the club championship, followed very closely followed by Eastbourne and Maritime......

Only a few comments I have to make - first we really do need to stop referring to these new classes by their "old" names! The TC3 (13.5) class is nothing like "stock" which I keep hearing it referred to, I guess old habits die hard, but modern 13.5 is much quicker than stock ever was. Only one moan, from Tim at Eastbourne: it would be nice if drivers would put their rubbish in the bins/bags provided or take it home rather than expect the local club members to tidy up after them! So please make sure this is taken on board in future. On a final and positive note, the overall driving standards were generally VERY good and it was a pleasure to see the courtesies given by lots of drivers during both qualifying and racing was on the whole very good, keep it up.

Next round, Southend, it's one of those tracks drivers love to hate, elevation changes, challenging infield and a fast sweeper that demands the right line!!! Looking forward to it........see you all there.

Mike

The STCC 2009 new TrakPower DARK Series LiPo prizes are all in stock and ready to ship out to the winners.

Update 6/11/09: As the postal strike is now effectively over I will be shipping out the rest of the TrakPower prizes now.

Mike