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#1
29-04-2013
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TM2 at Coastal East of England Regional Round 2
Sunday 28th April and another chilli start to the day but the weather was forecast to be dry and for once they got it right.
The starting set up for the car was exactly as it came off the track at the Moulton indoor meeting on Tuesday, even the same tyres, this was due to the practice being limited to a 12 minutes for 2wd and by the time we got set up the practice had started, so the car went down on the track as it was to gain some track time. The tyres were yellow Schumacher minispikes on the rear (worn) and the yellow low profile cut staggers on the front. Because the track was damp I knew it wouldn't be great but I needed to know the layout so I decided to circulate without crashing for the practice session to get used to the track. To be fair, the car was actually very good, even with these tyres so I was confident going into round 1. Round one began with a new set of Schumacher yellow minispikes glues up on the rear and I went off second behind Danny "The Essex Gypsy" Conway, and after a couple of laps I managed to squeeze past him and pull out a lead to secure the win and TQ the round, so a good start. Round two and the only change was to raise the ride height by 2mm all round and i'm off first this time. I pull away steady and pull out a reasonable lead to secure another round win. Round three and no changes to the car this time around and i'm off first again, a clean run from start to finish secures a third round win. Round four and no changes needed to the car again, I just need to drive it round cleanly. That's exactly what I did to secure the fourth round and the TQ spot for the three legged finals. So qualifying over and I get to choose which side of the grid I start on, so I choose the outside to get a better line into the first corner. Now there is hardly any grip on the first corner so it's going to be crucial to make sure I get round it without being mullered from behind so I need to concentrate on getting round there cleanly and hopefully I can pull out a lead from the others. A new set of rear yellows on the car and it's good to go for the finals with no other changes needed. A good start and i'm round that dodgy first corner and onto the steep rise that's covered in astro, around the hairpin and drop down the bumpy slope to the next corner, there's a tiny amount of grass right on the inside and if you can get two wheels on it there's enough traction to gain a small gap on second place, around that and i'm on the short straight before the right hander and up to the table top, it's really bumpy before this and not easy to line the car up but I go in careful and up and over the table top with no problems, I now have a couple of seconds on second place so I need to stay clean. Around the right hand sweeper and then drop off the ledge onto the bumpiest part of the track, which is a short straight that probably used to have some grass on it (a few years back), then a left hander onto another shorter straight and a right back onto the astro straight. Accelerating down the straight and into the tricky dusty corner I now have the length of the straight on second place and a steady drive for the rest of the race to take the first leg. Second leg and the start wasn't as good this time so the two cars behind were much closer going into the first bend and they were still there right behind going up the bumpy hill section and all the way through the following sections right up to the table top, at this point I have much better drive up the table top and a good jump with a perfect landing on the down ramp and i'm away. I can hear the cry's on the rostrum as there's been some sort of incident and there's suddenly nobody following closely, that's a relief LOL. I pull away from the pack and finish with a clean run to take the second leg and the overall win. With the win in the bag I decided to have a go in the 3rd leg with the TC02 Evo which is the rear motored 2wd with the longer chassis. Now taking into consideration that i've never run the car before as i'd built it out of spares a couple of days before I wasn't expecting it to be very good at all so the decision was made that if I wasn't circulating very well, i'd pull out of the way and let the other lads fight it out for the second place. As it happened, the car was very good over the bumps and it was actually a silly mistake by me that cost me the lead to Danny. After chasing him for a a couple of laps he too made a mistake and I got back into the lead for a few laps before I decided that a leap of faith would be good over the table top ........ it wasn't good and I dropped off the side and had to wait to be marshalled (rightly so) LOL. So Danny went on to win the third and final leg and which coupled with his earlier third place gave him 4 points and second overall. He will tell you that it was good driving on his part, i'll tell you the truth and it was me who deliberately drove off the jump to help out a fellow team mate (my story and i'm sticking to it)  It's worth noting at this point that the general opinion of the TM2, when talking to people who don't own one, is that basically it's a car that will only work on high grip. I'm here to tell you that the car behaved itself perfectly and this was probably the bumpiest track i've ever raced on in 25 years of racing off road. There was very little traction on many of the sections and it was certainly extremely hard to stay clean and on the racing line for 5 minutes. I narrowly missed the magical 14 lapper with the TM2, a time that was only achieved by a couple of the 4wd boys on the day. So i'd say that the TM2 is certainly proving to be an all round car. Anyone wanting the setup for this can either PM me on here or email me at alecspringer63@hotmail.com, or if you have a look through earlier threads you'll find the set up there. What I like about this car is that the club driver can use the basic set up and get around any track without a lot of faffing around changing this and that, this is how a car should be  Another excellent result for the Team C TM2 with a 1 and 2 final result with an unlucky Mark Everitt coming in 4th overall (again), behind third place man Jonathan Brown. Thank you Coastal crew for a very well run meeting and providing us with an extremely challenging track, it's been emotional  Roll on the next round at Colchester. 
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#5
30-04-2013
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#7
30-04-2013
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Love it....
The Essex Gypsy.................LMFAO
:lo l: I will convert that 3rd place grid position into a rostrum one day.....Promise. Hard to tell if any setup tweaks made a great difference due to size of the bumps. Was a tyre day. Throw anything at it and see if it sticks.
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Team C Racing
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