Wales at the f3's

[tom plumb]

So me and Matt were at silverstone yeasterday flying the flag for Wales. Which didn't go to well for me a finished 4th in the J final but could of done better but there we go it was a good experience the standard of driving was good and there were was some quick people there. But as this was mine and matts first year of racing electric we weren't near there standad but there is a few welsh drivers which would of done well there so it's a shame more people didn't make the effort as there was more Scottish entries there than welsh. maybe next year we can get a big group of welsh up there and really get the region doing well as we def have the drivers

[Pops]

Aint it an awsome venue! Myself and Owen were there a few weeks ago but what with coventry and the wrca stuff had to have a break at some point this year! That said i did try to get a late entry to no avail....
How about the welsh doing the Astro turf masters?? Myself and Owen will try and do 4 out of the 8...4 at kiddy and 4 at coventry...If you aint been to either they are 2 very nice astro tracks

[tom plumb]

silverstone is a lovely track i wish i could of done better thats all i am booked in for all astro masters over the winter i really wont to get some good practice in i cant wait i have raced coventry but not kiddy

[Dyna]

T'was a great weekend And as Tom said, the standard is not much better than we race, and if we had more of our own racers going we would've made a good showing in the individual and region results. It was run Round by Round, 2 best out of 4 to count.

Anyway, 2wd day -

Myself and Tom did the 2wd on Saturday. Tom it has to be said, had a mare of a time all day - his car didnt look good, backmarkers didnt help and the quickly changing track conditions also didnt help either of us as we dont have the experience to work out what change of settings and more importantly tyres to use in differing conditions...

Also as neither of us had done a National meeting before we got put into the lower heats... i was in heat 12 out of 12 so you couldnt get much lower... We were good enough to be much better than that though, but fighting through people and get a good time when 5-6 seconds is the difference between a couple of finals, a couple of crashes, your fault or not, and your final is well down. After round 2 i was in a very tidy position of 52 out of 112 and frankly i was knocking on the door of the 'E' final.. Tom was about 70th at this point.

However rounds 3 & 4 werent very good for either of us, we both improved but everyone else improved more Ho hum, experience tells. At the end of the day Tom was in the 'K' final and i was second on grid in the 'G' final. Tom drove well in his final, getting i think 3rd.

Me... well... lets just say I was on worn yellow spikes which were working well in the dry. Come 5 minutes before my final and it rained, not much but the track was suddenly 2 laps slower for the previous final. I couldnt change to greens, as i didnt have any green fronts, so i stayed on yellows. Oh how bad a move was that Every single other person was on BB Greens. I went from second on grid to bang last at the first corner, car for me was uncontrollable. I just kept spinning and had to compete at half throttle if that. In fact i was lapped by everybody, a couple of them twice ! Its a shame, as i really fancied my chancies in the dry, i was flying all day ( for me anyway ) and i certainly wasnt outclassed by the field. Oh well, live and learn.

4wd we were represented by myself, Axeman & Reg. Again we were all in the lower heats - all 3 of us in the 12 heat ! We topped the heat all day, we were lapping most of the field most of the time and all 3 of us close together. Problem was, some of the others in our heat really didnt want to let you past even when you were lapping them. Last round i was flying, on course for a 13 lapper when one person took me out twice in 2 corners, and i was a full lap ahead of him. He cost me 9 seconds there, enough for Steve to come sailing past and take the round. It was the only time in the whole weekend i was annoyed, as i found out later that effectively cost me at least one final

In the 4wd there was a full 120 drivers.

In the end Steve was Pole in the 'H' final, i was second on grid in the 'I' final and Reg the same in the 'J' final.

In his final, Reg went from 2nd to last at the first corner pile-up, then put his head down and drove steady, calm and quick to get back up from 10th to 2nd place, and he was only one corner behind 1st place at the end - another lap and he would've caught him. Final result - 2nd in the J final.

I also had a good start, well frankly a brilliant start, i avoided the normal first corner pile-up, got the lead at the second corner and never looked back - i was 14 seconds ahead at one point i think it was but it was closer than that at the bell due to a crash. Final result - 1st in the I final.

Steve had a good start, held pole ( no mean feat ill tell you ) and held 1st for about 3 laps. Lost the lead and went to 4th i think it was, but he drove brilliantly to get back up to second and held it to the final buzzer, even though there were, both myself and Reg were sure of, a couple of very dodgy take-out attempts by a Durango that looked nothing like overtaking manouvers.... Final result - 2nd in the H final.

Both myself and Steve in a couple of rounds were on the fast boys 13 lapper pace until we were held up or taken out by back markers only achieving fast-ish 12 lappers. Our fast laps and 'normal' average laps were well up there, certainly not out-classed at all.

Ive learned a few things. Our WRCA overall standard is pretty good, certainly on a par with all but the top 3 or so regions. Locals have a huuuuge advantage on permnant astro tracks - the track hadnt changed at all since the Silverstone big weekender so if you were able to practice there beforehand you were laughing... Tyres are 90% of the meeting in differing conditions - get them wrong and your effectively out of contention. You need to be in the higher heats in qualifing as if your not its bloody hard to make progress up the ladder. It does teach you quickly about passing people though !

All good fun though and roll on Nationals for next year

Oh and as Reg & Steve went before the tropheys, i can say that me, Tom, Reg & Steve actually got Wales into 8th place out of 10 regions all on our own in the Regional competition

[Welshy40]

Guys seems like you had fun. Some days are like that but there will be a few where everything goes perfectly where you will put it in the A. Ive done it, Harris has done it and Belsten. Its trial and error (more error) but shows you that setup is the key part of this game. Still well done, you can only get better.

[chris (reg) reardon]

had a great time need to practice more but first big meeting for me and axe i think we were great even racing gods have bad days
looking forward to tally this weekend some music and a barby

[blue_pinky]

Nice work fellas

Wales weren't the bottom region at either the F2's or F3's then...woop woop!!!

And it sounds like we'll have few more entering the nats for Wales next year then if everyone who said they're entering actually get in

[axeman]

not sure what Reg is on about!!!! We were racing gods!!!
Myself the Number 1 racing god off course!!!

There were some good drivers there and some inexperianced drivers unfortunalty we qualified with the lesser experianced drivers which slowed us down having to find our way through them..

This is why we didn't come 1st,2nd and 3rd in the Afinal!!!

Top weekend!!! top company!!!

Track could have done with some jumps!!!