The first round of the Mid Essex Radio Car Club summer series was held on Sunday 21st April and as it is one of the tracks on our regional series calendar I thought we'd have a bit of a road trip and have a look and see how the car performs on grass and to have a sneaky practice at the venue.
The track is mostly grass, and although a little damp at the start, I decided to start on Schumacher yellows on the rear and the old favourite low profile cut staggers on the front. The car was set up exactly as the all indoor astro set up from Moulton last Tuesday apart from raising the ride height to around 20mm at the rear and 19mm at the front.
I had one quick practice to see if all was well and then straight on to round one. The car was excellent as expected and performed really well around the large grass circuit with no errors (staying off the apexes to avoid being marshalled).
Round two and much better this time, through for the extra lap (13) with a clean run but feeling that the rear tyres had gone off so time for a change. I decided to try the Schumacher silver minispikes on the rear and the slim silvers on the front. This proved a mistake by me and the car was struggling for traction over the track so no improvement for me but luckily nobody else got through for the magic 13 lapper so TQ for the TM2.
A quick practice between the last round and finals to try D Boot Multibyte tyres on the rear as local man Mick Spindley was using them to good effect on his 210. These proved quite good and I decided to stick with them for the final, however, i'm sure that if i'd put a brand new set of yellows on i'd have been as good.
Onto the final and Mick was always going to push hard at the start for a way through and he pushed hard until a problem with his car saw him drop out which left me to cruise around for the win. Lew Page came in second with his TM2 and Adam Foley came in third with his TM2, so a clean sweep for the Team C cars.
I changed nothing but tyres on my car all day and with a changing grass track I think the car behaved itself perfectly in the tricky conditions.
A quick word about the Team C 4wd, I ran the car all day on the most worn yellow minispikes you can imagine and it performed excellently. I had no intention in running both cars on the day but a last minute decision to give it a blast on the grass was well worth the effort. I TQ'd the meeting with the 4wd too and went on to win the final (all on the same tyres) with Adam Foley coming in second with his Team C 4wd (first time out). These cars do not get the credit they deserve so watch this space for some set up tips for this excellent car soon.
Thanks must go to the MERCC club for an excellent days racing on a really well kept old school grass track. The meeting ran faultlessly and even with a two hour drive home I was back in sunny Buckingham at 6.30pm. Anyone who fancies a days racing at one of the friendliest clubs i've ever been to and some close racing too should check out the rest of the dates for the summer series in the East of England section, you will not be disappointed with your trip (first time racing there is free of charge too). I'll definitely be back for some of the other rounds.
Thanks to Lew, Lee, Ben and Adam for an excellent day in the sunny East with lots of friendly banter, close racing, sun, fun and burgers.
Alec
