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Race Report Rockingham 30th –
31st May 2009
This was one of the hardest race weekends Martyn has had
in the VW Cup. The weather was very hot particularly
inside the stadium. We still have issues with our RSI
Beetle so Martyn entered the Vento VR6.
Qualifying on the
Saturday seemed to be going well as Martyn was matching
lap times with regular front runner Paul Taylor in the
Golf R32 but this was deceptive as both were
uncharacteristically mid field. Both Martyn and Paul
were struggling for grip and in the end Martyn finished
qualifying in 14th.
On checking the car
in the pits we found that the tyres which were expected
to last the whole meeting were worn out. Also the final
tyre pressures were lower than expected even though the
track was hot and expected to generate higher running
temperatures. On playing back the in car camera coupled
with Martyn’s feedback it was noticeable that the car
was suffering with under steer that is would not turn in
on corners and was also unable to get the power down on
exiting the corners, compromising acceleration. Barrie
spoke to several British GT teams to see how they fared
during their qualifying and if they had any words of
advice but it seemed that they were suffering with
similar issues.
The weather for the
race on Sunday was expected to be the same as during
qualifying so we decided to make some suspension changes
and to increase tyres pressures slightly. Due to the
accelerated wear we also replaced all four tyres.
Martyn made a bad
start in race 1 but then he got his head down to put in
a good opening lap and then spent the rest of the race
defending hard to not lose any more places. Considering
the car still wouldn’t turn in a 9th place
finish was a good result.
We made further
suspension changes for race 2 and this made the car
worse. Martyn suffered with more turn in issues and
acceleration was harder. He made a good start and was up
to 6th but he was unable to hold on to
positions and ended up finishing 12th as his
handling got worse and worse as the tyres went off very
quickly losing grip. At the end of the race the front
tyres were worn down to the canvas.
The weekends’
racing was not very good but we had a good social
weekend, making new friends and partying with old
friends. Roll on getting the beetle ready for action.
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