Badgerwagen Castle Combe Saloons Class WIN and P3 Overall-woohoo

Well as some of you have already spotted.. Badgermobile did ok today.
Dry quali and race for once. thankfully.

Quali was abysmally busy, went out 3rd behind keith murrays a4, and set fastest lap on my 2nd lap behind him... after that it was nothing but traffic and slower cars getting in the way. not one clean lap afterwards. high 1,17s lap put me P1 in class tho so others must have also had traffic problems. Gary Prebbles tomcat rover lined up in pitlane smoking like it was tatered before he began. During quali, it went bang and his day was over.

Was following Keith Murrays A4 on and off, in between traffic like a yoyo. One scarey as **** moment tho which I did'nt thank him for was when he pulled right across me when he had backed out of it and I was 100% on it into Tower. Pulled left straight in front of me... F*ck ing Hell how I did ram him is a miracle. Totally locked up behind him. Stupid move on his part. Bright yellow ibiza at warp 1 with headlamps on.. Accident or by design...

The end of that was me in P4 on grid next to Keith and a couple of Evo's of Humphries and Squibb in front of me, and in 9th another EVO of Ballard lurcking behind. (reparied amazingly in such short time after last race accident with Harrison)
Come race start he would no doubt make a rapid start as usual with 4wd.

Car ran perfectly, no issues. Back on red after some late night work thrusday and friday afternoon tweeking of fueling and road test confirmed it was working ok. Turned boost levels down to previous in the name of reliability.


Race start, out onto grid, 2nd row (this is new) on outside next to murrays A4. Behind me I had Tony Dollys 206, Craigs M3, Thornes Focus RS. No pressure then! Got to make a good start and hold position at least. The 4wd boys would clear off as usual so it was me in front of the rest of class b. EAK!
Green flag lap we set off, zig and a zag aroudn we go trying to warm the tyres, and we reform onto our grid positions for race start pukka. 30sec board, lights light up on gantry progressively.... one..two.. revs to 5K, three, four, five.... and they go off.... We're off!
Ease out clutch keep revs on wheelspin, trying to control it, seems ok.. not bad start for me. grab 2nd keep the revs down a bit, spinning a bit more now, the guys behind are with me still, 2nd hooks up eventually, grab 3rd and elastic band feeling pulls me away from them up over avon rise into quarry. On my own now, just mirrors full of M3 vs Focus RS and Dollys droped off behind them.
Concentrate... focus on the 4wd boys ahead... Ballard romps by into Quarry.. Bugger! did'nt want that. He was slower per lap than me and I had to be ahead of the other class b cars or I would get mixed into their mele.

Headed out of esses persuing ballards evo and into quarry with an m3 and focus rs side by side behind me.. wow that was close, and also very ill advised. Preceeding race had oil/cement dust all the way into tower on the left hand side. Terrys focus was on that side and he and the beemer were not giving each other an inch... next all I hear is screeching and I concentrate on getting into abnd out of tower to not get collected by whoever that was locked up. Glance in my mirror out of tower t'wards bobbies and only see a beemer and no focus which I then see in the tyres at tower. poor terry. Back to the job in hand, chasing on and pulling away from the beemer and Co, but had to pass an EVO to get me my break.

4wd cars ahead, ballard my target, round the end of lap one, out of camp corner and better corner speed from me and exit speed and more power in ibiza than ballard was running.. Time to go for it. We pass Folly (scene of ballards accident last race) and he lifts through there where I dont. Get along side up avon rise and into quarry, ballard dives down inside but only to push wide on exit and I swoop under and along side, driving by him into the esses. In and out of esses and pulling away from him - Phew..
Through old paddock, into tower and pushing on as hard as I dare. Trying to catch the 4wd cars who had scampered off, but at best I was holding them on a couple of parts of the circuit but not everywhere, so they were driving away from me.

Several more laps go by and I see smoke from the leading pack... someone has issues.. then I see Barry Squibbs evo chuffing loadsa smoke from under it & slowing back towards me. Mindfull of oil being dropped I was feelign my way behind, but soon caught him up and not much oil landed on my windscreen and the track seemed ok, despite the smoke cloud behind. Pass a black and orange flag across the start line a few times with barrys number on it, but he carried on going round Out came the back flags for him. Woops.

Passing by the pits I glance at my pitboard which we agreed would be position marker for me overall not just class. (which I started in 1st and was still 1st) - P3 was on there... oh my god! overall, P3, P3..... and class lead.... Woohoo.. concentrate... how many laps are left?? Erm, dunno... round the next lap and 6 laps to go! Jees, 6 laps?? so many.. I was melting in the car. Gap to the 4wd boys was big and gap to everyone behind was also big... Time to ease into bring it home mode and the best "potential" finish to date. Knowing full well tho it aint over till its over. Concentrate man.... dont go too slow, keep pushing.. but mind the mechanicals.. All thee things whizzing thru my mind.. mind snaps back into reality mode when I cant get 3rd gear out of the esses and coast thru old paddock still trying to find it.. No no no no no... please not a g'box issue? 3rd snicks in and we continue.. alls well again. concentration lapse on my part more than likely.

Pass a few more laps and ease onto part throttle down the straights to preserve things whilst maintaining an eye on ballard who was still in sight behind me. Couple of laps to go, catch some more lapped traffic with the tailing car being a blue saxo/106 thing.. into tower blue flags from marshalls waving madly, me with my lights on also when first lapping the slower cars... These two cars were obviously having a dice, but the leading car saw me and the blue flags and kept wide into Tower, I run up the inside towards him and Mutha fcker... the blue 106 thing turns right into me whilst I am completely inside him..!!!!! I had a bit of a wobble on trying to avoid the numpties turn in into me, and then see me there and swerve back away again, as marshalls wave frantically at him with their blue flags.. 106 man raised his arm as a sorry I glance as I recover and pass him... feck that was close!

Pas the start finish straight and see 1 lap to go.. phew, I was frazzled and melting inside the car. It was so hot in there and my left foot was feeling muchos hot from the tunnel. Part throttle and coasting now to finish. Round camp for the last time and see chequered flags & cross the line.. Woohoo! punch the air inside the car - YESSSSSSS, we've done it at last. Class win and P3 overall. none too shabby.

Cool down lap is waving thanks to the heros in orange and form back onto start/finish line for me garland. Not done this before. all new experience.
Tony my greatmate & neighbor comes over we're both dead chuffed shake hands on a job well done. I peel myself out of the drivers seat feeling totally spent. hot as you like, water running down my back. (frigging leccy windows still wont work!) I was jtting to Tony and a chap with a mic comes over to congratulate and ask me about the race result and class win..

"thanks to everyone who helped make this happen, been 18months coming, but we're here finally and hopefully will be able to do so again regularly" - or words to that effect - to be honest its all a blur.

We get onto the back of the winners open back car for a lap to wave thanks to the spectators & marshalls who were supporting the races. Thanks to you all.

Tony drives the ibiza round following us in our tour of thanks. We return to the paddock and get a quick post race scrutineer of tyres etc and back to badger race week HQ - aka the tent. Meet up with MrsB who's well chuffed.. RESULT!

So there we have it.. first class win for us, but hopefully not the last and a P3 overall. Great weekends racing and ickle ibiza did me proud. faultless (aside from the frigging electric windows)

sat here typing this... knackered. late nights getting car ready, turbo swapped over etc, but it all paid off.

 

Nice one Bill, Congrats again!!

Was a good race to watch... don't think ive missed a race since you started so has been good to see you move forward and achieve this! Its been a lot of hard work with developement of the car & its certainly looking good out there now, just a pitty the 4wds launch so well

 

Congratulatios bill

 

Great `stuff` .... keep it up

 

Well done Bill, glad it's all coming together now mate .

 

^^^ what he said

Chuffed for you Bill, you've put a lot of effort into this racing lark.

 

great work well done and another good read

 

will be back @ combe for the VW Driver Autometrix day with ickle ibiza...
hope its a nice weekend & dry like this one.

its been 18 months coming, and is not done and dusted by any means. got to get the car faster and have several mods lined up to hopefully achieve this.
winter project to lighten the car properly, integrate cage to shell, turrets etc. its low tech car in that respect to its peers.

I was sorry to see Terrys focus after his off.. nsf corner damaged and a pillar torn by armco/tyres or something. Great best result for kevin bird in his leon cupra. P2 in class. His team had a bit of an epic after last race saw damaged valve cap and cylinder head damage. I got him some Supertech valves, and spring set, Ti retainers etc and some raceware head studs to button it all up again. (same spec as mine now) and all went well for him. his car ran better than ever he said, more power, lower egts and a good result to boot.

lap times were'nt wow fast, but who knows with all the oil on track off the historics and others, there sure was a lot of cement dust down around a lot of the circuit.

 

video of quali from susuki ignis. couple of passes by badgerwagen
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=66167082613726900

video of race from susuki ignis.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-4999970897877566953

 

congratulations bill. brilliant result. and hopefully the first of many more!

are you sticking with the cage you have but with additions or an entirely new one?

 

Congratulations! Good write up.

 

dont know yet.
mines an ex-seat sport demo car one bolt in.
want something tied to shell, but how I best go about this I dont know at the moment.,

 

Doesn't he look well chuffed in that pic, looks like you were holding back the tears there Bill, i feel a Gazza moment coming on .

 

lol. thats about as emotional as I get.
thats really excited

relief.. and was melting inside the suit. electric windows have packed up so could'nt get any fresh ait into the car... like an oven.. the silliest of things, but makes a difference.

 

Think of it as a way of loosing weight rapidly Bill, with all the fuel & sweat burnt up it should be faster by the last lap

 

i lost weight all right. sweat box

 

nice one Bill

 

well done Bill, fantasic write up

Hope to be reading many more of these threads!

 

Well done Bill.