Well what a great weekend at the Tamworth Cup. After a few lean months with not much racing, I decided to make the trip down to Tamworth at the last minute(thanks work for giving me the time off). I entered in the always hotly contested Stock TC. With a field of 28 cars, it was going to be hard work making the A finals. All the Qlders were spread throuhout the 4 qaulifying heats and no regrade, it was all important to get a clean run in without too many delays.
Qaulifying looked something like this……
Rnd 1
John Perkins takes the TQ with Damien Barnier in 2nd, myself in 3rd and Bob Vardy back in 4th. Being the first run it was good to shake of the nerves and bank a half decent time. Sitting a little further back was Heavy and Big Mac.
Rnd 2
The pace steps up and with a good run Damien puts himself in TQ, followed closely by myself, John. Bob and Big Mac stepped up to improve on their last rounds with Heavy only managing 10 laps.
Rnd 3
None of the top positions changed with the top 3 running into traffic throughout their runs. Rian Sullings in 4th improving on his previous best keeping Bob back in 5th. Big Mac put in a run to put him in the A final with Heavy just behind.
Rnd 4
I was hoping to go quicker this round, but unfortunately a hung brush ruined my run leaving me sitting in 2nd. Damien was unable to go quicker making a small mistake on his last lap and John sitting this one out. Rian ran his best qaulifier keeping himself in 4th followed closely by Bob. Heavy put in a flyer and managed to bump Big Mac out of the A final and into 11th place after qaulifying.
With qaulifying over the top 10 looked like this….
1 Damiem Barnier
2 Adrian Beggs
3 John Perkins
4 Rian Sullings
5 Bob Vardy
6 Brad Davis
7 Cory Callcott
8 Ray Zarb
9 Todd Delboux
10 David Guyatt
The finals were going to be exciting with the top 3 seperated by less than 3 seconds and the rest of the top 10 not that far back.
A final #1
Clean start for the majority of the field. Damien jumped out to a small lead of around 1 second in the first few laps with myself in 2nd followed very closely by John. A minute in and we started to pull some time back on Damien and then disaster struck with Damien glitching on the back part of the track and running off onto the grass. This left the door open for John and myself to challenge for the win. For the most part of the race we were only seperated by 1 – 2 car lengths and with only around a minute to go I got a slight break on John, be it only a second or so but enough to be able to hold him out for the remainder of the race. Well that was the plan. John found some extra pace right near the end and managed to pressure me into a small error on the last lap(3 corners to go) and pass me for the win. Damien managed to recover from his earlier problems and finish back in 3rd.
A final # 2
Another clean start(not to often this happens) and much like the first final Damien jumps out to a small lead. John and myself battle behind losing time to Damien every lap. John got by and we started to turn some clean laps allowing us to hang on to the back of Damien only a couple of seconds in front. Half way into the race John had a slow run onto the front straight giving me an opportunity. With John hugging the inside of the track, I ran up along side with the idea of keeping him in tight and setting him up for a pass on the next corner. Well, it was working until halfway along the straight our cars touched wheels and turned us both sideways and into a barrier on the inside of the track. I managed to get going again but unfortunately Johns’ Spectrum turned itself off and he was out of the race.
This gave Damien the break he needed to cruise in for the win, with myself 2nd and Rian Sullings in 3rd.
A final # 3
Going into the 3rd final, Damien, John and myself were all in for a chance to win the day. Knowing where my weakness was I knew I had to get off to a faster start. Damien had pace early on with me having a little stronger middle part of the races and John was always fast finishing.
Another clean start and this time I was able to not let Damien get to much of a gap early on and I was also able to drop John off my tail. Punching out some clean laps I slowly worked closer to Damien giving me a chance if anything should go wrong. Damien made a small error in the middle loop of the track putting me right on his tail. A lap later we arrived on some traffic. Damien left a small gap of about a car width, just enough for me to sneak underneath and get alongside. We battled side by side for the next 3 corners and I was able to get the lead coming onto the straight. For the next 3 minutes we battled nose to tail. Running defensive lines and slowing us both up, this allowed John back onto the tail of Damien and myself. Not a bad thing as it took some pressure of me knowing Damien had to be a little careful himself to not allow John through. I focused on running clean fast laps and not doing what I did in the first final and that is leave a gap for anyone to get through. The 3 of us race nose to tail until the end with only 0.37 of a second seperating all 3 cars at the end. What an exciting race!
Final results
Well after a day of exciting Stock racing the results were…..
1st Adrian Beggs
2nd Damien Barnier TQ
3rd John Perkins
4th Rian Sullings
5th Cory Callcott
6th Bob Vardy
7th David Guyatt
8th Ray Zarb
9th Brad Davis
10th Todd Delboux
Another great meeting and thanks to all who supported it. See you all neext time.
Adrian