CML Touring Car Team Report - Cotswolds BTCC
Team CML head to the Cotswolds Model Car Club for fun, adventure, and high speed thrills.
The Easter weekend saw Chris Grainger, Matt White, Mark Wallace and James Stewart in attendance for the first big race meeting of the outdoor season, with Adrian Bidewell also joining in for some track time on the Saturday. The meeting represented one of the first opportunities for the drivers to do some running on the new for 2018 Sweep control tyre, so all were keen to take advantage of the opportunity.
Saturday saw a wet track, and though the rain stopped early afternoon the track remained wet all day, and in fact slowed down as the conditions became greasier. Still, it was a chance to make sure that wet cars that had been built for the season worked, and for the team to compare notes on their findings from the different classes they had raced over the winter.
Sunday dawned cold but bright and afforded everyone a dry track to get some running in on – it was good to see many competitors choosing to use the new Sweep tyres for the meeting too! They demonstrated very good pace over a number of runs, with many drivers getting through the whole meeting on one set.
James Stewart was first to take to the track in the 13.5 Blinky class and showed strong pace early on, but then suffered with an unfortunate electrical issue. Although quickly resolved, this put James slightly on the back foot for the rest of the day and left him on pole for the B final, where a steady drive saw him take home the win.
Mark ‘Waldo’ Wallace was the team representative in the 13.5 boosted class and was using the meeting to get back up to speed having not done much racing over the winter. A couple of strong rounds secured his place in the A final though a broken sensor cable prevented him finishing.
Chris Grainger and Matt White headed up the Team Associated/CML challenge in the ultra-fast modified class, with Chris qualifying into a strong third position in the A final and Matt backing him up in fifth place. A non-start for second placed man Elliott Harper saw Chris promoted to second place, where he had a race long battle with Alexander Hagberg as Olly Jeffries escaped into the lead, having already demonstrated the pace of the Sweep tyres with a new Cotswolds track record in the final round of qualifying. After 5 minutes Olly came home the victor, with Alexander second and Chris in third place. Matt had a ringside seat of the action for most of the final, having pulled over early on as a result of a broken driveshaft.
The team will be back in action for the first round of the BRCA National series held at the Cotswolds circuit on the 22nd April – feel free to go and see any of them for help or advice!
