Anglesey Coastal - ClubEnduro - 11th September 2022

Round 6 of the 750MC Club Enduro Championship at Anglesey was the day after Round 4 of Turismo-X at Oulton Park. You can read about that by clicking the link below.
Luckily we did not have any major issues (a couple of oil sensors on both TTs caused a bit of headache!) so it was a case of prepping the cars at Oulton then loading up for the 2.5hr journey to North Wales!

Adam was not able to make this round as well, so to help Ryan out, DannyDC2 was back again to share the duties. Check out his YouTube channel:

Below is the layout of the Anglesey Coastal Circuit. It is the same as we did back in June for the Turismo-X races.

For the ClubEnduro, the Golf would be running in Class B, which is 240bhp/tonne without the driver which means we are at similar power to Class A for Turismo-X (and the SuperCup last year), ~270bhp at the flywheel as Diesels have a 1.05 power multiplier, so theoretically we can only have ~228bhp/tonne. The TT was going into Class A, which is 300bhp/tonne.
The 750MC uses TSL for timing at some rounds, but also TheResultsLive.co.uk for others, so the results can be found using TRL link for this round.

Full Race Day Vlog

We have a full Vlog from the weekend, with snippets of the race:

Qualifying

The weather was looking ominous for the afternoon, but it was fully dry in the morning, which helped us quickly get into the swing of things.
Ryan was right on the money, his 3rd lap being a 1:14.69 which put him in the top 5. Danny took over and put in a 1:14.32 on his first flyer, which ended up being his quickest lap. They were knocked down to P6 by the mental Class B Elise of Rob Boston which went 2nd overall behind Will Stacey in the other Elise. So it looks like Anglesey is a track designed for lightweight mid-engine cars! This makes sense really as the track is very abrasive on tyres, which heats them up quickly. It looked like 1 lap was the best you would get before they were too hot.
I went out, the car felt great and on lap 3 I had enough space to punch in a 1:15.09 which put me 3rd in class behind the Lotus already mentioned, and Freeman, who had been testing all weekend and did the 45 minute Roadsports race the day before, so he'd had a bit more practice than me this weekend! This put me P11 overall with a few Class As behind, so I was happy with that.

You can see for Ryan and Danny's laps. they could do a quick one, then it just got gradually slower. You had to really back off, let the tyres cool then go for it again, which was not easy with so many cars on such a small and twisty track!

After my decent 3rd lap, I spent the rest of the session chasing it or trying to find space. If you got caught behind a slower car in the last sector, the lap was basically dead, so I would slow back down to try and find some space. I was 2.5s down on Boston, so no chance of that, but only 0.3s from Freeman. I think with a bit of space I could have got at least a bit closer to him.

Qualifying Laps

Our 'fastest' laps are shown below, we all had a bit of traffic to navigate at some point! Ryan and Danny's looked very sedate and with a bit more time in the car each, I am sure they would have improved a fair bit.

Race

The whole race was Live Streamed by the guys at AlphaLive which you can see below:

Ryan and Danny were on Row 3, I was back on Row 6 with Luke Handley, the championship leader, at the side of me. Conditions were looking grim, but after Snetterton, we decided that the Yokohama A052s were going to be the quickest whatever the conditions threw at us, so the only real decisions to make were tyre pressures and damper settings.

Ryan & Danny's Race

With a change in conditions from Quali to the Race, we were given two green flag laps to try and get some heat into the brakes and tyres. As the lights went out, it was chaos as the two cars from the front row touched, sending the Lotus off and causing the BMW behind to lose control as well. This played into Ryan's hands into turn 2, he was up to 3rd and side by side with Rob Boston! At the top of the track Ryan made a few moves on the inside, but in the damp conditions, the grip seemed to be on the outside. He kept with the Lotus for quite a few laps, until an incident at Rocket Out brought out the Yellow flags and some traffic separated them. Ryan mistakenly overtook a car he was lapping on the next lap at Rocket In, and was given a 1 Minute Stop Go Penalty for it.
He served the penalty and came out directly in front of Carl Swift, who was leading the race in his Cupra TCR. With blue flags being shown, he got out of his way, then a lap later did the same for Rob Boston. I guess at this point Ryan thought the race was ruined, but he was the quickest car on track and in these conditions, anything can happen.
He kept the two leaders well in sight and an incident at Peel between Freeman and the orange Scirocco brought out the Safety car with 21 laps down. Ryan dove in the pits to hand over to Danny.

Danny got in the car for his first time driving the TT in the wet and his first wet laps at Anglesey! Talk about a baptism of fire! He was on the pace as soon as the safety car came back in, doing a 1:21 on his 2nd flying lap.
A few laps later the safety car was out again, this time after the Elise of Will Stacey (that bumped into Carl at Turn 1) had exploded and pulled off at Turn 2. At this point, Danny had Boston in front and the Area TCR just behind, this time with Rob Baker at the wheel.
At the restart it took a few laps for Boston to push past the Cayman and then Danny went through as well. Into Church the Elise was taking an aggressive wet line that went a little too far , understeering onto the grass and allowing Danny to get in front. Baker was still well back, not able to match the pace of the TT in some places.
All the BMWs were clearly struggling, and they were being lapped left, right and centre! Danny was still pushing hard, and into the Banking it showed as he was completely sideways, almost allowing Rob through, but with more grip on the outside, he held on.
A bit later, another incident deployed the the safety car for a 3rd time. By now Danny had made up the lap the Stop / Go had lost, and they were sitting in 2nd position in class, just in front of the overall leader, so almost a lap down. At the restart, there were a few cars to get past, and that was done easily on the straight. However, as Danny turned into Rocket, the Ginetta he had just lapped slithered on the river flowing across the track and smashed straight into his front left wheel. This badly damaged the wheel and snapped the suspension wishbone, taking them out of the race. How gutting. It would have been the TTs best result so far and first podium.
The full race video is below:

Scott Race

I was very frustrated on the green flag lap, as the yellow BMW in front of me was dropping back at least 2 rows on the grid, putting me behind Handley. I think he had looked at the Grid sheet and was positioning in that order, but a couple of cars had not made it, so everything should have been shuffled further up. This put me on the back foot before he failed to accelerate as the lights went out, dropping me behind Handley in the Golf and into the clutches of the Cayman.
I managed to avoid the turn 1 carnage, then nearly caused my own at the Banking when the back end came round on me. I got it squared up and hunted down Handley. I kept showing my nose but there was not enough in it to make a move, and in a 2hr race you don't take stupid risks this early on. As we neared some traffic on Lap 10, I took the opportunity and got through as Luke was boxed in.
I spent the next few laps behind the Knibb TCR and lapping BMWs that were clearly struggling in these conditions. I had a few of them spin off in front of me, one under the safety car that came out due to the terrible crash Freeman had into the Scirocco. The orange car had spun at Peel, leaving him nowhere to go!
After the restart, it was chaos at the top of the hill and as I picked through the traffic a Mazda and Luke in the Golf slammed on so I went down the inside, not realising they had done so for some yellow flags. I expected a penalty! The Ginetta behind must not have realised either and did them both too. It was the start of another safety car period with the exploded Lotus and it's snail trail of oil around Turn 1 and 2.
At the restart, Ben Rushworth in the Corten-Miller TCR went straight off on the oil, but managed to re-join and push past at Rocket Out. I waited for my penalty board but it seemed to take an age to come. When I did see it, the board was just 'Stop / Go' so I dove into the pits and stopped in the box. The marshal moved so I set back off (after putting it in reverse!). Mathisse came back on the radio saying I needed to come in again as it was a 1 minute Stop / Go. I said until they showed the boards again I would not be coming in.
I came out right behind a TCR that was struggling in the corners but too fast to pass on the straights, so it was hurting my progress. After much back and forth with Mathisse, I decided to come back in and serve the 1 minute penalty.

I came out with the Cayman just behind me, which was for 4th position in class at this time, so I was determined to keep him behind. I was absolutely on a mission to catch Handley in P2. Mathisse said I was lapping 2 - 3s quicker and the gap was ~50s, so I knew it was possible in the hour or so that was left to go.
As I turned around Church, I felt the gearbox start grinding. This is the early stages of 4th gear becoming smooth! I changed to 5th and then did the last 50 minutes of the race in 3rd then 5th! I did a couple of laps and Mathisse said I was still gaining on the guys in front, so I pressed on but struggled with pace down the straights.
I turned around the first corner, got completely sideways but managed to catch it, just as the safety car was coming out of the pits. I had no way of slowing down enough to get behind it, and knew that would have meant my fight was over. The gap that had been ~40s was now about 4 car length as we snaked around the track.
My window was getting more steamed up by the second and I contemplated coming into the pits, as I would have only lost a couple of positions in the safety car queue.
On the restart I could see my goal and pushed past all the TCRs that were struggling on either the wrong tyres or new drivers that were not climatised to the conditions. Eventually I caught Luke and went round the outside at Church. He understeered into me and clipped my back wheel. Luckily I kept it in a straight line!
From there it was plain sailing (a boat would have been better!) to the chequered flag.

So we went from a double DNF at Silverstone to just one DNF, a step in the right direction I suppose. This time it was other drivers, not us or the cars causing that one. We are praying for more wet races!
The TT would have been either P2 or P3 overall and 2nd in class easily, just in front of the Golf. The Elises were mega around this track, both wet and dry.

Danny's laps were deleted for some reason, but looking at the data, most of the time, the TT was the quickest car on the track.

If we exclude the Boston Lotus that was in a league of its own, the Golf was the quickest Class B car all day as well, even if the single fastest lap tells a different story!.

Fastest Laps

Our fastest race laps are below:

A massive step forward with both cars, even if the results for the TT don't tell the whole story. I'm down in 5th place in the championship, but with a good result at Oulton, I could get 2nd or 3rd. A very outside chance but we won't stop fighting! Just pray for rain!