On Sunday the 21^st I went to the final instalment of the Marston Model car club’s LRP cup. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Saturday so I wouldn’t count enough rounds to be in with a shout of the championship. The LRP cup had been a bit of a quiet one this year and I hope that next year the event will attract more people.

When we got to the track I knew instantly we would be at a disadvantage to the local drivers as the track had been down since Friday so they had a two day head start and they all seemed to have good traction on the CPX tyre. The CPX tyre has been a bit of a head ache for me, I just never seem to get the balance right, but prior to this race I had done some testing and made various changes so I was feeling confident in the T.O.P Photon.

Practice

I was intending to do two practice runs in the morning, but surprised myself in the first practice!. The car felt great even with the CPX’s I used being worn almost to the insert!. After my practice I decided the only change I would make before qualifying would be to reduce the Tekins turbo and to increase tyre temperature using my Much More tyre warmers.

Qualifying

I was fairly pleased with my Qualifying performance and more importantly I was very pleased with the T.O.P Photon it was smooth and accurate with fantastic corner speeds and the Tekin gave me a straight line speed advantage over anything. Qualifying was between me and a fast local racer Jamie Beasley
Who was very at home with the low grip tyres and his local club. I felt that there were a few sections of the track I wasn’t confident with just because I was still learning the track and trying to put in a good time, and in the third round of qualifying Jamie put in a fast time and knocked me off the top spot!.
Knowing that my last qualifying round had to be faster I fired up the lap top and gave the Tekin some more power, but still with no changes to the car. In this run I had a cleaner run and had A LOT of horse power, I improved on Jamie’s TQ time by 5 seconds. This would put me at the front of the grid for the final by just a second!!

Finals

In the first final I didn’t get off to a great start and Jamie slipped away and pulled a few corners ahead, In this run my car had sat stationary for a long period of time and my tyres had slipped out of operating temperature. This meant my car was very pushy for maybe the first 6 laps, once the tyres came to me I could reel Jamie in and just waited for the opportunity. After following him for a few laps the advantage in straight line speed with my Tekin powered car became apparent and I decided I would make the move going into the last corner at the end of the straight. For a few laps I tried to keep close enough to out drag him on the straight, after two laps coming round the sweeper I had drawn level and made a clean pass under braking.

Unfortunately this put me on the dirty side of the track for the next corner, the CPX’s just have no traction to spare so going off line is a real drama! Jamie took his position back and I continued the chase. I decided just to do the same move again, as we turned into the sweeper Jamie finally gave under the pressure clipped the apex and crashed out. Allowing me to cruise to the first final win.

For the second final it was lesson learnt! I increased the heat in the warmers but still felt the car was on the money so made no changes to the set up. Driving to the grid I could feel I had a lot more traction now the tyres were hotter, I made sure my car was the last one to take up a grid slot to insure it stayed in the heat window.

The buzzer went and the car launched from the starting position, from the off I just wanted to drive this final the best I could, the car felt fantastic and I was confident round the track now and I gradually pulled away from the field. The only drama in this final was the tape coming slightly up in the middle of the track, so I adopted an odd race line for a few laps to make sure I wouldn’t fall victim to it! In the closing stages of the race it was job done so I reduced the amount of throttle I was using and just cruised to the win.

Im really pleased with my T.O.P Photon/ Tekin/Much more package, its just a pleasure to drive and so consistent from weekend to weekend, The Tekin speed controller and Tekin 10.5 motor give fantastic speed and power delivery with cool running temps and the Much More accessory’s are second to none!

CLICK BELOW TO SEE THE VIDEO OF THE 2nd FINAL