He was either 1: Nearly running people over in the pits on a buggy. 2: Nearly running people over in the pits in his Proton, or 3: Legitimately being the testing ground for the Welch Spare Parts Bin, he was visibly so slow through Cascades it was almost painful to watch in Qualifying. Mike Bushell was extremely approachable and friendly and I also ran into Collard a few times, one time at the merchandise shop on saturday morning Also of note is the RAR Audis have somewhat annoyed a couple people they were racing with after Race #3.
He was patrolling the paddock with a determined face. The 4th time I just gave up and had to say something.I assume he was alone? Or was I with him
He was patrolling the paddock with a determined face. The 4th time I just gave up and had to say something.
Ay, Patrik's day...
It got to him a bit after today, 4 bad races in a row. When I spoke to him he was still positive about things, but he keeps making it clear that he's seriously unhappy with the driving standards. I can kind of back him up on that. Still, Croft is to come, we're both looking forward to it.
I did around 100 laps of the paddock in last 3 days
Firstly, a major thanks you to @paulmac2k9 for the lift and a great weekend, and a great Saturday with @MatskiMonk . GTP Selfie to follow.
MSA Formula events I kind of ignored, Clios were hilarious and Ginetta Juniors quality entertainment. I think NGTC cars just are not quite as suited to Oulton however, and Porsches were a great surprise. 900 pics / videos to sort, including a catch of a Porsche spin in Qualifying, Abbot getting spun in BTCC and the aftermath of Collard looping it in FP. Also got to admit it was pretty hilarious how your favourite Ginetta chap @hsv was always getting wrecked
@Holdenhsvgtsr err no. Awful decision. A couple inches makes that much difference? Morgan wasn't actually rolling when the lights went out and the gap was negligible. If you are going to penalise that, well I am sure most people try that. If the lights had gone out a split second earlier Morgan would have gone way backwards as he had stopped. Laughable officiating and call on that, and he easily had the pace to win. PS Tell Moffat to stop trying to cut Cascades and show off and be smoother, it's spectacular to watch (and I love it from that view) but he is wasting so much pace...
Great to see Dan Welch get some speed out the Proton. Andy Wilmot on the other hand seemed to be the paddock troll. When he wasn't leaving his breakfast and not using the bins provided
@daan @Scaff @Ryk Touring cars is a close form of racing. It's a different branch of racing from say open wheelers. In a touring car race the key is slight contact is allowed, but not encouraged. Now I am not saying that racing is any better because people hit each other off, and there is a line between rubbing and just being plain silly (see the yellow Ginetta Jnr who was excluded for a poor divebomb at Island), but it's closer because people know they can run bumper to bumper. @Famine you nailed it about Neal and Plato by the way. I'm not a particular fan of any of them, but they are almost part of the furniture of the BTCC and it would be much poorer without them. Some of the Super Touring bits were pretty crazy though - watched season reviews other day, Thompson on Plato at Oulton 1998 springs to mind.
@neljack Paul remembered you suggesting if the pits were open and they were - got pics of nearly every car
Hopefully once i've finished some university stuff off I can sort my photos and get some videos uploaded to youtube as well.
WSR have only taken 2 wins from 12 races, BMR have 5... BMR have out qualified WSR 3:1 and have had 5 fastest laps to 2 for WSR... and WSR are adrift in the manufacturers standings. TOCA would have to be mental to do anything to slow down the Bimmers... especially after 'equalising' the RWD element of their performance. JP's on fire at the moment, and the Passat CC seems to be delivering him the performance he needs... without punctures he'd be dominating.
We'll see how they get on at Croft, last time across the 3 races the drivers had 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, 13th & 2 DNF's... I wouldn't bet on a win at all this year, let alone a double win... maybe a couple of podiums..
I'll be a Croft too, I'm not looking forward to it so much... gotta find somewhere to camp and it's the drive I hate the most
I simply have a bit of a soft spot for him as I used to bump into him from time to time when I worked for Renault UK and he was running in the Laguna in the BTCC with Menu (I think I have an internal book about the '97 season signed by the pair); once saw him very drunk and a Christmas party as well.
BTCC is one of the stricter touring car series in terms of applying penalties now. TCR has taken the mid-2000s BTCC approach, so track limits don't really exist (nor does racing room; I think I've taken well to it because it reminds me so much of the BTCC I grew up with). WTCC has gone from having extremely biased and inconsistent penalties for minor contact in 2014 to a much fairer system this year (I think someone mentioned BTCC and WTCC having an entertainment swap at the weekend, the three abreast Chilton vs Pechito and Muller battle was simply stunning). Procar is extremely dull, DTM gets a few divebombs from time to time but the cars have finally crossed the pseudo-GT prototype barrier and are too flimsy to run close together, ETCC gets its fair share of action (a lot of teams have plumped for the new Leon, easily the most robust car in modern touring car racing) but are quite relaxed about it, STCC is just full of revenge dumping (Round 2 saw 3 cars finish out of 17), Eurocup easily ranks in my top 5 best series in the world right now, I don't really watch much CTCC, DTC can get quite dirty, as can TC2000.
In that regard however none of them are as bad some of this years F3 crop, which actually saw a race cancelled due to the poor level of driving standards...
The Volvo effect. Rich kids, with only about half the field actually having the pace to merit their place on the grid, jumped up from karting because the Verstappen effect has taken hold, in safe cars, with plenty of room for error. They're just going to go for things that clearly aren't on, because they believe the worst case scenario involves only their parents' wallets taking a hit.
:LOL:
