BRCA Touring Car Nationals - Round 1
The Associated CML touring car team made a solid start to this year?s season with Olly Jefferies qualifying second and finishing third with his TC5.
The West London venue is not a favourite of the Associated team, prior to last weekend the TC5 had never made a national A final at the track. The drivers themselves love the track but have always seemed to struggle in the past. Before the start of this season the team worked hard on getting the car competitive and were rewarded with a much improved performance from all the team drivers.
Olly looked quick in qualifying and he lined up second for the A final behind pole man Andy Moore. Two good finals and a rather scrappy third saw Olly finish third overall, with Glen Doman in second.
Alan and Olly With their TC5s (left). CML's own Dave Duggan keep a watchful eye on the young Zak Smith (right).
Alan Bickerstaff was also much improved on his 2008 performance, despite a lack of pre-season West London running Alan was second in the B final. Andy Robson was another driver who shrugged off his previous years poor showing and for 2009 it was an excellent fifth in the B final for Andy.
The Pro Stock team struggled a little but we still saw a strong drive from Zak Smith who looked really quick in the wet conditions of Sunday. Zak secured a mid B final place but watch out for this young talent as the season develops.
David Ward and Steve Lander had a mixed bag of qualifying runs. Dave was in the top ten overnight but could only qualify for the C final after some wet weather issues. Steve was second in the D, robbed of a win by a faulty transponder.
Team work will be the key to success this season (left). Pro Stock legend Steve Lander (right).
The weekend was difficult for all the teams with windy weather on Saturday and heavy rain on Sunday.
?It was hard work keeping everything together with the constantly changing weather conditions, but overall I felt the team performed really well, now West London is out of the way we can look forward to tracks were the TC5 feels more at home and a good set up is much easier to find, all the current cars have tracks were they perform better than others, we knew London would be hard hence we put in a big effort to overcome any perceived disadvantage, I think the work we did at this meeting and leading up to the meeting was very beneficial and now any TC5 driver can go there and do well? said Olly after the event. You can download Olly's setup sheet here.
The team now concentrate on the next round which is four weeks away at Halifax, testing starts this weekend with three days testing at the BTCC.
The Associated touring car team is one big happy family.
Alan and Olly With their TC5s (left). CML's own Dave Duggan keep a watchful eye on the young Zak Smith (right).
Alan Bickerstaff was also much improved on his 2008 performance, despite a lack of pre-season West London running Alan was second in the B final. Andy Robson was another driver who shrugged off his previous years poor showing and for 2009 it was an excellent fifth in the B final for Andy.
The Pro Stock team struggled a little but we still saw a strong drive from Zak Smith who looked really quick in the wet conditions of Sunday. Zak secured a mid B final place but watch out for this young talent as the season develops.
David Ward and Steve Lander had a mixed bag of qualifying runs. Dave was in the top ten overnight but could only qualify for the C final after some wet weather issues. Steve was second in the D, robbed of a win by a faulty transponder.
Team work will be the key to success this season (left). Pro Stock legend Steve Lander (right).
The weekend was difficult for all the teams with windy weather on Saturday and heavy rain on Sunday.
?It was hard work keeping everything together with the constantly changing weather conditions, but overall I felt the team performed really well, now West London is out of the way we can look forward to tracks were the TC5 feels more at home and a good set up is much easier to find, all the current cars have tracks were they perform better than others, we knew London would be hard hence we put in a big effort to overcome any perceived disadvantage, I think the work we did at this meeting and leading up to the meeting was very beneficial and now any TC5 driver can go there and do well? said Olly after the event. You can download Olly's setup sheet here.
The team now concentrate on the next round which is four weeks away at Halifax, testing starts this weekend with three days testing at the BTCC.
The Associated touring car team is one big happy family.
