Darren's Euro Diary
Arriving at the track on Sunday evening , we found the Heemstede facility looking fantastic, and beautiful weather too, however this didn't last long as when we went to the track for the first days practise on Monday it rained almost all day ! It started to dry out in the afternoon, so we headed back to the track, but by the time we were ready it rained again !
Tuesday
I put my set-up from the GP on the car, but it wasn't good, looking back it
wasn't the car, but the track and my rear tyres were too hard for low
traction, so we tried to chase the track but it was moving too fast for us
too catch it !!! We worked really hard trying lots of things to make the car
better, but sometimes you work too hard and miss the small simple things...
Wednesday
Still chasing a good set up , and getting a little frustrated , which didn't help as I tried to make up for a poor set up , by driving harder which never works for me. It also doesn't help when you see the competition going quicker too, but I was very happy with the gearing, engine and clutch, so I knew if we could just get the car good we would find a lot of time.
Thursday
We decided to go back to the GP set-up, but me being stupid, I decided to adjust a few things which I thought would improve it further. Once I copied the set-up exactly we were back on the pace, with best laps of 15.6, which were pretty good at that time. One thing that I lacked was consistency, now I had to get used to a good car and find the limit with that, I also found it quite difficult to overtake other cars, with everyone trying to fine tune and get to grips with the track themselves. One thing we did find was that the track changed its feel throughout the day, and without too much experience of this it was difficult to tell whether it was driver, car or track !
Friday
With qualifying due to start it rains ! And with the forecast not looking good we decided to go out to set a wet time, the car felt ok in the damp, so we were quite happy with that. After the first round it started to dry, but not quick enough for the racers in the first few heats, so at best they would only get 2 dry qualifiers which seemed a bit unfair. We had another 2 runs which went quite well, and ended the day in 10th place, we were still struggling with traffic in the qualifiers, which meant I couldn't be as consistent as I would have liked.
Saturday
No pressure, but now the track was really good, so everyone had one chance to do a good time. For this run I started midfield, which was already on my mind, so I tried to overtake cleanly to get a free track, but unfortunately I came across a car going a bit slower onto the straight, and tried to go around it cleanly but ran out of track !
This was a real shame, as we had improved the car, and because of me falling off I chunked the tyres, which meant it was a bit harder to drive and a bit slower. I was annoyed with myself as it was a stupid move to try, and I would have easily overtaken the other car at the end of the straight, I was more annoyed that I couldn't show the real pace of the car, as I finally had it handling well, especially in the first sector of the track, where we were amongst the fastest, and now the car was working well on the tighter stuff too.
I ended qualifying in 14th place, but just one second quicker would have put us in the top ten ! This meant we were safely in the semi-finals, so we wouldn't run until Sunday afternoon. This is probably the hardest thing to get used too at these meetings, having so little run time compared to the nationals at home.
Just as we were starting to pack up the heavens opened, luckily we had covered pits, as the hailstorm was rather intense, and completely flooded the track, and also the poor people who were camping ! The storm also destroyed a good number of tents and awnings.
Sunday
Oh dear, now it really started to rain, thunder and lightning ! And it seemed that at some point the meeting might be cancelled, luckily although the rain didn't go away, the thunder and lightning eventually did. Which meant that the lower finals were on occasions incredibly wet, but the track was actually quite grippy, it was the usual problem of keeping radio's and engines working.
We had plenty of practise of this with my team mate Stephen Lander's car, who after some bad luck in qualifying had to start on Sunday morning. His car was fantastic in the wet, and he easily moved up through his finals until he suffered radio problems. This was a real shame, because he was driving well and could have gone a long way...
Special mention must go to Adam Walker Catchpole, who drove fantastically well to move up all the way to the semi final, well done Adam.
For my semi I copied Stephen's car exactly, and also borrowed his tyres! The car was amazing, so fast yet so easy to drive, we were second for most of the race, and just managed to sneak the win when the leader made a mistake on the last few laps. I would have been very happy to race that car in the final, as the track felt good when wet, not slippery at all.
Finally it stopped raining, and started to dry for the main final, which meant it was a whole new challenge, and we had to change the car back to dry settings. This was a bit tricky as we only had 30 minutes to change everything, unfortunately this meant I didn't have time to do everything I would have liked, and also forgot to change the 2-speed back to dry settings ! The final was also shortened to 30 minutes, which also changed the strategy as we had planned to do a tyre stop, and we would have to do the whole race on one set of tyres.
I started the final a bit cautiously, but soon made a few places up as incidents accounted for a few !
My car felt ok at the start, but got harder to drive the longer the final went on, and I was also having trouble with my brakes, so I decided to drive my own race, and see what would happen.
There was lots going on during the race, with cars splashing about in the puddles, and some rather loud drivers and pitmen ! I would have loved to have been able to race the others, but it was a battle just to stay on the track, so I was rather surprised to hear that I finished 3rd in the end. It was a shame that the final was run in such tricky conditions, but at least it was dry even if there was very little grip!
I was completely surprised to end up 3rd, and was quite lost when it came to the rostrum experience ! Its definitely a moment I wont forget !
Congratulations to Dario Balestri for taking the win, and to Mark Green for taking second.
Many thanks to my pit man Aaron Wearn for all his help, and to Stephen Lander for helping him in the finals, and to Billy for his help during the week.
Also thanks to John Russell for doing an excellent job as team manager all week, and keeping us all in check and in the right finals !
Thanks to my sponsor's CML Distribution, JACO, Team Magic, Helger Racing, Nova Rossi, Micotech Racing and The Border. I wouldn't be able race without your support.
Photos courtesy of "TecroTec and Team Orion"
Thursday
We decided to go back to the GP set-up, but me being stupid, I decided to adjust a few things which I thought would improve it further. Once I copied the set-up exactly we were back on the pace, with best laps of 15.6, which were pretty good at that time. One thing that I lacked was consistency, now I had to get used to a good car and find the limit with that, I also found it quite difficult to overtake other cars, with everyone trying to fine tune and get to grips with the track themselves. One thing we did find was that the track changed its feel throughout the day, and without too much experience of this it was difficult to tell whether it was driver, car or track !
Friday
With qualifying due to start it rains ! And with the forecast not looking good we decided to go out to set a wet time, the car felt ok in the damp, so we were quite happy with that. After the first round it started to dry, but not quick enough for the racers in the first few heats, so at best they would only get 2 dry qualifiers which seemed a bit unfair. We had another 2 runs which went quite well, and ended the day in 10th place, we were still struggling with traffic in the qualifiers, which meant I couldn't be as consistent as I would have liked.
Saturday
No pressure, but now the track was really good, so everyone had one chance to do a good time. For this run I started midfield, which was already on my mind, so I tried to overtake cleanly to get a free track, but unfortunately I came across a car going a bit slower onto the straight, and tried to go around it cleanly but ran out of track !
This was a real shame, as we had improved the car, and because of me falling off I chunked the tyres, which meant it was a bit harder to drive and a bit slower. I was annoyed with myself as it was a stupid move to try, and I would have easily overtaken the other car at the end of the straight, I was more annoyed that I couldn't show the real pace of the car, as I finally had it handling well, especially in the first sector of the track, where we were amongst the fastest, and now the car was working well on the tighter stuff too.
I ended qualifying in 14th place, but just one second quicker would have put us in the top ten ! This meant we were safely in the semi-finals, so we wouldn't run until Sunday afternoon. This is probably the hardest thing to get used too at these meetings, having so little run time compared to the nationals at home.
Just as we were starting to pack up the heavens opened, luckily we had covered pits, as the hailstorm was rather intense, and completely flooded the track, and also the poor people who were camping ! The storm also destroyed a good number of tents and awnings.
Sunday
Oh dear, now it really started to rain, thunder and lightning ! And it seemed that at some point the meeting might be cancelled, luckily although the rain didn't go away, the thunder and lightning eventually did. Which meant that the lower finals were on occasions incredibly wet, but the track was actually quite grippy, it was the usual problem of keeping radio's and engines working.
We had plenty of practise of this with my team mate Stephen Lander's car, who after some bad luck in qualifying had to start on Sunday morning. His car was fantastic in the wet, and he easily moved up through his finals until he suffered radio problems. This was a real shame, because he was driving well and could have gone a long way...
Special mention must go to Adam Walker Catchpole, who drove fantastically well to move up all the way to the semi final, well done Adam.
For my semi I copied Stephen's car exactly, and also borrowed his tyres! The car was amazing, so fast yet so easy to drive, we were second for most of the race, and just managed to sneak the win when the leader made a mistake on the last few laps. I would have been very happy to race that car in the final, as the track felt good when wet, not slippery at all.
Finally it stopped raining, and started to dry for the main final, which meant it was a whole new challenge, and we had to change the car back to dry settings. This was a bit tricky as we only had 30 minutes to change everything, unfortunately this meant I didn't have time to do everything I would have liked, and also forgot to change the 2-speed back to dry settings ! The final was also shortened to 30 minutes, which also changed the strategy as we had planned to do a tyre stop, and we would have to do the whole race on one set of tyres.
I started the final a bit cautiously, but soon made a few places up as incidents accounted for a few !
My car felt ok at the start, but got harder to drive the longer the final went on, and I was also having trouble with my brakes, so I decided to drive my own race, and see what would happen.
There was lots going on during the race, with cars splashing about in the puddles, and some rather loud drivers and pitmen ! I would have loved to have been able to race the others, but it was a battle just to stay on the track, so I was rather surprised to hear that I finished 3rd in the end. It was a shame that the final was run in such tricky conditions, but at least it was dry even if there was very little grip!
I was completely surprised to end up 3rd, and was quite lost when it came to the rostrum experience ! Its definitely a moment I wont forget !
Congratulations to Dario Balestri for taking the win, and to Mark Green for taking second.
Many thanks to my pit man Aaron Wearn for all his help, and to Stephen Lander for helping him in the finals, and to Billy for his help during the week.
Also thanks to John Russell for doing an excellent job as team manager all week, and keeping us all in check and in the right finals !
Thanks to my sponsor's CML Distribution, JACO, Team Magic, Helger Racing, Nova Rossi, Micotech Racing and The Border. I wouldn't be able race without your support.
Photos courtesy of "TecroTec and Team Orion"
