Blyton Park Weekend Sprint

Steve & Matt will be competing in the SBD 2.0L XE Dallara

Carole will be competing in her Hayabusa powered SBD OMS CF08

Steve:
Saturday, Eastern Circuit – 4th in BSC R21: 61.25s, 3rd in BSC R22: 73.26s
Sunday, Outer Circuit – 4th in BSC R23: 55.82s, 3rd in BSC R24: 55.76s
Matt:
Saturday, Eastern Circuit – 3rd in BSC R21: 56.38s, 5th in BSC R22: 76.00s
Sunday, Outer Circuit – 1st in BSC R23: 54.59s, 1st in BSC R24: 55.96s
Carole:
Saturday, Eastern Circuit – 3rd in Class: 71.28s
Sunday, Outer Circuit – 2nd in Class: 65.54s

Steve’s Report:
We arrived at Blyton after an even longer journey than normal to get ready for the weekend. Only very subtle set up changes to the car and we had put on new tyres because the old ones had been used at every event for the season so far. Matt went out first as usual and said the car felt pretty good, a bit of understeer where normally he reports that it is awful on the first go. This gave Steve the confidence to lean on the car a bit. The car felt nice and Steve would have liked the practice to be the Top12 run off, since he was a couple of seconds ahead of everyone else. On the 1st timed run, Matt put in good run to lead with Steve was second quickest, but quite a way behind. In T2, the 1st run off Matt finished second and Steve finished fourth. We then had lunch and it started to rain, so we switched to the wets. Matt always struggles in the wet but put in a reasonable time, Steve put in a good time however because of the colder temperatures, the Pirelli wets wouldn’t switch on, meaning he qualified 3rd. For T4, the 2nd run off, it got even colder which helped the Avon runners with their softer wets, Steve ended up 3rd but quite a way off and Matt was 5th.

Sunday was a dry day but cooler again, Matt again went first for practice and put in a good time to be 3rd quickest, and Steve was again fastest by a good margin. Matt was fastest in T1 by quite some way and the only driver in the 54s. Steve was happy to be amongst the other drivers qualifying 4th and there wasn’t much between the rest of them. In T2, 1st run off, Matt was fastest again, while although Steve improved his time, he was losing time on the 1st corner and Bunga Bunga. For T3, Steve concentrated hard on the 2 corners that he was losing time on and was just on the edge of a 54 to qualify 2nd behind Matt. Unfortunately, it got much colder by the time we got to T4 (2nd run off), Steve made two errors and ended up 4th but Matt managed to go quicker again and still the only driver in the 54s and winning both Top 12 run offs. The car is all packed away and ready for Anglesey this coming weekend.

Steve has been analysing the data and has got some ideas on how to further improve the launch and traction control in the wet, but this will require a lot of testing, so some were carried out on the Sunday and larger changes will be tested at Anglesey, where it is extremely likely to be wet.

Matt at Blyton Park, Sept 2022

Carole at Blyton Park, Sept 2022

Pictures by Kim Broughton