We drove the 275 miles for our first ever trip to the Trac-Mon circuit at Anglesey in North Wales. We had a full day of testing on Friday, before a triple header race weekend. The weather for once was great - 20+degrees with lots sun and a light breeze - perfect conditions.
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A lot of different series had the same idea and we were joined by the Teguiwa Enduro cars for our 6x 20 min Friday testing sessions which meant dealing with both slower and faster cars on track.
Mike did the frst 2 sessions - mostly learning the track and adapting the to the International layout which we'd not tested on Assetto Corsa. Garry then did the middle two, with Mike completing the day.
We worked on tyre pressures and temperatures as this was our first outing on the Nangkang AR-1 tyres - Assessing the pressure increase from cold so we end up at the optimum hot pressure and not overheat them
We made a couple of stiffness changes to the suspension whilst being mindful of the tight corners around the circuit so we needed the car to rotate well. We also experimented with different gear choices - 3rd instead of 2nd through the banked turn 2 and onto the international straight. Sometimes 3rd can feel slow - but being smoother and carrying more entry speed can be faster overall.
A failed wheel stud caused a minor issue during the day - but we carry spares and the tools to drill out and extract them so we only lost 5mins of track time as a result. Kerb abuse on the rear left wheel is the likely cause.
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| Setup for the weekend |
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| Winding out the remains of broken wheel stud |
Qualifying
Over 30 cars spanning three decades lined up for qualifying on Saturday - which was an awesome sight and the biggest grid in the CALM All Porsche series to date.
Mike did his mandatory 3 laps and gave Garry just over 10 mins to set a fast time. After a couple of aborted laps due to traffic we gained 2s over the line to jump up to 10th with a 1m43.5s lap. A little dissatisfied but accepting that was pretty close to the limit from testing.
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| Variety of Porsche Models in CALM All Porsche Trophy |
On that fast lap and the cool down the exhaust was very noisy and on investigation afterwards rather than a loose joint (that we expected) we found a major problem - the catalytic conver was snapped in two - oh!
After much asking around the paddock had drawn a blank we set off to the nearest Euro Car Parts that had one in in stock - *Chester* which was a 180 mile round trip!
We'd all but given up on making the afternoon Sprint Race as a result - however MTD Motorsports managed to weld the two pieces back together as a temporary repair and with the help of other drivers we got it refitted with 5 mins to spare. Great support from the paddock to get us on track.
Sprint Race 1
I got a good start off the grid jumping two rows but got squeezed on the outside so couldn't hold all of the gain. Once into a rhythm I passed several cars but couldn't make the jump into the 1m42s lap times the front 3 Boxsters were setting. They were 10s up the road by then too, so. I managed the gap behind to bring the car home safely over the last 5 mins of the race.
The catalytic converter held together and I finished well in P6 overall and 4th SP2 (Boxster) class.
by the time we'd switched them over properly.
Sprint Race 2
It was cooler on Sunday am for Mike's sprint race. Starting P6 - he slipped back as expected but found the 2nd group of boxsrers fighting for 10th-16th places and not only kept up but picked them off as they made mistakes with some nice overtakes. Lap times improved by another second in what was a first really competitive race - finishing P14 overall and 9th in SP2 class was a fantastic drive.
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| Passing on the outside onto the Intenational Staight |
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| The Mid-Pack Boxster Fight |
Pit-Stop Race 3
The final pit stop 40 min race in the afternoon was touch and go with heavy rain forecast but it hadn't arrived come start time so a full dry car setup was in order.
Mike started and despite getting off the line well - lost couple of places initially. He followed the mid pack Boxster group as planned and ready for an early pit stop so we could undercut the group by getting our faster driver on track earlier.
Unfortunately a Cayman spun into the pit exit barrier causing the safety car to come out - so everyone pitted together - it was mayhem - and we lost 30 secs to a front group of cars due to the unlucky timing.
A mistake with our seatbelts cost us another 20 seconds - so as the safety car ended we were still way off the back of the train down in 26th position. Garry did his best to make up places but as the rain that was due started to become more persistent it wasn't worth risking any heroics. We finished where we started. P14 and 9th in class.
Overall it was an awesome weekend of racing at a really fantastic track that has a bit of everything in its layout. We got good performance from the Nangkang tyres and overcame some tricky mechanical issues. Mike picked up 2 race finish signatures for his licence so just has a couple to go before he can upgrade - which will be needed if we go to Spa later in the year.
