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Round 5 of the Renault Clio Cup took place at Oulton Park, a beautiful
circuit located in Cheshire, during one of the wettest weekends
of the year so far. This was the first wet race of the year and
as we have done very little running in these types of conditions
there was a lot to learn.
Just to make things more difficult qualifying took place early
on Saturday morning, in the dry, Dan was running well, and at
times was the fastest driver, but once again traffic at the wrong
time meant that the session ended with him 7th on the grid for
the qualifying race.
Dan’s qualification race started with the usual mess at
the first corner, 4 cars making contact but all racing on, however
a car in the
barriers caused a safety car period resulted in the race being
a non event, just 4 racing laps, during which Dan struggled with
oversteer, caused by a start line incident, car 26 had driven
into his side and damaged the rear suspension.
The resulting handling problem dropped Dan one place, so he finished
8th, giving 15th position on the grid for Round 5 of the Championship.
During Saturday evening the car was checked over and the suspension
reset to the correct position, ready for the feature race on Sunday
afternoon.
Sunday morning and all looked good for the weather, a huge crowd
arrived early ready for the action, and during the morning the
paddock was full of interested spectators.
By late morning the clouds were gathering and sure enough down
came the rain, and it looked like it would continue for the afternoon.
We arrived in the collecting area ready to race with all but two
cars fitted with wet tyres, a little before the cars went on the
track the rain stopped and the circuit began to dry. This really
is the worst situation as running wet weather tyres on a dry surface
slows the cars down and makes the handling difficult.
Trevor Steggles Marketing Services
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