Fun Cup Racing - Inc the 25hr of SPA

Eddington mains · PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:04 am

Time to bump this thread...
The Oulton park 4hr race coming up on the 17th October..
My local race ( and the local race for the series organisers too )
usually lots of friends and families turn up and it makes it a superb friendly atmosphere..
On thr racing front, we are coming off the back of a win at Anglesey and with two races to go have a shot at the (unofficial) championship...
Richard is back from his south American travels and we have 4 drivers, at Oulton they usually do 3/4 hour each, although Ian did hint he may sit this one out.
There is an open test day on the weds before, and although I don't know the finer details yet I think the team will be there to set the car up to help us to be upto speed quicker come the race weekend.. Should find out later this week..
I'll post more info and pics as I get them...

Eddington mains · PostPosted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:07 pm

At Oulton now.. Cars going ok.. Not the fastest on the track but the drivers feel that the set up is correct as it handles very well.... Just need to find the extra couple of tenths..

danny87 · PostPosted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:54 pm

I'll be at Oulton tomorrow mate, i'll get some snaps for ya. Good Luck.

Eddington mains · PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:59 pm

Well I hope you made it over Danny it was a really good race..
We started 26th (grid positions drawn from a hat) after going 2fastest in the morning warm up.. Franck started the race and was quickly moving up.. Good strategy moved quickly up into the top 10.. Swapping the front after loosing a splitter and not fueling meant we kept position but later on we got caught out by the pit lane speed trap and the resulting stop go dropped us back to 8th.. But attrition and stop go's for other cars ( the leading trio got penalties in the last stint) put us into 3rd with a rapid car, until a back marker tried to trip us up, the resulting avoidance lost us another front splitter but we held on an finished 3rd overall..
I will post more, and I'm sure Ian will post the official race report..
Also expect some photos from Mansellstach too!

MansellsTache · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:12 pm

Dion Elliott finds a new way to remove the front splitter

First batch of photo's on Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/carmedic/sets/72157622484887147/

only another 200 to do

danny87 · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:36 pm

Lol i heard that he did that over the tannoy, saying he went 3 feet in the air. Great shot. Just checking my pics now.

MansellsTache · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:25 pm

More two wheeled action with Alan Honarmand

danny87 · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:32 pm

Here's a couple so far.

MansellsTache · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 4:14 pm

Discussing who will win the Pie eating competition after the race

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TBK Lite Admin with a great big BAN hammer???

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Eddington mains · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:10 pm

oh!

LOL!

MansellsTache · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:16 pm

Winner of the Pie eating competition

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Eddington mains · PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:53 pm

Oh god!
And that's Yvonne holding another mans helmet...

Eddington mains · PostPosted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 10:18 pm

Ians report from the race..

Quote:

Newsletter 15 / 2009

Team “Cuisine de France / SPAR” take another podium at Oulton Park 4 hours.

Team “Cuisine de France / SPAR” raced to their third podium of the year at Oulton Park on Saturday in the fifth fourth round of the 2009 Fun Cup UK, in their TDI diesel car run by Solutions Racing.

Points are being calculated but its looks as if we are now leading the Championship by a slender few points, with just one race left.

Driven by Ian Connell, Richard Connell Marc Connell and Frenchman Franck Pelle, the team crossed the line after 4 hours just 13 seconds behind the winners Team Honeywell.

Qualifying
Ian did just three laps to qualify first, handing over to Richard who found the car handling better that in practice on Friday. He handed over the car with warm tyres and brakes to Marc Franck to set our fastest qualifying time, good enough for 2nd fastest overall behind Team Eclipse. Franck then ran the last few laps running in pads & tyres.

Job well done, we awaited the random grid draw with anticipation........but we drew a 26th place on the 30 car grid!

Race: 4 hours

Franck took the start and by the end of lap one was already up to 18th place, before handing over to Marc after 40 minutes in 15th place.

Marc settled down quickly putting in very good times to get up to 11th, while Richard continued the solid work by getting up to 8th at the half way point.

Second stints ran well taking us up to 5th place with one hour to go and thing looking good for a podium, but then we got a stop and go penalty for speeding in the pit lane. This dropped us back to 7th, but by the end of the race helped by some others also getting stops goes, Richard had got back up to 3rd overall, just 3 second behind Team Ram and 13 second behind the leaders.

Richard “Its great to get 3rd from so far back on the grid, but I am sure we could have won. At Island bend in my last stint, I gave a lapped competitor room on the inside; we went around the bend side by side, only for him to run me off the road on the exit. I lost the splitter and knocked the tracking out on the grass as a result ……I will know not to give them any room in the future!”

Connell racing videos on YOU TUBE
Oulton Park TV Coverage
Connell racing Videos have been posted from Oulton Park are now live with a 6 minute review of our race!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PHr-lPxecg

TV Coverage Sky Sports and Motors TV
The race will be televised on Sky Sports and Motors TV in a few weeks.
I will advise you of the transmission dates when I have them.

Team
Thanks to our engineer Stuart, plus Mike, Pete, Steve and all the Solutions Racing Team who did a fantastic job running and preparing the car on race day. Thanks also to Connell Racing crew members, Marvin who did our refueling and Mike and Emma who ran the race strategy from the pit wall.

Our Solutions racing Team mates had mixed fortunes with 248 CCS Media coming home in 12th place and 4th in the petrol class while 190 My Handle.Com (see photo below) had an eventful race with a non finish after a big shunt when they spun and were hit by Team Eclipse.

2009 Fun Cup Long Distance race dates to follow
14th November 2009 Snetterton (Norfolk) 6 Hours

Oulton Park You Tube videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PHr-lPxecg CdeF Race report

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XAotWHvjLY Grid walk / all cars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=negc5gKgkbw Solutions Team clips

Please watch, comment and rate!

Best wishes, Ian

http://www.connell-racing.co.uk/

As well as the pics above.. heres some of mine, they're pretty big so i have put them behind spoilers..
Divers with obligatory Totty on the grid
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Cars line up in the pits before the start
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The sort of Traditional grid shot!
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Oulton on a cold Oct day
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3rd place..
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Our old car (190) after its big Shunt...
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codename_47 · PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:26 am

Ahh the bumps at Oulton Park, always worthy of some nice air moments!

Nice pics, thanks!

beetle251 · PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:12 am

You can now follow Connell Racing / Team Cuisine de France / SPAR on Facebook by joining our new group for all the latest new, posts, comments by members photos, videos etc :wave:

Just click on this link to see how it’s done and please pass on to any one who might be interested in joining as its all good promotion for the race series, our team and our sponsors

Please join up!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php ... 0922252356

Have fun……… :thumbsup:

(To join Facebook go to http://www.facebook.com/home.php )

Best wishes, Ian

Eddington mains · PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 7:35 pm

This was the accident that severely damage our team mates (and our last years) car..
Needless to say Sean was pretty upset at Dion (driver/spinner of the black car - also see flying low in a pic further up the thread)
Dion said he was just a passenger..
Sean said that Dion had kept his foot in and tried to get straight again..
there is in car footage (it was given to the TV company) from the 190 car and it was all screeching tyres and no revving engine.

From my (obviously slightly biased) point of view it looks like Sean (purveyor of the bad language) tried to go for a gap that was disappearing, instead of braking and trying to go round the back of the spinning 190 car...
he was way over to the right of the track, and the racing line is way over on the left

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danny87 · PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:43 pm

Eddington mains wrote:

From my (obviously slightly biased) point of view it looks like Sean (purveyor of the bad language) tried to go for a gap that was disappearing, instead of braking and trying to go round the back of the spinning 190 car...
he was way over to the right of the track, and the racing line is way over on the left

Yep seeing that the first time, seeing the black car spinning i would have gone on the outside instead of the inside where the car was heading, just one of them things though, it looked like it happened too quick for him to react.

Eddington mains · PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:24 pm

Well the E-mails have been flying round concerning this..
(can't do quotes on this bloody phone!

When i saw Dion's in-car i felt it was a racing accident as the other car looked pinned into the inside, having now seen this i am sorry but i fully blame the other car because.

You can see him watching a car behind. (perhaps worried about losing time after all he was fighting for the win)
He had plenty of time to see the accident between 190 and 248 evolving
It was clear the 190 car was on full opposite lock and out of control.
He should know who he is racing with to assess the risk of overtaking
He took no visible action until it was too late.
He had the option to back off to give him the option of going either side by tightening his line and take to the grass on the inside or relax his grip and go around the back but he tossed the coin and made a bad one.

He had the option to avoid the collsion and did not take it.

Dion had lost control of the car and only a very experienced driver could have kept the car on the left, as mentioned many times at the drivers briefing " you have to work together to avoid collisions)

Sorry but i put 100% on the other driver, you should send him a bill !

Hmmm ,interesting !
For someone ‘innocently passing by’ I don’t see too much of an attempt to avoid a collision
i:e no braking and a continuation of the same line, he’s not even to the right of the tarmac and there was a chunk of grass to the right..

codename_47 · PostPosted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:10 am

I don't think you can apply sinister motivations in retrospect to a pretty much momentary accident.

You see a spinning car, you make a split second decision, it turns out wrong and not only do you have your own personal inner critic yelling at you, the shame of having a crash, the dissapointment of not getting a good finish, etc, but then you have Joe Public saying they could've done a better job?

Poor guy, wouldn't want to be in his shoes at the moment.

It was an accident...the word means...well, you know

beetle251 · PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:16 am

I think codename got it right..........its a split second decision.

Do I go left or do I go right?. :8:

.......or do i just slam on the brakes? I think it just has to go down as a racing accident.......they happen, partcularly in a race series with so many cars and so many drivers. Dion did not plan to spin and Sean did not plan to hit him!

Three year ago at Brands another car spun in front of me at Clearways :ohmy:

........I aimed for where he was, assuming that by the time I got there he would have spun away. Infact he spun back the other way, hit my front wheel which snapped the steering rack and I went head on into the wall........

One hour later I left the medical centre feeling a bit groggy :yuk:

as it knocked me out.... but I could not blame the other driver ........I just kept thinking what if I had gone the other way!

Its easy to be wise after the event.......but it will make great TV on Skysports Raceworld soon as they also have the fillm from in car with Dion! Ian

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Fun Cup Racing - Inc the 25hr of SPA

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