Brands Hatch - 31/10/11

The final rounds of the 2011 Pickup Truck Racing Championship took place this weekend at Brands Hatch, with Neil arriving at the track in 4th place with Carl Boardley #41 72 points behind. The weekend started with a free practice session on Saturday morning, the team decided that we’d experiment with the setup during the practice but this was prematurely delayed when Neil came into the Pits with a slow puncture. The team replaced the left rear tyre and was about to continue when the session was red flagged with Charlie Weaver’s #20 having blown an engine. Qualifying took place in the afternoon, with the setup not working correctly and the pickup pushing into the corners, Neil qualified 14th for race 1 and 13th for race 2. The relssert racing team worked into the night trying to improve the setup for Sundays races. Neil started race 1 from row 6 on the grid next to Glenn Burtenshaw #77, with Nic Grindrod #22 behind. As soon as the race commenced it was clear that pickup still had to much push into the corners, reducing the speed Neil was able to race, despite this Neil continued battling with Glenn Burtenshaw #77 along the way. Neil finished the race 14th. The team decided that the best thing to improve the pickup for the second race would be to change the setup of the suspension for race 2. Due to a incident on the track which had left a vast amount oil on the track from a previous race the final race of the day was delayed, with the light fading fast and the rain beginning to fall it had to be shortened from 20 laps to just 12 laps. The race began and Neil could tell immediately that the springs had improved the push in the pickup, Neil finished the race 13th, officially making us 4th place in the 2011 Overall Pickup Truck Racing Championship. Neil would like to thank all of his sponsors for 2011, including L & N Graphic Designs and Wizard Embroidery. We would also like to thank Nic Grindrod #22 who kindly lent us some scales after ours broke.