Iconic cup 2017 R1 Stafford Andy Travis Race Report and set-up

 

Iconic cup round 1

The 23^rd of April marked the start of the 2017 iconic cup. For those of you not familiar with the iconic cup, it’s a championship that relives the days of the Tamiya Eurocup that finished in the UK in 2005. It is a great way to race some classic Tamiya chassis and scale bodyshells.

The championship has stretched from 2 rounds in 2016 to 4 in 2017. Here are the tracks & dates:

• Stafford: 22nd & 23rd April
• Cotswolds: 14^th May
• Broxtowe: 3^rd &4th June
• West London: 17&18^th June

The cars looked great lined up in the morning sun

As I won the stock touring championship in 2016, I was keen to retain my title for 2017. Every event allows free practise on Saturday. I wasn’t able to attend the practice day due to family commitments, I attended a club day in March in anticipation. I loaded my cars to the track on Sunday for another great race meeting

Practice

We were greeted with a cool, but dry start to the day. There were clouds threatening to make an impact, but failed to deliver. Having previously tested here a month ago, I felt that I had a base setup to work with. The track was ‘coked’ for the club day, but wasn’t for our race day. I believe the threat of rain would cause the track to go super greasy if coke was applied, then washed away with the rain.

The track was really low grip of the racing line.

When I went out on track, I could already feel that the grip wasn’t very high. There were a few slides coming out of some corners, but the car was very driveable. A few minutes on the track was enough for me to feel happy with the car & was ready for round 1

Qualifying

Round1: I was seeded into the top heat of stock as car 6 out of 8, so had some work to do. From practice, I experimented with different additive prep & fitted a fresh set of tyres for the days racing. The race format was FTD qualifying, so the ultimate fastest run would determine the grid positions.

Time to lower those lap times

As I started, I could feel there was even less grip than qualifying as the tyres were still shiny. The first few laps were very dramatic & I had a few half spins. There was a lot of carnage as everyone was trying to sort out their ultimate pace. Although a lot of paint was traded, I managed to stay out of trouble & TQ the round

Round2: I just tried leaving the additive on for longer in the hope that the tyre was drier, to increase grip. I found the first few laps to be horrible to drive, so thought about a wetter tyre for round 3. After the first few laps, I settled into a comfortable pace & was driving well. The car started to feel a little loos on the last lap. I clipped the inside kerb going on the straight for the final lap & the car spun onto the straight! A quick warning shout to my fellow racers allowed them to avoid them hitting a car facing the wrong way on the track.

It’s always the innocent car that comes off worse when a spun car is struck on the track. I had a good lead, but not enough to retain TQ & dropped to 2^nd fastest time. A look over the car in the pits found a rear wheel nut had come loose (doh!). Nothing broken, so a change from nyloc to serrated wheel nuts was made to hopefully prevent another wheel nut coming loose

Round 3: I applied the additive later & took my place on the grid. The car felt a lot better to start & I was staying with the new TQ leader.

Although we had a similar pace, I think I had a better start & was able to stick close to the on track leader & go 1 second faster to take TQ due to on split times

Round 4: I put the rear tyres on the front & vice versa due to the graining on the front. I cleaned all of the tyres before additive was applied &

I charged into the final qualifying round. If I failed to improve, I was in danger of losing the TQ as the local drivers have the track knowledge & were very fast. I stuck to my lines & drove a clean race. I did enough to take pole position by less than 1 second

So overall TQ which would put me on the pole for the final.

Final

You are always tempted to make a setup change for the final in the hopes you find a little extra to take the win. Sometimes this can make the car awesome for the final, but you can go the other way & wreck your chances of a victory. There was only 1 final, so the 1 result would count. As I took pole position & the grip was improving during the day, I just decided to change nothing & try to drive a perfect race, hitting every apex & would make the car very wide to make a pass difficult

The start tone went & I charged hard into the first corner. I managed to sort my additive prep & had great grip from the first lap.

I just focused on keeping the car on the racing line 

Although I was concentrating on my race, I think car 2 was hassled by car 3 & I was able to pull a gap. From that point on, I just drove with total concentration & commitment. I was hitting every apex & not making any silly errors. I was able to take the win by almost 4 seconds

Set-up

Here is my TA04 setup from Stafford:

Conclusion

The TA04 was great all day. Although I struggled to start well due to low traction, I was able to find a good setup & delivered the result when it mattered

See you at round 2 in the Cotswolds! 

(Additional Pics by John Weston from Iconic RC)