Rallycross Euro B – British Team Version!
- Location: Valladolid Spain
- Track: Terradolis
- Weather: Crap!
- Report by: Rob Cuss
This year the British team led by team manager Alan Dell headed out to Spain for the Euro B, we had quite a strong team much like our football team. Our stars and hopes for the title were with Anthony Conroy, Matthew Lewis, Ben Williams and Ed Kerry.
Ed had come out to the warm-up so had a good idea of what to expect…well he might of had the rain in Spain had not soaked the track. The organisers of the event managed to pre-empt the weather and get a ton of carpet to cover the racing line, I have to say this wasn’t all bad and the event was saved.
Practice
The team was doing quite well, with the four I have already mentioned leading the team round. The rest of were testing tyres and had mixed results.
Old Man Awesome Pete Stevens was offering his years of experience to all of us, Marc Knight, Lewis Millman and Mark Johnston were the team jokers, we all practiced better than we thought and were looking forward to qualifying.
Qualifying
With 2 out of 4 to count it should be good, however the weather would play havoc, sunny one minute and raining the next, it was the luck of the draw and we weren’t that lucky. 5 of us qualified in the 128ths, a couple in the 64ths and the rest of the team in various higher finals; Anthony Conroy made the 8ths and Ben Williams and Ed Kerry made the quarters.
Finals
Dhami and Michael Lewis were first out for the Brits on Saturday evening, they drove well but just missed out on bumping up. The weather was much better on the Sunday and yours truly and 4 other intrepid Brits set out at 8:50am for our final. Only 2 out of 5 would bump, well done to Marc Knight and Pete Stevens, the rest of us had bad starts or radio issues…
Pete would bump one more time, the rest of the team didn’t get out of their finals due to errors or technical problems.
What a shame and the whole team were gutted…this was until the over 40’s went out. Pete Stevens, Jim Davis and Bryan Burrows were our hopes. Jim got a great start and was running third with Pete in 4th. Now this is the funny part; Marc Knight and Myself were Pete’s pit team and he was right on Jims tail. Jim got called for fuel and we made the decision to leave Pete out. However Pete decided he had heard a voice in his head telling him to come in for fuel…luckily we were just about ready.
We won the pit race and Pete got out in front. These two titans battled it out all the way to the line, swapping places as they went, Pete finally made his move stick on the last lap to take 3rd…and Jim 4th…however the German driver who won got a DQ on a technicality this left us with 2nd and 3rd…Wooooo, go team GB. Then in true GB spirit we retired to the bar!!
The main final was all about Bryan Baldo till he broke it…then it was all about Ricardo Monteiro who went on to take the win…this was all a bit blurry for us!! Party on!
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