Round 9 of the SMRC calendar, “Season Finale” possibly not doing the event justice. With numerous championships still up for grabs, there was bound to be some epic battles, none more so than the fight for the Celtic Speed MINI Cooper Cup. Coming in to the final round, Joe “Front Row Joe” Tanner had a 5 point lead on Kenny Thirlwall, with David Sleigh a further 24 points behind. With 78 points available over 3 races, it was still all to play for.

Qualifying in very wet and greasy conditions saw a surprise pole, with first year racer Greg Barnard 2 hundredths of a second ahead of Thirlwall with Tanner in 3rd. Wet weather specialist Vic Covey Jnr was 4th followed by Team Sleigh’s Aiden Moffat and David Sleigh. Lewis Grant claimed 7th with Malcolm in 8th.

Race 1 was again wet with Thirwall grabbing the lead and Tanner holding second right up to the last lap when their battle slowed them up at the hairpin and in a bold move, Moffat passed both round the outside giving him his first MINI race win. Ian Munro came home 4th followed by Covey in 5th with Malcolm in 6th unable to challenge Covey properly after a first lap collision left him with bent suspension.

Race 2’s conditions were marginally better although still a touch slippery with a damp track starting to show a dry line. Thirlwall and Tanner again set to it at the front of the field battling it out for the lead. Munro held on to 3rd with Sleigh making it up to 4th on the first lap before contact at MacIntyres on lap 2 forced him to retire from the race. Malcolm was in the wars again with a smash from behind through the hairpin on lap 1 seeing him sliding broadside up the track and gravel and dropping down to 8th but recovering to chase down the dueling Munro and Covey. With Marco Haig’s car parked on the edge of the gravel trap at the end of lap 6, the race was red flagged.

With the draw for race 3 completed, Chris Reid took pole with Josh Baird along side. Malcolm lined up 3rd alongside Covey, Munro and Tanner were on row 3, Thirlwall and Moffat on row 4. With Thirlwall moving in to a 3 point lead following race 2 it was all down to this race for the championship.

Off the lights Reid moved ahead with Baird tucking in behind only to lose out as Malcolm chose to go round the outside in to Duffus making it stick and claiming 2nd, only a folded in wing mirror giving away just how tight a pass it had been! In to MacIntyres on lap one and Baird was elbowed out by Covey for 3rd place, which he held up to the hairpin when Tanner forced his way past followed through by Thirlwall.

Reid lead the way until lap 4 when Malcolm managed the cut back at the hairpin getting the inside to drag race up the start finish straight and hold his line in to Duffus taking the lead, Reid being muscled out by Thirwall in to MacIntyres, dropping him back down the field. In to the hairpin and Thirlwall’s patented passing move saw Malcolm take an elbowing out on to the gravel dropping him down to 4th, just before the safety car came out.

After 2 laps under the safety car, the race went green again, the order at this point; Thirlwall, Tanner, Moffat, McNab. Thirlwall and Tanner immediately settled back in to the swing of it with some hard and physical racing, contact between the pair slowing them up slightly starting lap 8, allowing Moffat to take the lead. Coming in to MacIntyres on lap 9, futher contact between the two saw both cars take to the gravel dropping down the field, Malcolm nipping through in to 2nd place followed by Barnard, Covey and Sleigh respectively with that order staying to the finish.

The contact on lap 8 left Thirlwall and Tanner with damaged cars, Tanner limped home with a broken wheel in 17th out of the points, Thirwall managed to finish 9th taking the title by 10 points. Sleigh held 3rd with Malcolm securing his 4th place overall ahead of Covey.

Wet Wet Wet. Band of my childhood and fellow Glaswegians, also the most apt description of Sunday’s racing (my analogy that it resembled a certain tubby celebrity’s gusset in a kebab shop, used on Facebook, was apparently crude…)

Qualifying was actually not too bad place wise, positioned 7th, but at over 1 second off the pace, work needed to be done.

My race engineer, Barry Holmes, loaned me some better rear tyres for race 1 with a less feathered tread and these definitely helped. Brakes were still a problem, however. The pedal just lacked any bite and sometimes you were on them for quite some time before you actually got any stopping power. Started 7th, finished 6th, just managing to keep a charging Kenny Thirlwall behind me on the last few corners.

For race 2 we uncovered the braking issue, the pad material was no longer attached to the backing plate! Swapping on some new pads made an immense difference, a difference which unfortunately caught me out when a dab before the chicane actually unsettled the car massively allowing Kenny Thirlwall past demoting me to 7th. From then on I had to defend against Ian Munro and Greg Barnard to secure my 7th, a bit disappointing.

Race 3 video:

Belter of a start, got the drop on David Sleigh and drew along side Vic Covey Jnr. Vic kept it going round the outside then broke away whilst I defended from Dave.

Once Dave dropped back in to fighting with Ian Munro I got to fight with Vic after he ran wide at the hairpin. Just about lost it trying to go round the outside at Duffus when I hit the greasy bit but managed to gather it back and get the cut back out of Macintyres. 6th place to 5th, the best result of the weekend.

2013’s only away round was held at Oulton Park this weekend, with the leafy roller coaster Cheshire circuit bathed in sunshine and a packed 25 car grid.

Qualifying was disappointing with Malcolm only managing 9th place. After struggling to settle in to the circuit, the session was halted on the 4th lap just as he was finding his groove and was 4 tenths up on his previous best.

Race 1 was frenetic. After a first corner shambles with the lead cars Malcolm threaded his way through the carnage up to 6th but got pushed back down to 8th after cascades and the run up to island bend. After surviving an off through island at close to 100mph he was back in 9th with a lot of work to do and fought hard to get back up the field finishing 5th and getting the draw for the reverse grid pole.

Off pole he had one of his worst starts this year finding himself wheel to wheel with Kenny Thirlwall in to the first corner. Both kept it clean and without any contact, continued the race down to cascades. Ducking in behind Kenny for the first lap Malcolm was set to challenge but got forced wide by a late lunge in to Lodge that saw him taking avoiding action on the grass and briefly being airborne bouncing back on to the track in 5th. After seeing off some pressure from the team boss, David Sleigh, he made it back up to 4th despite some handling issues after his offroad excursions.

Not the best weekend of results but at the same time, 2 points finishes in the top 5 when both races could have ended in complete disaster!

Doesn’t half seem like time flies once the season starts. It’s been a month already so this weekend is the 2nd round of the SMRC season. The timetable for the Maggie Miller Race of Champions weekend is below: