XR2 Race Report - Rounds 11 & 12

Rounds 11 and 12 of the Scottish Fiesta XR2 championship took place on cold, foggy and very wet Knockhill. Conditions made the track treacherous with rivers forming on track and powerboats seemed more suited than cars.

With having the honour of being first on track, the XR2's and ST's were the first to experience the lack in grip and with the ST's having wet tires it made it harder for the XR2 runners. Martin calmly got into a good rhythm on what he considers to be his favourite weather and ended up 6th on the grid even with persistent traffic problems.

Race 1 saw little improvement in the weather and after an aborted start the race was underway, Martin got a good start but by being too cautious into duffis was unable to capitalise. With the ST's already coming through the field, Martin was in a close battle in 5th against Dave Colville when the safety car was deployed. This bunched up the field but in the remaining laps Martin was unable to make a move and finished in 6th.

Race 2 brought a slight improvement but with tyres well past their best Martin was in for a tough race. After a bad start, Martin attempted an ambitious move into duffis which didnt pay off and let both Greg Graham who was having a super drive and Russell Miloy through. The order remained until McIntyres on lap 2 when Dave C spun gifting 7th place then with some luck on the next lap Martin was up to 5th when firstly Greg spun at Duffis followed by Russell at the chicane. The safety was brought out again but troubles with a newcomer lead to Martin and Peter Cruickshank being held up and unable to catch the leading 3 cars. 5th was to be the final result and brought Martin up to 3rd in the XR2 Newcomers

Round 11 and 12 Preview - Sunday 19th September

Back to the usual Sunday racedays from now on. Tim Sleigh looks set to clinch the title very soon with a 70 point lead over Charlie Cope and with only 100 points left it would take some unbelievable bad luck fro the title to go elsewhere. Elsewhere the battle for 3rd is hotting up with Antony Leese, Peter Cruickshank (the man on form with 3 wins out of the last 4 races) and Barry Holmes all in contention.

In the XR2 Newcomers, Tim Sleigh needs only to start to clinch the title with Antony Leese 100 points behind. Following that, Russell Milloy and Martin Buchan are only separated by 3 points but with Russell maybe not racing on Sunday this could help Martin into the top 3.

The grid looks to have some more new faces joining the series and the ST numbers are ever improving.

Martin is looking to keep up his recent speed that he has shown in recent meetings but is hoping to stop the trend of the last 2 DNF results and score some big points to consolidate 3rd place in the Newcomers championship and try to close the 47 point gap to Antony in 2nd place.