A Fun Week Of Racing (Pt. 2: DML "SIMX-5" @ Tsukuba)

Three weeks after Delta Motorsport League's last league, they were back with a bang on the 19th July - with a brand new series: Mazda MX5's.

Every round would consist of two races - R1 being 20 minutes and R2 being 30 minutes.

Practice

Practice was insanely close - myself and Nickisson trading times like it was qualifying - this was going to be an insanely close race

Battle For The Fastest Lap Hylton Nickisson - 1:05.732 (L1)

Hylton Nickisson - 1:05.425 (L2)

Robin Truswell - 1:05.310 (L3)

Hylton Nickisson - 1:05.308 (L5) -0.002 Robin Truswell - 1:05.286 (L6) Robin Truswell - 1:04.881 (L8) Hylton Nickisson - 1:04.735 (L6) Hylton Nickisson - 1:04.320 (L7) I couldn't respond to this - only managing a 1:04.492 on Lap 15. Hylton however went a further 0.2 faster on his own personal best on Lap 7.

Out of nowhere, Brandon Robert came in with an absolutely blistering 1:03.750 in the last 10 minutes of the hour session - he'd smash this though on his last lap of the session with a session-best of a 1:03.636. (Brandon) Robert was the favourite going into qualifying.

Nearing the end of the session, I was pipped by Hurley.

By the end of the hour, the practice results were 1st - Brandon Robert - 1:03.636

2nd - Hylton Nickisson - 1:04.159 3rd - Paul Hurley - 1:04.172 4th - Robin Truswell - 1:04.881 5th - Joseph Cronk 1:04.794

Qualifying

The crowd eagerly awaited as the 6 cars completed their qualifying times.

Practice was a great indicator of qualifying pace.

1st - Brandon Robert - 1:03.511 (New fastest of the session) 2nd - Paul Hurley - 1:04.139 (Up from 3rd in practice)

3rd - Hylton Nickisson - 1:04.144 (-0.005) (down from 2nd in practice)

4th - Robin Truswell - 1:04.285 (-0.1)

5th - Joseph Cronk - 1:04.687 6th - Heath Olinger 1:05.415

Race 1

In two words, the race was "absolutely wild."

On lap 2, one of my closest rivals, Nickisson missed his braking point into turn one and flew off the circuit - putting me into 3rd. To quote the 2014 Need For Speed movie "and then there were 3" - Robert lead from Hurley from Truswell.

Lap by lap Brandon pulled out a lead and came under even more threat from Truswell.

By Lap 7, Truswell had caught Hurley and was now looking for a way past.

The battle would be short-lived however as Hurley would get a wheel on the dirt on exit of Turn 1 starting the next lap - sadly spinning out - gifting Truswell 2nd and a 6-second gap to the car behind in 3rd.

I first met Cronk in my first proper league adventure whilst racing in the RSE Clio Cup - and, put bluntly, usually we'd both finish "nearer the back of the field" - Cronk not managing to get a podium in either the DML or RSE series...until today.

With Hylton and Hurley out of the way - myself and Cronk stormed through to a very impressive 2nd and 3rd - our first shared podium. Brandon Robert would win by a country mile (18 seconds) Race 2

If I thought Race 1 was crazy - I had another whole thing coming for race 2...

With the formation lap in this state just seconds before the race went green - I knew it would be "quite the adventure".

After my 2nd place in the opening race, I'd be starting on the last row - and had a fair bit of work up ahead of me.

By Turn 2, I was already up into 5th/6th after Olinger took a wide line around turn one (being on the left and outside line of the grid).

From starting 5th on the last row next to me - (Brandon) Robert was having a rollercoaster day - winning the first race to spinning out of the second on the opening lap - he had a long race ahead of him.

With Olinger and Robert now behind, I could now focus on catching the lead trio of Hurley, Nickisson and Cronk.

As long as they battle amongst themselves, I was in with a shot of catching up - and so they did.

Despite my best efforts, the 2-second gap remained consistent until Lap 7.

I missed my braking point and had a quarter-spin into turn 1...but ahead, things were looking much more dire...

Hurley attempted a rather ambitious divebomb down the inside of Nickisson into the second hairpin - punting the leader into a spin - Cronk breezing past the both of them and into the lead.

Hurley allowed Nickisson back past him as Nickisson rejoined.

Whilst I wasn't far behind, I could only close the gap down to just over a second - but it was closer than I was - and I had more slipstream than I had before.

Despite Cronk having a healthy lead - the race was in an interesting stage - Hylton and Hurley both had pace on Cronk, and with just a hint of slip-stream, whilst I wasn't closing on the pair ahead, I had enough slipstream to stay in contention.

It would only be a matter of time before Cronk was caught - and a four-way battle for the win in the very last laps was something I was very interested in.

Half way into the race, the Top 4 were separated by less than 2 seconds - Cronk had been caught - and a four way battle for the win had begun.

The next lap, I showed my nose down the inside of Hurley, this spooked him, he ran wide on the exit of turn one (he must love that corner) and I nipped on through to 3rd. I now just had to keep him behind.

Later that lap, he tried a dive down the inside at the hairpin - but to no avail.

Somehow Cronk managed to keep Hylton and myself behind - two faster drivers trying at every opportunity to get past - but he held on out - and myself and Cronk managed a double podium in just the first race of the season.

After the first round, the championship looked like this:

1st - Brandon Robert - 44 (+3 Pts. For Pole)

2nd - Joseph Cronk - 43

3rd - Robin Truswell - 39

4th - Hurley - 36 (+2 Pts. For Q 2nd)

5th - Nickisson - 32 (+ 1 Pt. For Q 3rd)

6th - Olinger - 16