Barry Rabbitt reports from Rounds 1 & 2 of the Irish Touring Car Championship in Mondello Park. An eventful day saw Barry in his Tuning Factory Honda CRX take pole positions, race wins and set new lap records.

Race Report – Mondello Park, April 10^th

I love this time of year, the winter is over and its time to go racing again! Pre season testing was limited but fruitful with some very encouraging times with the Tuning Factory CRX now running Hankook F200 slicks. Lap times in the 59s were popping up on the lap timer with relative ease and all looked good for round one of the ITCC, easily Irelands top racing class with over 40 of the countries top saloon cars and drivers taking part most weekends.

Qualifying saw us take to the track which was unseasonally warm at some 26C peak. Conscious to preserve our new slicks for the days battles I gently bedded the tyres in and put in a banker lap of 60.7 which was good enough for P2 behind 2010 champion Martin Treacy who had done a 60.1. After a few laps circling to heat cycle the tyres I returned to the pits for a few minutes and play some mind games. With just 2 minutes to go and positions unchanged I took to the track again and pushed for a good lap, with seconds to go I crossed the line and stopped the clocks at 59.4seconds to take pole position by a massive 7/10^ths of a second.

Race One:

Starting from pole I made a good start with plenty of traction and lead comfortably into turn one. A few fast laps early on saw me build up a comfortable lead so I backed of slightly and was lapping in the high 60s. With 4 laps to go and a healthy lead I decided to push for a few quick laps in a bid to capture the saloon car lap record for Mondello Park. On lap 8 a time of 60.117 ticked that box and it was simply a case of bringing it home for a race win. Job done!

Race Two:

With the top 6 finishers from race 1 reversed on the grid of race two I started on the outside of the Westward Engineering RS500. Another good start saw myself and Treacy jump ahead of Burdock who was on the row ahead. I knew I had to be ahead of the Sierra in turn one to give myself the best opportunity. A good dose of late braking saw me slip ahead into turn one and by the exit of turn two I was up to third position. Turn three and I slipped up the inside of my old Honda Integra now in the capable hands of Ciaran Timmons. Next on the list was Stephen Maher in the Gimartin Motorsport M3 Compact. The CRX on its Hankook slicks has inredible corner speed which got me all the way around the outside of the BMW at Mazda corner, unfortunately a dirty off line track meant I had to back out of it. On the run up to the final corner the superior braking ability of the Tuning Factory CRX saw me right on Mahers bumper. He defended heavily which hurt his exit speed, the resulting drag race to the line saw me take the lead on the run into turn one. From there on it was a relatively comfortable few laps but disaster was soon to strike. With the track getting even hotter I started attacking the kerbs slightly to maintain my pace. The stiffly sprung Honda cried enough with just 3 laps to go and broke a driveshaft meaning I could only coast to a stop and see Treacy streak by to collect a fistful of points that just a few seconds later I had one hand on.

After the inevitable distraught dispersed I could take a lot of positives from the weekend. Our new tyre supplier Hankook have given us a fantastic product which really suits the CRX, we got a pole position, a race win and a saloon car lap record.

The car is now with the Tuning Factory who I have no doubt will have it back to 100% health in time for rounds 3 and 4 at Anglesey in North Wales over the Easter weekend