We are the intermediate people
September 2010 |
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The ever improving Raggo Racing stormed to pole position some way ahead of the emerging team “The Wife Does Not Know How Much It Costs”, whose name is just so stupid and long I will simply refer to them in future as “Team X”. Pantera Racing did their championship chances no harm by lining up in third. SAD Racing were next up ahead of Racewear.co.uk and Angel Racing. We Are The People and the two Akita teams all had average qualifying runs and lined up in the mid field.
Raggo Racing’s jovial Oli Goodacre was delighted with his team’s best qualifying performance and was aiming for another podium, although it was clear he desperately wanted the win.
“Yes very happy. It’s the highest we’ve ever qualified and I put it down to the Tesco breakfast we had this morning because it seems to have given us the beans today. We tested yesterday because it’s the first time we’ve ever been to the circuit and we weren’t very fast so we watched a lot of the onboard stuff from the DVD of last year’s race and copied what all the prems were doing. That seems to have worked out well so fingers crossed we’ll get a podium.”
Raggo Racing held onto their lead as the Union Jack dropped. We Are The People made a storming start from the middle of the pack to snatch second at the end of the first lap with Pantera Racing, racewear.co.uk and Team X following suit.
Things remained extremely close between the front runners in the early stages. Even the pit stops were close and the leading 4 emerged from the first round of stops still only separated by a handful of seconds.
As the race wore on, We Are The People started to stretch out a nice lead. Jose Soler once again joined Richard Smith and David Palmer. Of course with the race reporter not knowing which one was Richard and which one was David making things a bit confusing for all concerned, I certainly couldn’t tell you which one out of the two of them was doing the better job. Anyway, either Richard or David gave their thoughts on their chances.
“We are doing really well. Jose had a really good start and jumped us from the middle of the grid right to the front. I went backwards a little bit but I think we’re still in with a shout.”
Raggo Racing were still looking strong and SMJ had worked their way into contention after an average qualifying. A number of black flags scuppered the chances of both the Akita teams. A rare mistake from Pantera Racing saw them spin out of contention.
“I’m absolutely gutted. It’s the first one of the season. It’s such a shame because we were doing really well. I think we were running sixth overall. Without a doubt the pressure is starting to get to us. I really feel it. I don’t know where we will end up now so we’ll just have to see how the rest of the race goes.”
There wasn’t much more to come from the championship leaders as they struggled home to their worst finish of the season. Worse news for them was the fact that two of their main championship rivals, Raggo and SMJ, were both on course for podium finishes.
At the finish it was We Are The People who scored yet another win, causing many of their rivals to question the validity of their rookie status given their driver line-up. Rumours that the Stig is one of their drivers cannot be confirmed. Raggo racing yet again finished second and SMJ picked up another podium with third. The team with the silly name came fourth thanks to the Stig and racewear.co.uk and SAD Racing rounded out the top 6.
Once I finally established the difference between a Smith and a Palmer, I discussed their victory with them.
“Thanks again to our star driver. It was another last minute thing. About eleven o’clock last night I gave Jose the call asking if he could stand in and he accepted so he did a great job for us. It’s just worked out very well for us today and things went our way. Raggo Racing were very fast so fair play to them.”
With We Are The People not competing in all the races and with the prospect of being bumped up to the Inters championship anyway, they are unlikely to feature in the championship standings. Pantera still lead from SMJ, Akita V2 and Fear Are We Wacing with Raggo looking like the biggest threat on dropped scores. Surely their first win is just around the corner and I personally feel that once they get it the floodgates will open and they will emerge as the biggest thorn in Pantera’s side. Pantera need to re-group before Wales if they are to retain their championship lead as the season moves into the final four races.
