2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Eddie has said that he expects IMSD Racing to have a tougher fight on its hands this year in the Premier Championship but also still believes that they will still be challenging for top honours in the Clubman Championship.
The opening round at Buckmore was a real eye-opener for the defending Inters Champions, who struggled home in a distant 21st place overall and never really broke into the top 20. Despite this disappointing start to the season, the whole team is still encouraged.
“We are the same team that dominated the Clubman race at Spa last year.” Explained Eddie. “We are also the same team that dominated the Clubman race at the Lance Yeomans race. In both of those events we proved that we can mix it with – and beat – the top guys. Saturday was just a blip!
“I hold my hands up and admit that I did a piss-poor job in qualifying but I don’t think that made any difference to our final position. What screwed us was my early race incident, which cost us over one and a half laps. Then Ian lost at least one lap with a spin, combined with two uncharacteristically poor pitstops, which must have cost us over half a lap, we must have lost at least 3 laps in total. If you take that into account, we would have finished second or third in class and would have been knocking on the door of the top 10 overall. This is where we expected to be.”
Eddie also went on to admit that he hadn’t expected such high competition from the existing Clubman teams.
“Basically, on paper, we were going to be racing against pretty much the same people as last year. I don’t think any of us really expected Tanked Up Racing to be in the Clubman class. Their team is comprised of regular A final front runners – Ant Teal has even won a sprint race – which is going to give them a huge advantage this year. Having said that, we beat them at Spa so I don’t see why we can’t beat them again.”
When asked what he thought about the team racing in the Clubman class, Eddie was philosophical:
“I know there was a small amount of noise being made at Buckmore about the fairness of it, and I can see that it could be considered an unfair advantage, but unfortunately they fulfil the criteria necessary to compete in the Clubman class. The advantage they enjoy is really no different to the one we had last year. I mean I was one of the only – if not the only – regular sprint driver in the Inters Championship last year and I was a regular A finalist too. This unquestionably helped us so we just have to accept that someone else has the advantage this year.”
