Sunday 20th July 2014 - SLS Round 5

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Round 5 Report

Super Lap Scotland Round 5 - Sunday 20th July

The fifth round of Super Lap Scotland was the third and final conventional direction round of Knockhill circuit for 2014. Round 6 will be reverse direction. The aim of the day - building up to a perfect lap in the Super Lap Final. Thankfully the weather was much better than Round 4 and more spectators made the journey to watch SLS and BSC compete.

SLS is simply - man and machine against the track and clock. Competitors complete two warm up sessions to perfect their lines and tweak their set ups ahead of qualifying. In qualifying competitors get a couple of attempts at topping the timesheets by completing 2 flying laps, with the top 5 competitors in each class progressing to the SLS Final; where one lap, that's right, one single lap decides it all. There were several close calls on these all or nothing laps!

There are six classes, all based on the power-to-weight ratio of each car; which allows even the most modest of road cars the opportunity to compete against the super-tuned monsters out on track; with points awarded for qualifying positions and overall finishing positions in each class. Meaning that, a class E competitor (least powerful) could easily take the overall Championship title from a Pro class competitor (most powerful) by scoring more points throughout the season, giving us an overall "King of Knockhill".

Warmup

The warmup session traditionally sees competitors giving their cars a shake down whilst scrubbing tyres or finding out more about the track conditions. A couple of the drivers even chose to sit the session out.
The top three times in this session were set by Shaw (Focus - 55.521) , Collins (Cayman - 57.701) and Napier (Impreza - 58.181).

Practice

The drivers now started to push on, with some practicing batches of 1 flying lap on cool tyres to get some practice for the final. Other drivers took the different approach and used the time to get maximum laps in - David Gebbie managed 26laps in his Porsche! Dave Herd took the fastest time in Class E with a 1:02.995. Class D was a much closer group with 8 cars split by just 2 seconds. Callum Dryburgh took top spot with a 59.772, David Gebbie second with a 60.301 and Allister Phillips took third with a 61.255. Jason and Frank Ogg were still suffering from the gearbox issues they were plagued with during round 4. Class C saw Keith Cowie set the fastest time from Bob Mackay, with Wayne Sutherland and John Wilson not far behind. Andrew Christie encountered issues and couldn't match the time he set in the first practice, ending his day prematurely. Class B was between Jack Strathdee and Adam Kindness again, with the TrackScotland Impreza coming out on top despite suffering a lack of drive with a broken rear differential. David Long set the fastest time in Class A with Fiona a couple of seconds behind. Pro - Could anyone stop Charlie Shaw? Not in this session. Charlie took top spot in Class and overall with a 52s lap. Russ Paton set the second fastest time with Andy Napier less than a second behind.

Qualifying

Qualifying is scored, so the pressure is on to perform. Drivers get three chances at two flying laps, this give practice on cold tyres for the Super Lap Final.
Dave Herd took full qualifying points in Class E with a 63.231s lap. Craig McDowall took second with a 65.329. Class D qualifying was dominated by Matt Collins. Matt set a 57.820s lap that was 1.5s clear of Callum Dryburgh in his Impreza (59.396). Jason Ogg did well to take 3rd spot with a 60.022. Sadly Allister Phillips was missing from qualifying after suffering brakes issues earlier in the day.
Class C was always going to be very competitive based on the times set in previous rounds. Keith Cowie blasted his R35 GTR round in 56.851s to set a new class record and take 1st in qualifying. Bob Mackay was just 0.3s behind, and Wayne Sutherland a further 0.3s behind. John Wilson came agonisingly close to a 58sec lap but had to settle with a 59.010 and 4th place. Adam Kindness took 1st spot in Class B with a 56.094 and Jack Strathdee 2nd with a 57.599 in the tyre shredding Focus RS. David Long continued his form from earlier in the day and took full points with a 55.731s lap. Fiona Kindness took second in her Impreza whilst appearing to really struggle with traction out of the hairpin - pictures showing her smoking one rear tyre.
Pro class was won by Charlie Shaw (52.781), with Andy Napier and Russ Paton respectively narrowing the gap to the top spot.

Final

One final flying lap to decide the points, all or nothing. 50points are available for 1st, down to 10 for 5th. Cars went out in order of qualification, with slowest out first, building up to the fastest car. The track was very wet again, so no lap records were going to be set.

Class E - Dave Herd dominated the Class E final, securing a full 65 points for the day. Craig McDowall took second.

Class D - Jason Ogg took a surprise victory with a poorly Seat Leon Supercoppa (58.531). The car managed to stay in the correct gears to complete the lap and pip Matt Collins right at the death. Matt was only 0.2s behind Jason. Callum Dryburgh rounded off the top three with a respectable 59.848.

Class C - As per Round 2, 3 and 4, Class C was VERY close in the final. The top 3 driver were only separated by only 0.4 seconds. Wanye took first (56.881), Keith second and Bob third. This was the first time in the day that Wayne had taken the top time for the class, and the 50 points will help his championship hopes.

Class B - Adam Kindness took first with a 55s lap after changing to slightly softer tyres for the final. Jack Strathdee wasnt far behind in his Focus with a 57.616 on new tyres.

Class A - David Long had the momentum from the morning, setting faster laps than Fiona in all sessions. This trend continued with David setting a 55.690 in the final to narrowly defeat Fiona would had made big improvements through out the day. She set a 56.737 in the final.

PRO - Charlie Shaw again proved too much for the opposition and finished 1.8 seconds ahead of Russ Paton and Andy Napier. Charlie nearly blew it on the final corner of the superlap final when he locked up, ran wide and just kept it out of the gravel. This victory is Charlie's 5th full points score. Will he complete a clean sweep of all rounds?

Full class honours are as follows:

	Pro Charlie Shaw - Ford Focus (1st) Russ Paton - Mitsubishi EVO (2nd) Andy Napier - Mitsubishi EVO (3rd) Class A David Long - Caterham R400 (1st) Fiona Kindness - Subaru Impreza (2nd) Class B Adam Kindness - Subaru Impreza (1st) Jack Strathdee - Ford Focus (2nd) Class C Wayne Sutherland - Mitsubishi EVO (1st) Keith Cowie - Nissan GTR (2nd) Bob MacKay - Mitsubishi EVO (3rd) Class D Jason Ogg - Leon Supercoppa (1st) Matt Collins - Porsche Cayman (2nd) Calum Dryburgh - Subaru Impreza (3rd) Class E Dave Herd - Ford Fiesta MkII (1st) Craig McDowall - Renault Clio (2nd)

Fastest laps per session:

Super Lap Scotland comes back to Knockhill on Sunday 21st September for round 6. Make sure you book tickets for the final via the Knockhill website.

Thanks also, once again, to all those officials, marshals and medical teams who devote so much time to ensuring we can enjoy motorsport events like today.
For all the results and in-depth reports from today, make sure you hop on over to the Super Lap Scotland website or give their Facebook page a like ahead of the next event.

See you all at Knockhill very soon!

For more Round 3 Pictures please visit - Power-Images or Flat Out Photography

Results:

Full Results