Madison’s Spa Party

by Patrick Atherton on June 14th, 2011

Week 6 of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series moved to the famous hills of Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. This classic venue provokes mixed feelings amongst the V8 sim racers, with many chasing setups in practice sessions right up until the 8.45pm main race. Still, nobody can resist the timeless allure of Eau Rouge, one of the most exciting succession of curves in motorsport.

Are the field going to become accustomed to this view in Season Two?

Madison Down returned to the top split, much to the field’s chagrin. He poled with a stonking time, the only driver in the 22′s. The Netherlands’ Rens Broekman shared the front row. Defending champ Mitch McLeod was third from Dylan Gulson, Troy Cox, Guy Leach, Vail Richies, Simon Black, Stuart Wood and Scott U’Ren. Once again, a full field greeted the green lights.

There was nothing in it between the leading trio heading into La Source, but Broekman swept around the outside of Down and won the drag race down to Eau Rouge. Down described his start as a “shocker”, explaining “…got way too much clutch slip and sat on the line going nowhere”, although half the field would be thrilled to have one of Madison Down’s shocking starts. Broekman hung on to the lead valiantly for the best part of half a lap. Down got a better run out of Pouhon and eventually took the lead exiting Turn 14. He had to work for it, with a well constructed passing move over several corners. He set about building a lead.

Leach, Cox and Riches had a race long duel

Broekman settled in second place and McLeod kept watch over all this in third. Gulson was a small gap behind in fourth. Right behind him, Cox had made the mother of all dives on Leach under brakes into La Source to begin Lap Two and taken fifth. Vail Richeswas seventh. While the gap between fourth-fifth-sixth-seventh see-sawed a bit, the battle lasted for the whole race.

Up front, Down asserted himself as expected, but Broekman’s pace was good, so it was a case of Down pulling out a tenth here and there. Likewise Broekman kept a gap back to McLeod, and Gulson carried on in fourth.

George Fullerton did as he always does, getting inside the top ten regardless of his starting position, running in ninth with Scott U’Ren shadowing him. Cal Whatmore was 11th after a Lap Four altercation with Simon Black in the chicane. Whatmore was feeling the heat from Tim Mosmans and had dived into a closing gap, Black coming out the worse for wear. Darrin Vouch was running steadily in 13th, having “…made a reasonable start again and avoiding some bumpy bumpy into La Source”. Matt Yeomans and Bigpond Sport’s Vern Norrgard battled it out over 14th for much of the race, with some side-by-side action for several laps.

Christopher Larmour gets the rough end of Matt Yeomans' excursion, with Norrgard poised to capitalise

Leach had usurped fifth from Cox again, with a nifty power-down move out of Turn 14 on Lap Eight. Vail Riches joined their battle, while Stuart Wood was alone in eighth.

So, while the action was plentiful from fifth place down to last, up front it was a Season One flashback with Madison Down leading serenely. Broekman was a solid second, and McLeod could do no more than third- “I don’t know what it is but I just couldn’t keep the pace up at Spa” said last season’s champ. Gulson was very satisfied to be fourth. These positions held in the closing laps.

Yeomans was not enjoying his Season Two Spa baptism, on the penultimate lap running wide into Les Combes, he collected Christopher Larmour on re-entry. This elevated an Norrgard to 14th, although Vern was also not enjoying Spa today.

“I got too greedy out of Eau Rouge…” – George Fullerton

There were battles all through the field. Here Fullerton heads U'Ren, Whatmore, Mosmans and Vouch

It’s a long lap at Spa, and there was still mayhem right up to the checker on the final lap: Cox, Riches and Wood were all bearing down on Leach in fifth place. Riches stole sixth from Cox into Les Combes, and harried Leach all the way to the final chicane, whereupon Riches’ engine went Boom, allowing Cox back past. “Lucky you don’t pay for those motors..!” quipped Leach, as it was Riches’ second engine failure in as many weeks.

Meanwhile, Fullerton had to painfully hand ninth place, and then tenth, to U’Ren and Whatmore respectively.”On the last lap I caught sight of Stuart who looked like he was coming back to us, I got too greedy out of Eau Rouge and copped my second black flag of the night…”  George had a last-ditch lunge at Whatmore in the chicane in an attempt to reclaim his customary top ten position, but it was to no avail.

So it was Down, Broekman, McLeod, Gulson, Leach, Cox, Riches, Wood, U’Ren, Whatmore, Fullerton, Mosmans, Vouch, Norrgard, Larmour, Simone Gelli, Black, Wauchope.and Matt Yeomans running at the finish.

Down was just happy to not have a re-occurrence of his connection problems which plagued him at Spa last season. “As always thanks to all the competitors for such a clean race. It’s always great racing in this series for that reason. The Competition is world class…”. Amen to that.