Round 5 of the 750MC RoadSports Championship was way back in August at Silverstone. That was a disaster for me. The previous round of the Club Enduro Championship was at Oulton last month, and I managed to win in tricky conditions, confirming my defense of the Class A championship. Ryan and Dylan were not as fortunate.
The final round of both championships would be back on the same weekend at Donington Park, our local circuit. With the Class A Roadsports title still up for grabs, and overall in ClubEnduro, we needed to give it our all, at least on Saturday!

All the details and dates for future races we are entering can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.

A layout of the Donington GP Circuit is below. The only difference between the National and GP is the Melbourne Loop, so instead of a quick Right-Left Chicane, it is a Left-Right at The Esses, then the Melbourne and Goddards Hairpins before you are back on to the Wheatcroft Straight past the pit lane.

Our TT TDIs have a declared weight of 1210kg without the driver, Class A petrol cars can have 300hp/tonne if NA and 295hp/tonne if they have a turbo. We can only have 281bhp/ton due to Diesels having a 1.05 power multiplier. This works out to 339.95bhp on the Championship Dyno at our minimum weight.
So we are ~15bhp/tonne down on Forced Induction and 20bhp/ton on NA cars, which we think is unfair but those are the rules!
The 750MC now uses TSL for timing.

Full Race Day Vlog

We have a full Vlog from the weekend, with snippets of the races:

Testing

Being just over an hour down the road, we opted to test Friday afternoon and set off first thing in the morning. We arrived as the last few morning sessions were finishing, and there were quite a few reg flags. Hopefully not too many more for our two 30 minute sessions!
The sessions went pretty well for me, but traffic meant neither of us got a fully clear lap in so see where we were. I'd done a 1:39 dead here on a trackday last year, but was struggling to get into the 1:40s.
Ryan was pushing hard straight away and was also in the low 1:41s with some traffic to deal with. He did have a bit of grief with the adjustment of the shifter cables, but the guys were able to rectify that pretty quickly between sessions.

Roadsports Qualifying

The next day we were out for Quali at 10am and the track was even busier than during testing. We'd got a decent spot in the queue but even on a long outlap, I'd still got slower cars in front that hurt me on the first flier as I could not get round them all. Ryan was right behind me and we put in a 1:41.900 and 1:41.913. At the time that was enough for P2 and P3 so it was looking good, however Tye had said Mauger had done a 1:38.100 on hist first flying lap, almost 1s quicker than the lap record. It would be a race for the 2nd spot on the grid!
Ryan stayed out and improved while I came in to check pressure and temps, which had come up more than expected considering it was pretty cold. My other rivals for the Championship, the Gadsby / Jones BMW put in a good time, a 1:39.066 to secure 2nd. Then the new GT4RS of Simmerson got into the low 39s as well, so at best I figured we could try for 4th against the 1:39.921 that Henderston had managed in the Elise early on.
At this point the Red Flags came out for a massive crash at Craners. Luckily no one was hurt but the car was in a real mess on the back of the truck, the rear wheels hanging off and the front all stoved in! A reminder of how easy it can go wrong!
We came back out and I got into the 1:40s, but Ryan was almost into the 39s, so I needed to push even harder. On the last attempt I just snuck into the 39s, pushing Ryan down a place behind me, settling for 5th. It was the hardest I had worked for such a poor result.

The laps show just how messy it was for me, leaving it to the end is always a risky move!

No one stood a chance against a time like this. It certainly raised some eyebrows across the paddock.

Qualifying Laps

Our fastest Quali laps are shown below:

Roadsports Race

Side by side with Ryan at the start, I would have preferred it to be on the front row instead of the third! If Mauger won with the fastest lap, I needed to place on the podium. If Gadsby / Jones did the same, I would need to place 5th or higher.

The whole race was Live Streamed by the guys at AlphaLive which you can see below:

On the way to the grid I noticed a puff of smoke from under the bonnet. I hoped it was nothing, but was we were gridding up, I got another puff. When we started the green flag lap I could hear the Turbo more, and it was smoking more often. It was not looking good.
As soon as we went for it, the noise was extremely loud and the cabin filled with smoke. I pushed on, getting completely sideways into Old Hairpin, but by the time we went through McLean's for the first time, I had lost all boost. I tried to get out of Ryan's way but did hurt him a little, so he was down to 7th position by the end of the opening lap.
I peeled into the pits, knowing now the fate of the championship was in the hands of the other drivers. The guys ripped off my bonnet and found the V-Band clamp holding the turbo to the manifold had split, leaking exhaust gas everywhere except through the turbine wheel! Gutting.

Shortly after I'd retired there was a safety car due to a pretty bad crash on the main straight. As it was a big one, it just crept into the Pit Window (15 minutes into the race). I was just getting out out of my race suit and watching the live stream, and figured it could potentially win Ryan the race if he pitted and the guys in front didn't. I ran to the garage and asked Geordie to relay the message.
Ryan had been thinking the same thing, so dove straight into the pits at the first opportunity. Goes in the #222 RS3 did the same, so they were bumper to bumper coming into the pits.
The guys did a great stop despite the little warning, and managed to get Ryan out in front of the Audi, to take the net lead of the race. A lap later everyone else piled in, but this gave Ryan track position on everyone else, with a plethora of Class B, C and D cars between him and most of his rivals.

The #18 Mauger / Blencowe TCR was way down in 27th as the safety car peeled in, showing just how crucial that early stop was.
Ryan held off a few attacks from Goes behind, then started to pull a gap on the rest of the field. In this scenario, with me out and scoring only 1 measly point for turning up, the #18 needed to finish 5th in class, or 6th with the fastest lap of the race. At the start that would have been a tall order, but with around 20 minutes to go they were way down the overall order and 9th in class. Maybe the miracle I needed would come true.
I had to sit and watch as they picked off the various Class A cars, eventually getting up to 3rd place. With another lap they would have been in 2nd, still a fair way off Ryan but well beyond the required target to steal the lead of the championship we'd held all season.
Ryan didn't have it easy. The super unreliable Kotouč Sequential Box came back to bite us again, with 5th gear sounding terrible for a good 20 minutes, so bad that he resorted to skipping the gear all together.
Our full races are below, mine is VERY short:

A 2nd miracle almost came through, as the #18 was summoned to the Clark of the Course for a safety car infringement. Depending on the severity of the penalty, I might have still had it in the bag.
However it was not meant to be, the 60s time penalty they received dropped them to 6th in class, and with the fastest lap to their name, we were tied on points.

Ryan's pace was mega after the restart, and would have been even better without the gearbox troubles.

The position chart makes for interesting reading!

The driver statistics show the driver time split and fastest laps. Mauger and Blencowe are normally close to each other on lap times, but Mauger didn't get many laps before the safety car was called. Ryan's best lap was the 2nd quickest overall.

Had Ryan held the fastest lap of the race, set on lap 12, the #18 would have been denied the point this gives, and the championship as well. That is how fine the margins were.

Fastest Laps

Ryan's fastest race lap is below:

The Lap record from 2023 was set by Josh Lawton in his Civic, with Ryan in the TT and Crowhurst in the E46 so close to that time as well. 0.07s separating their best laps. It was smashed multiple times this year throughout the race. My lap from Class B was also obliterated by Jon Munday in his Civic, with a 1:43.764

With that, we were tied on 50 points after the 6 races. However, with 2 wins to my single victory at Snetterton, the #18 were the Class A Champions.

ClubEnduro Qualifying

With yesterday's disappointment behind us, I was looking forward to a stress free ClubEnduro Race. I'd already sealed the Class A title at Oulton in the wet, but still had a chance at the overall championship, which just needed a good result from me and maybe a bit of bad luck for some of the guys in Class B and C.
However, we got to the track in a thick fog, and waited patiently for updates from Race Control. As it got closer to lunchtime, it was looking bleake, with no sign of the fog lifting.
At 12:15, the meeting was abandoned. All our friends and family had come to watch the final race of the season and were left disappointed. The lads had stayed up past 11pm changing the gearbox on Ryan's car, converting it to a H-Pattern manual like mine, all for nothing.
There is one this no one can control, and that is the weather (unless you are Bill Gates).

I set the 2024 Lap record and it still stands, if we are looking for a positive from the day!

So with no result being declared, the championship ????????????????????????????????????????

The team worked tirelessly all weekend, and we had another mixed result for our garage, this time in Ryan's favour, which I was buzzing about, at least it meant he could end on a high, and prove that when the car does not let him down (or he doesn't put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time!), he has the ability to get a great result.
With no solid plans for 2026 yet, who knows what the future will bring! I do feel like there is unfinished business in Roadsports, having come so close to winning the first year of it being a championship! Watch this space!

Photos courtesy of Samuel Whitton Photography, Jonathan Elsey Motorsport Photography and 750MC

All the details and dates for future races we are entering can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.