Kevern McShine. The Radical Report with Gulf-Sport

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One aspect of the National Racing Calendar here in the UAE is the super fast and successful Gulf Radical Cup that is run by the boys and gals from Gulf-Sport. If I’s being honest the racing in the Radicals is truly bonkers. Anything that gives Joe public the ability to rip around at F3 speeds is cool by me. One of our good friends that sits in the same budgetless boat as we do is Keverne McShine who this year has scrimped, saved and borrowed his way onto the grid and the cool thing is he will run a race report for us all to enjoy. So as they say…Over to Kev!

What a wonderful and eventful first weekend for my new race team competing in the Gulfsport Radical Cup here in Dubai!!!The word “team” in somewhat of a misnomer, considering that I own the race car, I’m the only mechanic, I clean the race car, I drive the transport vehicle and last but not least I drive the race car……..At this point I want to give my hearty thanks to Barry, Gary, Martin, Andy and the folks at Gulfsport Racing in Al Quoz, for all their patience, help & support in my endeavor to be a full-time Radical SR3 competitor this year. On to the race weekend.

Testing on Thursday went quite well considering it was only the second time I had driven this car. The important thing was to continue my familiarisation with the car & figure out what it wanted/needed to go quickly.

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From the start of practice my lap times were within the top three of the SR3 class but still slower than I managed during the test & media day to launch the 2009/2010 UAE National Race Series.

Clearly some changes to the car had to be made, so off went the helmet & on came the mechanics hat!!
I could tell you what changes I made but then Iíd have to shoot you……suffice to say that I went against motor racing norm and made multiple set-up changes to the car on Thursday night.

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Either I am that good or it was dumb luck, but the changes made a huge improvement, resulting in my lap times improving by 0.5 second and my qualifying time on Friday morning was the fastest Iíve ever been around the Dubai Autodrome club circuit (2.46km). Now, we all know life isnít fair….the guys that were quicker than me in testing also went faster so my relative position did not change!!!!

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Raceday Friday. Having qualified fifth of thirteen, I got a blinding start to race one, which saw me enter turn 1 in second place!!! I was in awe of my superior driving skills……but that soon changed to terror as I left my braking a little too late and spun-out….I exited turn 1 in last place and minus one wing mirror!!!!

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What ensued were 15 laps of recovery/damage control. It seemed that for 15 laps there was always somebody that I had to pass; in all my years racing I’ve never overtaken this many cars in a race. Fortunately three cars had mercy on me, 2 spun off allowing me to pass & 1 broke down. I passed 6 cars during the race and finished the race in 4th position.

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For race 2 I would start in 4th position; another fantastic start saw me level with the two front row starters entering turn 1. After the team owner had a little chat to the driver, discretion prevailed this time so I slotted into third place until later in the lap whilst battling understeer from cold tyres I was passed for 4th.

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Once the tyres were up to temperature it was game on……I had a great battle for a few laps with the current Radical European Masters SR3 champion until I couldn’t keep him behind any longer in 5th. Remember I lost one of my wing mirrors in race 1? Well trying to fend off competitors with one side of the car blind is no easy task….they always choose that side!!! My result for race two was a 5th place finish.

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Overall it was a great weekend for me as I was consistently one of the fastest non 2009 cars (I have a 2004), I finished as high as I could and the car gave absolutely no trouble (I have a great mechanic!).

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Thanks to everyone who came to support my new team on our first race weekend.

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See you on 12, 13 & 14 November at the Dubai Autodrome.

– Words by Kevern McShine