V8Thunder Cup Series newcomer Richard Garvie makes his Cup Series debut at Phoenix as he aims for rookie of the year honours in 2011. Garvie joins long term friend Craig Butterworth at CBRG Racing, and is hopefull that the 69 / 96 combination can get can propell them towards the front of the field.

Speaking of his debut, Garvie was less confident about racing at Phoenix that at the intermediate and superspeedway track. "We've done some testing at Phoenix this week, and to say we are struggling with a suitable setup in putting it mildly. Anything that enables us to pick up a few tenth's in speed usually results in the car becoming bad loose, so I think we will hang back and stay out of trouble and look to pick up places that way. We're confident that once we get to Vegas next week, we will be competetive mid pack with an outside chance of competing for top fives. That has to be the realistic goal this year, and if we can scrape a win or two we will be delighted".

Good luck Richard, looks like a canny way to try and kick off your season.

We'll all be seeing drivers for the first time tonight - just gotta work out how some people drive / think

Thanks, torrid time tonight but I knew it would be so. Picked up a few places running around at the back, my only gripe is that I asked people to pas high and then certain people tried to go low. My fault for having a slow car, but a little bit of common sense would go a long way.

You'll be fine Garvie... it doesn't matter if you're slow or not ... the most important thing in the first place is that you learn to be consistent and keep the car under control. Once you've mastered that, you will build up speed rapidly.

Only one advise: practice practice practice.... we all had to start somewhere...

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Mathieu Souphy (http://twitter.com/mathieusouphy)
#64
SRD Lightnings
Trophy Series: Sparco Chevy SS

- Autumn 2008 Trophy: runner up
- Mini-Series Winter 2010 Champion
- DAYTONA KING !!!

Tough track to start on with a big field. What setup did you have? Did we provide a friendly setup for Phoenix? I know it's our aim this season. I'm not sure what the natural thing to do when being lapped here - go high or low, but yeah right lapping on both sides is a bit off!

Be aware most of us experienced drivers drive quiet loose cars. When i started EVERY car setup was way too loose for me. I had to come a long way to drive these cars.

If being lapped it's best to hold the line you're most comfortable with, for the convenience of others that's usually the high line so they can go low, but at the end of the day it's the faster car's responsibility to overtake you cleanly, not your's to anticipate where we want to overtake you, just hold your line and we'll find a way around you.

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#8 - Ian Smythe.

Thanks guys. When I drive anything, I like a middle of the road set up. I hadn't got this version of phoenix or the mod until this week, so a steep learning curve. I had a few laps of Vegas when I dropped out of the server and I'm pulling low 29 secs so it will be interesting to see what I can get it down to before next week.

The setup was awful for me, being new it was way loose. I used the "easy" setup as a base and worked on it to get the car comfortable, and then when I tried to change things to get speed, I was carrying much more speed but the car was unstable. The biggest thing for me was trying not to wreck someone, and for the first few cautions I was quite smug as I wasn't involved!!! I now know how Kevin Conway must feel in real life though, and I'll prob give Phoenix a prov next time. Bring on the inters and the supers!!!

The leaders had just caught me on the final caution I was in, I let them go high but the car was pushing in the kink and took me into the middle of the track. I pulled low and I guess the guy behind had thought I would hold the middle. Never mind. I was being selfish by turning laps in a slow car.

I should be able to send you something once the PC behaves - I don't drive super loose setups and just chug around at the back most of the race

Thanks. I reckon I'll be ok on most of the short tracks, it's just getting the set ups right and I think that's what I will be working on when I had some free time, just work on the short track set ups.

Try to be predictable on the track, please.

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#91 Alex Pab

Hello "tallboyusa" - Ah, so you are Richard Garvie!
Please ignore my post asking for your name Richard!

You did well enough for your first race with us - especially at a track like Phoenix.
If you can practise on Wednesday nights, if the server is looping, let us know in a post here, and we will try to help you with some set-ups, and race practice.

You were always O.K., when I was passing you, and usually moved to the high line to let me pass, so thank you for that!

I am still learning about tweaking the set-ups, as I don't get much time to practice now!
My experience comes from racing in the Lites Series, where we had "Fixed" set-ups, so this is also quite new to me to!
I noticed you seemed to be locking your brakes going into the corners?
You can change this by adjusting your brake bias.
Give that a try.
Also I move my weight forward a few clicks at a time, (Like Ian mentioned), to help smooth out the handling of your car.
Also, even a slight increase of your Steering Ratio, sometimes will help too.

Good luck,
and keep posting the questions.
We are all a friendly bunch here at V8Thunder, and will try to help if we can?
Cheers,
Mike

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#2 Mike Cooper

Thanks Mike.