STRAIGHT-LINE SPEED WOES DENT HERRON’S KNOCKHILL CHANCESSEAT Cupra Championship front-runner Andrew Herron has plenty of work to do during today’s 15th and 16th rounds of the season at Knockhill Circuit in Scotland after a lack of straight-line speed from his car totally compromised his qualifying performance.Although competing at the Fife venue for the first time in his short car racing career, the 20-year-old from Dromore in Northern Ireland headed into qualifying yesterday, Saturday, 16th August, confident of producing a top four effort. Very unfortunately, it wasn’t to be for Andrew as his car visibly lacked pace on the all-important drag from the Real Radio Hairpin, up and over the start/finish line and down to SEAT Curves. In the end, he could only manage the 12th fastest time of 55.265 seconds (82.81mph) for the round 15 grid and the 11th best time of 55.386 seconds (82.63mph) during round 16 qualifying.“The data shows I’m losing speed on the straights which is obviously very odd and means there’s a problem somewhere”, said Andrew after qualifying, “If I hadn’t lost the speed on the straight during the first session, I would have been fourth fastest which is where we’ve been qualifying and racing so that would have made sense.“I know I’m not quick enough to out-pace Jonathan (Adam) and Robert (Lawson) here but I should definitely be on the second or third row. I’m losing about three or four 10ths of a second to Robert around the corners – the next half a second is all on the straight!”The Brian Herron Contracts backed driver added: “It felt like there was no real power today and at one point in the second session the car cut-out. Even if we get to the bottom of the problems, tomorrow will be very difficult. We’ll give it our best shot though.”Round 15 of the 2008 SEAT Cupra Championship is scheduled to take place at 10.20 today  Sunday, 17th August, with round 16 timetabled to follow at 15.10. The second race of the weekend is expected to be screened live on Freeview, digital satellite and cable channel ITV4 – check listings for further details.Provisional 2008 SEAT Cupra Championship Driver Standings (after Rd14):1st Robert Lawson, 228pts; 2nd Jonathan Adam, 206pts; 5th Andrew Herron, 141pts