Qualifying on saturday was a bit of a struggle for me. I placed 10th overall, and 5th in class, which is lower than i'd have liked, but considering the state of the car, and its refusal to drive in a straight line, it was ok.
Saturday night we went go karting thanks to gav kirby and his sponsors, and the surprise for the night was that a fat lad can be fast. I started from the front and dissappeared, managing to lap Steve williams twice in 20 minutes. Also lapped skeggsy, the racing wippet, once aswell. Of course i bragged that its all about exit speed and carrying corner speed, but i think i might have had a decent kart for a change.
Sunday, we tried to sort what was wrong with my car. changed damper settings, reset the geo, new rear tyres. First time i would know if it worked would be lap 1 of race 1
I was running about like a dafty until the very last minute, with barely enough time for my nervous pee.Race 1. Pull out the pitlane, form up on the grid. Look down at dials to see that i've forgotten to refuel
. ARSE. I have 16 litres when i normally start with 23. looking at pitwall, wondering if i can come to pits for an F1 style stop, people just wave back at me. ARSE. oh well, will race regardless, and hope that i have enough. Lights go out and we're off. i get a decent start. The top 10 accelerate away well, and drop the remaining pack, so i can concentrate on attacking and not worry about the people behind. I pick up a place through redgate, and another through craners, when i kept my foot in and aimed for the kerb. Get the door firmly shut on me at the old hairpin, so am stuck behind Malcolm Sanders. I hold this position for the rest of the race, and try to defend from David Harvey and Nick Kaye. Both cars are much quicker ina straight line, and can pull ahead down both straight, so i end up outbraking them to get the position back twice a lap. Nick Kaye dragged past me on the start finish straight and defended the inside line. Knowing i couldnt outbrake up the inside, i ducked to teh outside. He turned in early and ran wide, so i switched back behind to get the inside line down craners. Unfortunately he ran too wide and out onto the dust, lost control, and speared back onto the track, collecting me on my left side. I got a hefty hit on my left side which put me on the grass at the top of hollywood. I kept the foot in and rejoined halfway down craners without losing a place, but was unsure if i had any wheel left on that side. Made it round old hairpin alive, so decided to keep racing. Went back to defending from David Harveys 340R and crossed the line with a few thousandths advantage. YES, 3rd in class, 5th overall. Decent enough result considering the car and its problems.surveyed the damage inbetween races. Both wheels have a slight buckle, the front more than the rear. Fiberglass damage to fron and rear clam, left sill and door. It actually looks ok with the matching yellow gaffa tape, so will probably keep it like that until end of season. Wishbones and upright all appear to be straight with no cracks. I decided to put fuel in for this race, turned out i had 2L left
which was cutting it fine to say the least. Race 2. I started in the 3rd drop, 30 seconds down on the pack. 4 people in the drop, i got a great start, but was still 4th at the first corner, just outdragged by faster cars. I got back past Sean B in his high powered K series exige, had to defend for 1 lap, then his gearbox lunched itself suddenly, and he dropped out. So i had Andrew Kell and Chris Pearson ahead of me. Both were much quicker down the straights, and could easily drag past me. I was a quicker through craners and the subsequent bends, but its a tight bit of track and difficult to get past at speed. Kell made a mistake coming out of old hairpin, and i got a tow up the hill. As he moved left at the top to take the line for braking for mcleans, i moved right and braked later to get an overlap up the inside. My front wheel was overlapping with his rear wheel. Not enough to take the line for the corner, so i had already decided not to stuff it up the inside when the corner arrived, but Kell started squeezing me over in the braking zone. We went to the edge of the tarmac till i had nowhere else to go, it was either hold line and let him drive into me, or take to the grass. I decided that 2 bits of contact in 1 weekend was pushing my luck, so went onto grass. Still braking hard with 2 wheels on tarmac and 2 wheel on grass and the car spun round and i got beeched in the gravel. That was my race over.
I was gutted that i hadnt finished as i had the pace of andrew, and he went on to finish 2nd overall, so i felt like i was on for a good result, another podium at least.
As it is, my trophy hall has dropped to an all time low, a meagre 70% podium finish, 7 trophies out of 10 races. Will be trying to do something about that at spa in a month
Well thats what Schumacher would have done.
