So the first racing of the season was to happen live on Motors TV from donignton park. With the current fuel crisis thats affecting large parts of the UK where the people can not think for themselves and are causing shortages of fuel country wide, it seams strange going racing, and just using 40 litres for fun, but it was a fun weekend, and I would not change it, the next question is should we stockpile fuel to ensure we can attend the next round at Croft at the end of april.
So the aims for the weekend were simple, to keep with the other class C competitors, to do a 1:25 lap, and third, hopefully stay ahead of the class D drivers.
The qualifying went well, the car had new rubber on it, so the first few laps were a little interesting, until the tyres had warmed and started to work, when they did we went around learning the circuit and looking where any time could be made, and what gears should be selected for corners. I forgot to turn on the video recorder for this session, and its a pity as there was a couple of good parts where other cars were involved.
So we managed to qualify second in class, that was a shock first, the other shock was we were in front of all the class D cars, and had managed to break into the 1:25 lap times. So how would the race go, it would be nice to finish in the same position that we qualified in, but we had another class C car behind, and also a class B car.
So race one was the first time that a rolling start had been experienced it was an interesting start, and I managed to keep up with the B car in front, and also managed to keep the others behind, then out of old hairpin the leading class C car spun, so effectively promoting us to class leaders for C 🙂 alas going by an accident on the start finish straight near the end of the race, the class C driver that spun managed to re-take the lead, but a second in class was a good result, and with a best lap time of just below 1:24 we had actually broken into the 1:23 time bracket.
So on to the second round, I was in the same place on row 11 but on the opposite line on the track, I did not get as good a start as the first race, and slipped down into 3rd in class, but we were keeping together, behind a class B car, about halfway through the race, the car that was second in class slowed dramatically down the crainer curves, that I was able to pass it easily on the way up from old hairpin, it looks like that was the last lap that car would partake in as it had blown a oil pipe off, but this also left oil around the circuit and down on the racing line towards the chicaine this did cause me to change the position on the track when entering the last corners of the lap, as it was a little too slippy for me on the racing line. This was hurting my lap times, and I only saw a high 1:24 on that race, but still below my aim time of 1:25
Also as a note, whilst we do have race 1 and race 2 on video the picture is not that good, as the camera was mounted slightly too high.