Test Day Pics

Gordon Mann (one of the other two Scholarship winners, runs the best chip shop in Perth and all round nice guy) had a mate up taking some pictures at the test day, here's a couple (click to see bigger versions):


That's me in the middle with Rory at the front and Gordon kneeling. Also in shot is Carol Brown, long time kart and legend driver who gaves us some tips. This pic is rare as I think it's the only one taken of me in about 10 years with me smiling as I have a camera phobia..!


Getting lost on track.

Reflections

Had a chance to think about how Thursday went - it was pretty much what I expected, ups and downs. The sessions were busy and I only got a clear track a handful of times, most frustrating thing was that I spent my third session (the only dry one) constantly having to get out of the way so I was never really able to concentrate on what I was doing - at least there's nothing wrong with my awareness of other cars around me (a complaint levelled at a couple of other slower cars.) Had one moment when I forgot to check my mirror at McIntyre and suddenly Dave Newsham's meteoric #50 was up the inside of me from nowhere - I was too busy watching him and dipped the left side wheels into the gravel... kept it straight and didn't panic which was a relief. Also of frustration was that the last session of the day had to be called off as the medics had gone home early... I was pretty upset about that as I really wanted to try and use that session as an excuse to try a couple of quick laps having mostly just felt the car out and worked on individual corner lines in between letting faster guys through in the first sessions.

I reckon I'm a safe enough pair of hands - I managed to get through the wet sessions with no major dramas (just the incident with the #50 and a half spin down Seat in the first session when I went in too hard, caught it and got it going the right way so happy with that) and never felt out of control as such, but then it's not like I ever really pushed all that hard - just wanted maximum seat time with no silly offs or worse.

I didn't see the times for the first session but I'm told that was when I was at my closest to the front (somewhat ironically) - my time in the second session was about 11 seconds off the fastest guys and about 4-5 behind the competant SMRC runners, which I'm ok with given that I was the only driver of the SMRC lot that I'm aware of that has no previous racing experience. The other two scholars have a steep learning curve but I've got a sheer cliff-face!

So it looks like I'm the only driver starting from absolute zero - hope the crowd don't laugh at me too much in April. :) My plan for the first round in three weeks is to use the three heats to just do what I didn't manage to do yesterday and probably wont get a chance to do in the Saturday test sessions the day before the race - pound around with the track to myself (which will only take about a lap and a half going by the speeds yesterday!) and see if I can start to show a little aggression in my driving and not be quite so timid with the throttle and so on.

Anyway, thanks to Aly, Michelle, Carol and everyone who managed to make me feel a bit more relaxed about all this - it was nice of everybody to make excuses for me. :p

Just call me Deletraz

Now I know how F1 backmarkers feel being lapped every 15 laps - I have a lot to learn! I'll put up a report on my day's track meandering tomorrow as I'm a bit shattered and I have to work first thing in the morning (i.e in 6 hours) but in the meantime, here's my baby:

Bounce

Test day tomorrow! I'm starting to get excited... first chance to get settled into my car and see where all the buttons and twiddly bits are. I'll take a couple of pics of the car and have them up on here tomorrow night.

Weather's looking dodgy unfortunately - it might rain, it might not - looks like showers are a definite. Definitely going to be pretty cold, but I doubt I'll care too much! Just wanna get out and pound in a few laps. Hopefully it'll all come back to me fairly quickly as I got quite a few laps on the experience day last year, with any luck I'll remember the basics pretty quickly and be able to learn a half-decent racing line and so on. No off-track excursions allowed!

Last bit of info - the BTCC announced it's TV package for this season and it includes Setanta Sports showing the meetings live from start to end, including all the support races - that means I not only get to humiliate myself in front of something like 20,000 people at the track on that day, but tens of thousands of others watching at home. It's starting to dawn on me just how much I've been thrown in at the deep end and left to work out how to doggy-paddle!

In the Papers and on the TV!

Can't complain about getting a mention in Motorsport News - the second largest motorsport publication in the UK (behind Autosport), especially when it was on the same page as the World Touring Car Championship and the UK Porsche Cup! Here's the snippet:




Also, details of the TV deal have been announced - we're going to get a programme on Channel 5 on terestrial TV as well as on satellite on Motors TV! All very exciting though I don't know how much time the individual series will get as the company doing it are recording all 8 of the Scottish Championships.

Piccies

Got my temporary paper racing licence from the MSA today which suggests all was in order with my forms and so forth - should get the proper licence within the next couple of weeks. Good to know it's all gone through the system and I've been accepted.

Couple of pics to add today - I've got all my racing gear now plus the car in the picture below (taken in August '06) ran at two meetings last year and will be my steed for the period of the scholarship (different number though as the #2 has been taken by someone else apparently). Needless to say, I wont be having a crazy-frog on the car!

Legends explained...

Had a few mails from people actually wondering what these legend things actually are - I've copied a paragraph from the Scottish Club Racing website which hopefully explains it a bit:



"These bizarre looking cars are 5/8 scale replicas of 1930s American saloon cars fitted with 1200 or 1250 cc motorcycle engines (top speed of around 120mph at Knockhill) and a sequential gearbox. Their stiffened suspension makes them handle like karts in the dry, and everything about the series makes for overtaking and excitement as the cars' miniature size encourages three-wide racing through the corners and last ditch overtaking attempts. Also mixing things up is the random grid order for the first of the three races that makes up each Legends Championship round. The grid order is then reversed in the second race and for the final the day's fastest drivers start from the back. All of this combines to make for some very exciting opening laps! The first two heats of each round are 8 lap sprints with the final taking place over 10 laps. Points in each of the three races run from 200 for 1st place down to 20 for 18th."



There you go. I've been spectating at Knockhill for a very long time now and from a racing standpoint I've always found the Legends and the Fiesta XR2s to be the most entertaining to watch of all the SMRC classes, so hopefully it'll be as much fun to cross the barrier and race instead! Here's a pic of the legends in action: