Debut completed, results indicate satisfaction...
Been home for about an hour but having arrived at the track about 12 hours ago I'm starting to feel the wear and tear literally all over my body after a weekend's bouncing around inside an insane little car! Going to do a big report write-up for the SCR website (including some excellent pictures taken by Michael Booth and Catriona Rochford) with all the details but I summarise here.
The day started with lining up to sign-on and get my licence checked, straight after that we had a rookie briefing which ran on a little, so much so that a couple of us had quite a dash to get our scruiteneering cards stamped etc and get back to the cars for the start of the familiarisation session (in which you need to set 3 laps to make the grid) - eventually got onto the track about half way through the session and just managed to set the required number of laps.
Click for the familiarisation result
First race had me starting right at the back courtesy of the draw (newcomers start at the back anyway but there's a draw amongst them to sort out their order) and with everyone battling it wasn't too hard to hang on to the pack until on the second lap we crested Seat to find Rory Bryant spinning in the middle of the road - some last minute diving and everyone got by though I chose the wrong route and had to squeeze by, losing a bit of time to the cars in front. Hung on ok for a while but lost a lot of ground in the last couple of laps as I was too tense and I'd used up all my energy. Thankfully just started my last lap as the leader was a couple of seconds behind me and got the chequered flag so I was able to finish my first ever race on the lead lap which I was pretty chuffed with. The second race was more of the same, though I cheekily tried to keep a couple of other newcomers behind me for a moment and managed to almost complete a lap before we entered the final hairpin almost 3-wide. Being on the outside of this, I elected to let them go. Finished further behind the back of the field in that race as I backed off a bit more than was probably necessary for some yellow flags, but was about ten seconds away from being lapped so had to view that as an improvement.
Race 1 Result
Race 2 Result
The final is 2 laps longer than the heats (which are 8 laps) so I was hoping to up the pace a little and see if I could manage to go the 10 laps on the lead lap. This went pear-shaped pretty early on as on the second lap I left the hairpin with just a little too much power and round I went - suddenly found myself facing the people in the stands and somewhat strangely had time to be surprised at how many of them had cameras! Stalled but got going again, but a delay like that meant I was doomed to be lapped - sure enough the top 7 or 8 came by me in the last couple of laps. Managed to mostly keep out of the way so it wasn't a huge problem. Set my fastest lap of the day (66.905) a couple of laps after the spin so I'm glad I was able to just get my head down and get on with it.
Race 3 Result.
Utterly knackered so I'm off to bed now but I'll post some more reflections and a couple of pics tomorrow, let's just say I've had great fun this weekend.
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5 comments:
Nice work mate. It sounds a lot of fun, keep up the good work
Salute to the admiral.
Aye up brother, could not face the gale force winds and arctic cold but watched the footage as soon as Ryan got home. Not bad at all, was expecting more Massa-like wobbling off the track etc.
Well Done for finishing all 3 races and getting started again after the spinning incident.
Going for the win next time????
"Lynsey-Anne"
Lewis - cheers, was loads of fun.
Ryan/Lyn - Imagine you two visiting the geekier side of the internet like this! Anyway, cheers - I was pleased I didn't leave the track at every second corner like Felipe - the spin was actually my only real blooper all weekend so hopefully I've learned a few things. It's when I start trying to find the couple of seconds that would have me at the pace of the other slower cars that I'll start Massa'ing it up!
Get yourself to the track for the May or June events - wont be so cold then! At least my other family members made the effort! :p
cheeky git, the other family members you speak of are hardy outdoor types who would face torrential downpours with a cagoul and a brave smile, not gentile lady-types like myself. (no laughing)
You should be able to make up the seconds required by dropping the gears earlier before the corners and starting to accelerate from about half way through the bend (or wherever it feels comfortable)so you can speed like hell out of the corner. (practice this in your van, if you can keep a handle on that the legend shouldn't be any bother !! - only joking, better not)
Ryan's words of wisdom are "drive it like you've stolen it"
Tell him it's the kind of advice I'd expect from someone who lived in Dundee... :D
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