After a brief stop over at a motorway services (allowing Kirt to get a cup of tea), we arrived at the circuit at 6.00, to witness the last few vehicles departing from Rally day, the event that had taken place that day....
The team made short order of putting up their tents and we managed to have a very decent BBQ before the daylight went. Following the BBQ, I assembled the audio-visual gear I'd decided to bring and following a brief squirt of Lynx deodorant to encourage the portable generator into life, we all watched "The Empire Strikes Back" projected onto the side of our race trailer!!!
Up bright and early the day of the race, the team managed to get 2nd in line for scrutineering and spent a good hour practising out on the track.
After a frankly blistering formula 24+ race it was finally time for us to race and Natasha Layley took her place on the huge grid of 50 cars. The flag dropped to start the race and.......nothing.....the car rolled to a stop 50 yards form where it had been pushed off, the pit crew had not turned the isolator key far enough!!!
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| Tash, right in the middle of the field! |
After some swift and welcome intervention from a nearby marshal, we were finally underway, and during her 40 minute stint, "Tash the Crash" managed to climb her way from the back of the field to 28th place...a pleasing start!
Following Tash, Charlotte Finding took the wheel (stick?) as our second driver and continued to climb through the busy field of cars despite feeling quite poorly the night before....now that's what I call dedication!
After a good pit stop to change driver again and put in our second set of batteries, Billy Nightingale put in a sterling effort and clocked our fastest lap time yet finishing his drive in 15th place!
Another driver change and Carlos de Costa had an engaging drive, which saw some epic tussles as he fought hard for position amongst some truly excellent cars. at the end of his drive Carlos had managed to gain a couple more place, putting us in 13th.
Our final driver change and our third set of batteries put Liam "Hazzard" Lynch in the car for the gruelling 1hr 20minute final chase to the flag. Despite slipping back a few places during the last pit stop, Liam quickly put in our fastest lap of the day and started gaining places as cars ahead of him began to slow or suffered from mechanical issues. At the end of an exciting 4 hours of racing, Liam was over taken in the last ONE SECOND of the race and was just squeezed into 11th place.
Given the superb pedigree off the cars ahead of us this was a real achievement! That combined with our highest ever mileage of 99.9 miles, we have now edged our way up the qualification table for the National Finals to equal 14th place!!!
One more heat to go (tomorrow) at the BBC's "Top Gear" track before the National finals in October!
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