Hey guys heres me with another update!

Nearly slept in… whoops forgot to set my alarm! Arrived at the track at 8.15 am 30 minutes before a new drivers briefing and 1 hour before the start of our qualifying session.. They put us out first for qualifying which was fun.. Cold track cold tyres meant we weren’t going to hit the faster lap times until the later laps. This was relatively uneventful in terms of carnage but i felt i had a really good run in the car. It was handling well and had great grip through the corners despite it being a bit cold.

I ended up qualifying 17th out of 20 cars, 19 of which started. (in our class). Qualifying time was 1:27.734, 4.2 seconds behind Brett Killip the pole sitter who qualified with a 1.22.514. Wow thats pretty good huh!

This basically put me at the back of the starting grid. Im not complaining though this is my first time and i’m keeping to my plan.

We got the call to go to the dummy grid straight after lunch break. We were ushered out onto the track for our warm up lap and to line up on the grid. The car was cold so i had to warm the tires and breaks so they performed while out on the track. This was cool my very first race! We eventually lined up with the guy infront of me in the middle of the track.. He was positioned incorrectly but was told they couldnt restart a warm up for him to get into position so had to start where he was. Not only did he delay the start but Leon in the Team Gold Series4 couldnt get his car started while on the grid. The marshalls were going to tow him off to start in the pit but he managed to get it started.. Unfortunately for him the 4×4 towing him stopped suddenly and he hit it! Lol for that he got the dickhead award for the weekend. Anyway he positioned and we finally got underway..

The format was the faster Pro7 plus cars would go on the lights mean while after 10-15 seconds we got a flag start delayed. It seemed like a lifetime by the time they showed the flag but i finally saw it fall and we were underway. I didnt get off to the best of starts and fell back behind the two who started behind me.. so I was last… That was fine by me i didnt want to go crazy and i still had a lot to learn. So first corner came, now if you’ve ever watched a motorsport event before you’ll know by now that the first corner at the start of the race is full of carnage.. And this was no different. Good thing i had my wits about me and avoided the guy with the broken steering as he exited to my left. In front was Deb Hill who i was keen to catch and pass.. After turn 1 we rounded a right hander that dipped into a lefter towards the second hairpin. I was high on Deb trying to line up a better turn through the left heading up to the hairpin when all of a sudden her brakes lockup and a quick right hand turn nearly had me into the side of her car. Lucky i was giving her that room i need to push through and lucky i was watching.. That could’ve been nasty.

Anyway at that point i had a little bit to do to catch up and keep up with the rest of the field. Unfortunately as experience prevails i couldnt keep with up all of them but the guy infront, Ian McDonald whom im leasing the car off was driving to try to keep up also.. I decided i would stay with him at least and by the end i certainly proved that i could.  Every lap i gained a car length on him. after Debs incident i was already about 7 car lengths behind so i did have some ground to make up. Every lap was an improvement on the last and on the final lap i’d closed the gap to two car lengths. Going through the S’s heading up to hairpin two we both locked up the inside of the car heavy breaking into the corner. I dont know what happened but Ian careered off into the dirt on the right, I had him. Nearly passing him down the outside of the track we entered the last hairpin of the track literally side by side. Holding my line i managed to push through the corner in 3rd gear and it was a drag race to the end of the straight. I had the advantage heading into the right sweeper but not knowing where he was i broke too early which gave him plenty of room on the inside to move. Ian had edged infront so i tried to get the better run onto pit straight but was pipped by a nose crossing line for the chequered flag. Another lap and i would’ve had him.

Very very happy and we shook hands after the race congratulating each other for the great race we had! Thats what Pro7’s are all about. I finished the race in 17th, where i started so very happy. My fastest lap was 1.25.999 which was nearly a second faster than my qualifying time. the fastest guys still running 1.22’s so im 3-4 seconds off the pace which is heaps better than the 6 seconds i was at the start of the weekend.

My plan for tomorrow. Well im starting 12th off the grid. they reverse the top 10 then they reverse the rest. so the poor guy who finishes 11th will start last for race two. Anyway i just plan to have a clean take off from the start and follow the guys infront.. No doubt the first corner will be full of fun carnage again so im just going to take it easy through there then stick on and hound the guy infront. I havn’t learned to defend my position yet so no doubt ill loose a position or two but you never know.. For me if i can improve on my lap times again from what i’ve done today then ill be very happy. Already this weekends been well worth the trip and investment, hopefully it stays that way and hopefully it doesn’t rain tomorrow!

Anyway thats me.. Time for some dinner. Catch you tomorrow with my final race report.

Cheers

Tim

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm and is filed under motorsport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.