Well it’s now 2021 and the start of the season is less than 1 week away!

To sum up 2020 in a few words, I suppose you could say strange, stressful, frustrating but mostly enjoyable. The 2020 Championship started late with a revised calendar and a massive well done to the 750MC and Motorsport UK for enabling us to be able to get back out and enjoy the racing again.

I started 2020 in a new car and class after selling the Spyder. I noticed the difference straight away with the Storm and felt confident going into the season. A few gremlins over the year meant some results were not the best and I failed to finish three races with a number of gearbox changes, suspension changes and engine issues. The results when I did finish were good for driving a new car. I managed a number of top 10 finishes so there is some hope for the future.

The off season has mostly been shielding inside or shielding on my own in the office. I had the Covid vaccine in January and luckily the second jab is not going to be before Cadwell so no horrible side effects like the first jab during racing week. I had got the car all sorted for the final event of 2020 but that was cancelled, so work on the car has been minimal but a few bits of paintwork have been done and the usual service items and emergency parts to find last minute. The biggest change will be the slightly more comfortable time in the paddock!

For the 2021 season I have decided that top 10 finishes are my aim. If I can get closer to the top 7 that would be fantastic but I am not greedy and will be happy to be close to these fast guys and keep learning the trade.

I have to obviously bring up the Pandemic again and also praise the club for getting us out with a massive thank you to the Marshals, if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t make it out. We all must remember we are still in the middle of a pandemic and we must do our bit to keep ourselves and others safe but the light at the end of the tunnel does seem to be getting brighter.

We are back though, we are safe and we are able to do what we enjoy. Oh and I hope the nose cone stays on a little bit more in 2021!

Roll on 2021!!!

Looking back at 2020…

I’m amazed that the 750MC managed to get as much racing in as they did. It was great to put the car through its paces after lots of improvement work done in the winter of 2019.

Despite only competing in two rounds, the highs for me last year were definitely seeing a marked improvement in my personal performance. Were it not for the count back at Brands Hatch I would have finished in 8th place in race 2. I had good consistency at Snetterton which saw me finish in 11th place in both races.

Winter work!

Due to a new addition to the Twyman household, and upsizing to a family home in Jan 21’ not much development work had been done on the car, but thankfully the car itself doesn’t really need much work other than the standard fayre of getting the fire extinguisher serviced, new belts and an engine refresh – then good to go!

I did make a start on converting my trailer to have an enclosure however the work required on the new house has stolen my attention, thankfully none of the work I did (or plan to do) is permanent and the trailer can be easily switched back to its “open top” state.

Aspirations for 2021

Aside from shedding the Corona Kilos and getting a decent haircut (like everyone else!), my aspirations this year are to simply attend as many races as possible. Although in reality it may just be one or two in the capacity of a driver, but definitely some as a TJT pit crew member also. I managed to achieve my goal of a top ten finish for 2020, so this year I’m definitely aiming to be slightly higher up the finishing order where possible.

That was a surprise

It’s easy to complain about the 2020 season but there was a season and grateful thanks must go to the 750 Motor Club for making it happen.

It was also the most successful year for me. It‘s no secret that the Scarab became an expensive nightmare and several years were spent trying to get the engine to go properly and the trying to diagnose something odd with the suspension. It’s great to see Phil Waterhouse make significant progress with the same car.

Early lockdown grumpiness saw me buy an AHS Challenger via a FaceTime call. Frankly it could have had three corners and no engine but I’d have bought it. 2020 was the first season where I attended all the rounds, and actually finishing all but one meant that my B championship position was pretty good.

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m…

The great danger in ending a season, I’ve found, with a car in pretty good order, is that you start the jobs too late and then discover jobs with little time to complete them.

There’s been plenty of time spent in the garage this winter but much of it on the Europa and trying to find engine parts (anyone seen a spare Renault 16 anywhere?).

The grand plan this year was to sort the trailer. I swapped the trailer for the smallest possible footprint, spent a fortune on materials at the start of December with the intention of boxing it, carefully welded, glued & bent, measured and painted and here we are 4 months later and it’s still not finished! Getting there though.

The car only needed a service until I spotted some wear in the steering rack, and then a huge crack in the steering column, and, oh look, a brake pushrod is bent. Easy stuff but sending stuff off and, trying to source materials remotely made small jobs become big ones and led me to spend an hour tiding up “frankenseat” to discover that it was held together by rivets and taped bits of plastic. Not hard to do but not a planned job.

So, a couple of weeks to Cadwell and there are a few odd jobs left. Like servicing it…which was the only job required at the end of last season…

2021 Objectives

It’s nice to have done well in the B championship last year but that’s a clear function of having turned up a lot. When others came along, they were faster. So being quicker & more consistent have to be focus. Coaching helped last year and I need more help.

There are a few new B entrants this year, Wom, Rich & Rachel were unlucky with their cars so I need to worry about them but the two drivers who I really struggled to stay with last year were James Huckle & Elliot Mason. Target set!

After not having had any real track time since 2019, Brands Hatch would be my first proper outing in the Formula Vee for 2020.

To shake off the cobwebs, and to see if I could translate all the lockdown sim racing into a reality, I decided to book a Friday morning testing session.

The weather looked ominous, but the circuit stayed dry throughout the day, the circuit had tons of grip (thanks to the BTCC the weekend before).

I was really pleased with my progress having achieved a 56.26 as my best time (ever ever)!

Race day came, and so did the rain. I was nervous and decided to air on the side of caution for qualifying…perhaps a bit too much as I only qualified in 23rd for race 1 and 22nd for race two out of 29 cars. I had places to make up in the races; armed with the knowledge that Brands always delivers carnage, I thought I may have a few places gifted to me.

Race 1 looked to be just as bad a downpour as qualifying…with some sound advice, I decided to slacken off all the suspension on my car, leaving it as soft as possible.

I got an ok start, and made up a few places, sadly only to see my teammate, Vaughn, beached at paddock hill. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he was actually leading the race!

The Safety Car led us round a few laps before racing commenced, I was sitting in 10th for quite a while before a misjudgement of the available grip at Druids saw me slowly spin round and lose 5 places…I was gutted, and just wanted to survive to the chequered flag error and incident free.

I changed my line through that corner to ensure I got round without trouble, this did open me up to an attack from James Huckle in his Sheane MK1, I was able to close the door at Graham Hill to ensure I kept my position.

My visor then decided to steam up right in the middle, so I lost all centre visibility, I had to drive with my head pointing to the left or the right, looking out of one eye to make sure I could see where I was going! Anti fog on the inside next time 🙂

Never been so glad to see the chequered flag, still I was happy with the 9 places gained.

Result: P14

The skies looked ominous throughout the day, patches of rain fell as we were waiting for our turn on the circuit. Around 5pm the track started to look dry! Taking a gamble I reverted the car back to it’s stiffer, dry setup.

Again an ok start, taking one place into Paddock Hill.

In true Brands Hatch style, there was plenty of carnage in the run up to Druids. This resulted in a red flag and a restart. My teammate Matt unfortunately got clipped resulting in another DNF for TJT.

I managed to get an excellent re-start this time round, and was able to jump all the way up to at least 12th from 22nd place! In the run up to Druids sadly I saw contact happen between my teammate (Vaughn) and another car which resulted in yet another Safety Car for the day and another TJT DNF. The contact would leapfrog me into 10th, where I stayed for pretty much the rest of the race.

In the midst of some great battles with Maurice Gloster and Rik Lanyi; I was up into 8th place as some front runners either had contact or mechanical issues.

Sadly the race ended under red flags, and due to the 1 lap count back, I was placed as 10th overall.

My best result to date, which came bittersweet due to the 3 DNF’s TJT unfortunately suffered.

Here’s hoping for better team-wide luck next time!

Okay, Brands.

This probably counts as my home circuit and I’ve done more laps around here than anywhere else  – not that I go down Paddock Hill bend the way it should be done…

There were a few jobs to do before race weekend. I’d collected the car the night before Snetterton and hadn’t sat in it let alone driven it. The brakes were terrible so that was task #1 before Brands.

Which meant practice on Friday to bed the new brakes in and get the rear adjustment right (a Vee’s good brakes become poor quickly if the adjustment on the rear becomes too big).

The car felt okay with times immediately the same as the Scarab even if that’s 5 seconds slower than the previous owner. The brakes worked even if the pedal wasn’t as positive as I’d have liked.

And then a wet race day. I slackened everything off but I still couldn’t get any grip. Brands is all about flowing through one corner into the next and keeping momentum. That doesn’t happen if you’re coasting through corners and squirting some speed down the next straight.

I qualified at the back of the grid and the race only saw places made up when people fell off. The track had dried a good deal but I still couldn’t get the grip wanted and with that goes a lack of confidence. It didn’t help that my pre-race routine isn’t settled and I went out with massively over inflated tyres which undid my softer settings and search for grip.

I fitted and removed the anti-roll bar 4 or 5 times between race 1 & 2 as the track dried, got damp, dried…you got the idea.

I left the bar on and was lucky in that we gridded onto a rapidly drying track. The green flag lap showed where the damp spots were and I carefully committed them to memory.

Not a bad start, a few places made up immediately but I gave some ground to make sure that we got around Paddock Hill cleanly. There were places to be made up into Druids and so I kept hard into the pack finding some space to out brake or take a controlling line.

Tyre smoke warned of a problem but there were suddenly a couple of stationary cars. I breathed in tight and almost made the narrowing gap but clumped my left front against another car and smashed the steering rack, bent the beam and buckled a wheel.

Others didn’t get away so lightly but at least everyone is okay.

 Just another day in Formula Vee?

The new Championship has started, it is late, but we are back up and running!!! Well done to the 750MC and Motorsport UK for enabling us to get back out and enjoy the racing again.

After a rather enjoyable 2019 season I have made a bit of a change. I started racing in the ‘B Class’ with a Spyder chassis in 2017.  After purchasing the car and ultimately changing nearly every nut and bolt I finished the 2018 season 3^rd in Class and then finished the 2019 season 2^nd in Class. To say I was pleased with the 2019 season is an understatement. I ultimately finished 1 point behind the winner (Jack Wilkinson) the closest finish on record, oh so close. The championship came down to the last race of the season. All I had to do was get the car out on track and finish, but due to a totally mullered gearbox that put me out of the first race, I couldn’t make it out. Oh well, it was not meant to be but Jack really deserved the championship. The big change is I have moved to ‘A Class’ after purchasing a new car and will now compete in a Storm chassis. Oh I have also changed my race number to #43.

Snetterton 200

The first race event of the 2020 season started with the long trip to Snetterton. It didn’t take too long now the roadworks have been completed on the A14, but a 5.5 hour trip is still long enough.

We arrived to a rather busy circuit. Testing was underway and the paddock was full. We waited away from everyone in the car park and searched for a place to setup. After wondering around the paddock for a while and identifying there was no place in the ‘Inn’ for us and we couldn’t see that changing, we decided the best call was to setup on a nice little patch of grass above the Assembly Area. This turned out to be quite enjoyable as we were joined by our friends and we managed a very nice socially distanced weekend.

The excitement of being back was building even with the pandemic and some restrictions putting a dampener on a few things. The club and MSVR did a wonderful thing getting us back out with a few changes to signing on and scrutineering we were ready to get going. 

Qualifying

A new season, new car, new number, new trailer, new normal, what can go wrong? Well it seems not much. I started the engine, got into the assembly area and waited. A quick blast around the track commenced and with traffic, oil being put down by a few people and a safety car at the end of the session, at least it wasn’t raining. So after coming in and having a look at the times I was really happy.

I qualified 11^th for the first race and 12^th for the second. The car felt good, the only issue was the brakes felt poor but it could be I am going faster than before?

Race 1

So pulling up to the grid I noticed there was only one marshal assisting us to our spots. I gave good room to the cars in front and then got placed in the allocated grid slot. I looked in my mirrors and saw cars behind were having issues gridding up so I switched my engine off and waited, waited some more and then some more. Maybe 2020 is the year of waiting for things to begin?

Anyway all was a go. Green flag and we were off, I warmed my tyres and brakes and checked the gears and I got around the track and stopped in the grid slot.

GO GO GO!

We are racing in 2020, a good safe start and I managed to stay out of any trouble. I got past a couple of people over the course of a couple of laps and then settled in to try to not lose touch to the car in front whilst getting used to the car and not get past by the people behind. This was working for the majority of the race but after a few dodgy 2^nd gears I lost some time which meant Ben Cressey was on my tail. I had a good few laps fighting with him and then kept in front but Pete Belsey was next to battle with me. We had a small contest for a lap or two but then the chequered flag came out and I finished 11^th just less than half a second behind. I was happy with that result. 

Race 2

In Race 2 I was starting one place back, in 12^th. A slightly messy start to the race, I failed to get second gear at the hairpin and with a car in front losing control due to a trapped throttle pedal and other cars joggling for position I lost a few places. The race continued and I made up a few of these places. I lost my nose cone at some point in the race but that didn’t affect the car and I continued on with a slight draft to my toes. I had a good battle with Elliot Mason where we changed places a few times until the race was ended prematurely due to a car stranded on the track in an un-safe place and the red flag came out. It was a disappointment the safety car didn’t come out but maybe due to the limited number of marshals they couldn’t move the car safely and quickly enough. Anyway I finished in 10^th place which I was happy with however after a review mid-week the results were amended as they identified that a car had stopped at the side of the track prior to the red flag and this put me up one more place to 9^th. Again I was happy with the result.

Overall

So what can I say? The move from a B Class car to an A Class car has been great. You can really feel the difference in the corners with the better suspension and that shows in my data. Will I be competitive at the next event, I am not sure, Brands Hatch is not my favourite track but I will give it my best shot and it will be interesting to see the difference again in the cars. 

I can’t state how difficult it must be for the club to organise these events and keep everyone happy and safe during this pandemic. The changes they have made to the signing in process was super easy, barely an inconvenience. A big thank you must be made to the Marshals, if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t make it out. However we must all remember we are still in the middle of a pandemic and we all need to do our part to keep ourselves and others safe. We are back though, we are safe and we are able to do what we enjoy.

Roll on Brands Hatch!

The next trip on the calendar was to one of the iconic staples of UK motorsport – Donington Park. 

Riding the wave of excitement off the back of Silverstone, with not much prep work to do and with perfect weather on the cards, on paper I should have been keen, hyped, amped, buzzing, (insert any other similar adjective here) for Donington Park.

Instead for reasons that I still can’t understand even now, I found myself feeling strangely apprehensive and somewhat lackluster about the upcoming weekend. 

Casting my mind back to trips there, I’ve had more reliability issues at this circuit than anywhere else. On more than one occasion, Donington Park has signified the end of my season, with an engine rebuild waiting in the loom.

Perhaps that was secretly bubbling in my subconscious somewhere?

Qualifying

With that upbeat intro over, we go into the rawkus that was qualifying!

Two red flags meant that the best of us got 5 timed laps in, that includes warming everything up etc.

Those smart enough to get good laps in early had at least two decent laps counted. Everyone else had one good lap and one other laughable time.

Jack Wilkinson for instance had a pit stop used for his second time, almost 7 minutes to complete that lap!

This meant that race 1 had a fairly normal order, but race 2 was a complete mixed bag with fast people right at the back.

I qualified 16th for race 1 and 24th for race 2…lol

Race 1

So race 1 didn’t go so well for me, I got a reasonable start but only 3 laps in I hit an oil slick exiting Coppice corner.

It was like Mutley from Wacky Races pressed the oil button or something.

I ended up in the gravel and was beached….DNF.

What a beach.

Race 2

The race 1 result didn’t help with my frame of mind, what I needed was a good race to reset the natural order of things…Thankfully Donington delivered.

Hours of picking stones out of the car commenced…

Starting from the middle of the grid and at the back, I found it tricky to take advantage of the first corner reshuffling. I was in last place through Redgate as a result.

Some kind of lightbulb must have turned on in my head then as my attitude changed.

There’s no way in hell I was going to finish last!

Working my way through the order, I soon found myself stalemated by joining into an ongoing battle between Sam Engineer and Christian Goller.

Lots of yellow flags limited overtaking opportunities but nevertheless the nose to tail action was exhilarating over several laps.

Ultimately I finished just behind the other two, but it could have been anybody’s game, I finished in 12th place.

The final championship race of the season is at Oulton Park, it’s a double header and a long way to go (about 5 hours drive), but I think I’ll make the effort 🙂

See you there.

2019 – Silverstone

The famous Silverstone circuit was next on the calendar. Luckily the previous two events meant I didn’t have to do too much work on the car so a well-earned week off in West Wales re-charged the batteries and a quick weather report showed the weekend would either be sunny, cloudy, rainy or stormy. As Silverstone would be the venue for the annual Vee Centre BBQ which I was organising with Martin Snarey it would interesting to say the least.

Caroline and I packed the van with all the usual gear and the additions of a bargain barrel BBQ from Facebook Marketplace, a large gas BBQ from home and a new gas bottle, all to make sure the 80 people attending got cooked food!

Arrival at Silverstone is always fraught with the danger of not getting into the paddock let alone being able to setup. We managed to blag our way in but only to the temporary holding pen at Stowe so we decided to have a watch of testing and enjoy the blustery conditions.  A few cups of tea later we settled into the garage and got ourselves ready for the weekend.

Qualifying was not the best. A mad rush in changing the fuel pump 30mins before the start didn’t help (a big thank you to Matt Topham in assisting) and with new tyres on the car the first few laps were slippery to say the least and to compound it all, two cars put a fair amount of oil down which the clerk of the course didn’t appreciate. This resulted in quite a delay for the club as the clearing operation is quite specialised. My final times were poor but I knew the race would be different now the tyres were sticky.

Race 1

The race was pushed to the end of the day due to the oil cleaning delay and I was starting 27^th which is not good enough when I am in contention for a top three B class championship result. We headed out of assembly and warmed the tyres and brakes, gridded up and waited for the green flag lap. Oh yes, its Silverstone the green flag lap is from assembly, I remember. Not quickly enough though as when the lights went out I was thinking of feeding the 5000 in the evening. Bugger!!!!

The start was ok, I lost places but managed to gain them back quite quickly and then began a tussle between myself, Bill Garner, Phil Waterhouse and Elliot Mason. Lap after lap, myself and Bill fought hard for the position, sadly due to the nature of Silverstone if you have slightly less power than someone then you are a sitting duck on the straights even if you have a tow. The fight continued until a few laps from the end I made contact with Bill’s right rear wheel which dropped me back behind Phil and Elliot. The blood was boiling now as I knew I was faster than them and I caught back up on the final lap. I managed a double tow coming down Wellington Straight and managed a sneaky inside pass of Phil going through Stowe, and I kept the inside line for Vale stopping a possible last minute lunge by Phil for the inside. Phil went for the outside but sadly ran out of track and went for a trip in the gravel. I couldn’t get past Elliot on the last corner and ended up finishing in 25^th and 6^th in class. Not a good result but the racing was fantastic and my times were acceptable. Room to improve for Race 2.

BBQ

After the race had ended and the slaps on the back had been dually given it was time for the Vee Centre BBQ. This year in my role as the Chairmen of the Vee Centre, which I am proud to be, I had to organise the BBQ for 80 people. I obviously didn’t do this on my own (if I had the guys and girls would all have had a packet of dry roasted nuts and a can of coke between them)! The organising team were myself, Caroline, Martin and Lynne. The BBQs were lit and after a few hours of both cooking the food and ourselves the masses were fed and watered and it was soon time for a well-deserved break.  A big thank you to Ross Price and Pete Belsey for assisting with the cooking and Daniel Hands for supplying sausages and ribs.

Race 2

No major concerns for Race 2. We managed to grid up in assembly, warm the tyres and I manged to remember the lack of green flag lap!!!!

I got a good start and made a few places, I saw a car mount the curb at the first corner which unsettled it and he span. The pack split and I managed to get through without losing anytime unlike at Snetterton where I was mugged for 5 places. The race was on and I was soon fighting with the usual people. I got close to the pack ahead but sadly my concentration went missing when I saw a car go off the track at Vale and I spun. I lost 3 or 4 places which got me fired up and I got on the back of the group again. I was lucky that a few cars were spinning in various places so I regained some places and a pass on Charles Boniface at Stowe gave me a 19^th finish position and 4^th in class.

Overall the weekend was a success. It was the second time at the track and I managed a couple of lap times of 1.18.4 which I was very happy about. The car was good, the weather was kind and the BBQ was a success.  I didn’t score high points in Race 1 and it looks like it will be a big battle for the top 3 places in the B Championship, but why would we want a boring F1 style championship.

I am now currently Top of the B Championship, whoop whoop!

Donnington is next and with a busy few weeks with work I am just glad the car is in one piece. Let’s see what we can do.

Race 5 – 2019 – Anglesey

What a picturesque circuit, the 8-hour slog of a drive was definitely worth it. Once you arrive the road rage immediately dissipates into a nice Horlicks moment smile.

Rain on arrival was a tad ominous, but it cleared up nicely for the next day of racing.

Qualifying had the perfect conditions, dry but cool which suits the Formula Vee engines well. In fact, the best lap times were had during this session. A red flag broke the qually into two parts, but we were still able to get some good running in. I qualified 17^th for race 1 and 14^th for Race 2.

Race 1

A solid but unspectacular start saw me hold my position by the end of lap 1; the reliably fast Ross Price had to start the race in second gear due to gearbox issues, but quickly regained his grid position through the first corner.

I managed a lunge into Rocket corner to put myself neck and neck with my teammate Vaughn on lap 2; then after some good road positioning I managed to lead the pack of midfield cars for a good number of laps until eventually I couldn’t hold them off. Vaughn Jones, Ross Price and Alex Jones slipped past putting me back in 17^th.

The scrapping up ahead saw some spins from Vaughn and Alex, and I was gifted 2 places putting me back in 15^th.

Due to a track limits 5 second penalty for Andrew Cooper, my final position was 14^th of 29 cars.

I felt pretty good about that and was looking forward to a better Race 2!

Race 2

Feeling confident, I had another good start, but heading up to the first corner we were greeted with contact between a few cars up ahead.

Evasive manoeuvres were required, and following the lead of Andrew Cooper and Vaughn, a dart to the right put us off track into ‘the safe zone’. Turning our Vee’s into lawnmowers temporarily we re-joined near the back of the pack… game face on…

Whilst I was regaining places, the very fast Ian Jordan (who was also playing catch up) went for the undercut move into the Banking. As his car swung back I flinched to avoid contact between his right rear and my front right. Losing control, I was facing the wrong direction (again) and feeling frustrated I beckoned the other cars past.

Replaying the situation in my mind, had I not steered erratically then most probably I would have been alongside Ian without any contact whatsoever. Something for the experience bank.

The Race pretty much turned into a damage limitation exercise, and I brought her home in 22^nd place.

Overall, I was quite pleased with the weekend, I think I had flashes of pace which is a good start, consistency is definitely something to improve on…Roll on Snetterton!

Race 5 – 2019 – Snetterton

After Anglesey I decided to switch over my gearbox as it wasn’t holding in second gear. Having to steer one handed through hairpins / tight esses with the other hand on the gear lever was hampering my driving through those sections.

Due to the tight turnaround of just 3 weeks, it was a close shave making the Race.  I was pleased that I was an entry on the sheets.

Arriving on the Friday, we did a track walk in the early evening…
Wow this is a long long circuit; a good lap time is in the region of 2:20 mins!

Race 1

In qualifying I noticed the new gearbox wasn’t very happy when trying to change down the gears going from high speed to low speed…Lot’s of nice crunching noises…ouch

Some theoretical adjustments didn’t really work for Race 1, and I ended up retiring the car and watching the rest of the Race from the pit lane.

Being a double header, I had to act fast to try and get the gearbox to a useable state.

Race 2

After consultation from the Formula Vee establishment, some clutch adjustments were made to hopefully alleviate the issue. At low speed through the paddock the gearshifts all felt smooth and easy, I hoped this would be the case in the Race.

But then…the heavens opened!!

The Race was a wet wet wet one. It was like watching dancing on ice with people who cannot ice skate!

Some pretty poor driving on my part saw me finish down in 18^th place, so needless to say I was pretty disappointed with the days results.

But to put everything into perspective, at least I didn’t have an engine failure, write off my car, or have to escape from a fire – much like Peter Cann had to at the end of qualifying!

The goals for Silverstone will be:

• A working car
• Trouble free races
• No spinning!!!! Yes that nugget again.

Qualifying

Lot’s of controversy was had in the build up to the Mallory Park double header event. Due to the large number of entrants, and the restrictions on numbers of cars that can start a race, the usual race format was amended into two qualifying groups and 3 race groups.

I was in qually group 2, so had the benefit of seeing the first group tackle the circuit first.

I heard it was the fastest circuit on the calendar for Vee’s, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. On paper the circuit looks a tad mickey mouse, with just a hairpin to really slow things down. However, the fast speeds with which corners are negotiated really burns that presumption to ash! Gerards being a nightmare if you get it wrong as there isn’t much run off!

Weather….perfect

Track conditions….perfect

Things started off well enough until a red flag was declared literally two laps into qualifying. The ghost of Brands was haunting us! Nothing major thankfully. Rik Lanyi’s car had stopped in a precarious place, and a restart was needed.

Driving standards were generally good during the session, and I was able to bring it home 4th fastest overall in my group.

That placed me in group A for the remaining races (race 2 and 3 later that day)

Race 1 – Group B vs C

Good to be a spectator watching!

Race 2   – Group C vs A

Starting 14th of 19th on the grid I thought I had a good start, but the car bogged down in 2nd gear and I lost 2 places before the entry to Gerards.

Must work on that!

A good exit and I was able to draft past Neil Aldridge before the Esses. Heading for Gerards trip #2, I saw the orange Storm of Sam Engineer take a wide line through the corner and start to pirouette as he touched the grass. Now, making a bit of a school boy error I was too focussed on the orange Storm up ahead instead of the racing line. I ended up joining Sam in a tandem Storm pirouette…Doh..

Must work on that!

I was able to rejoin easily, but a few cars had passed. I was just able to see the faint silhouettes of the pack up ahead and I was determined to catch them up. The hunt begins.

After 2 laps I was right on the gearbox of Neil Aldridge; I went round the outside of him through Gerards and was then chasing the monstrously quick Predator of Peter Cann. The slipstream simply has no effect when you’re chasing that car.

A one handed move out of the hairpin (my car kept jumping out of second), and I swept past Peter round the outside and onto the Kirkby Straight. Dave Wallis was the next victim through Stebbe Straight. The one car I could now see up ahead was that of Rik Layni.

Rik had a wobble and lost control through the Esses on the next lap, and I was gifted the place.

With no other targets up ahead, I brought the car home for a 10th place finish.

Race 3 – Group A vs B

I had a respectable start this time, only losing a place to the ‘pit lane to podium’ guru Peter Belsey.

The immediate battle up ahead was between my teammate Vaughn Jones and the AHS Dominator of Craig Bell. During their tussle Vaughn’s car got unsettled through the esses, allowing Craig past. As Vaughn was attempting to recover his speed, he left a gap on the entry to the hairpin.

Seeing an opportunity, I attempted to take the inside line through the corner under breaking. However….I messed up the heel toe downshift and the rear kicked out when second gear engaged. This led me to lose control and I ended up rotating 180 degrees and facing on-coming traffic!

Going backwards up the banking, I waved the first few oncoming cars past, as soon as I was able to rejoin, I did. That put me back towards the rear of the pack, but ultimately not at the back.

Now ultimate Deja Vu kicks in once again, I’m chasing Neil Aldridge for position. On the next lap a good exit out of Devil’s Elbow enabled me to slipstream past Neil and get the inside line yet again through Gerards.

A few laps later, Rik Lanyi was passed on the Stebbe Straight. At this point I think I might have eased myself into a false sense of security, seeing no cars up ahead I forgot about the quick ones who might be carving their way through the pack.

From nowhere, Ross Price pings past me through the esses. Francis was caught napping yes indeed!

That move was the start of a 3 way battle between myself, Ross and Rik. On Stebbe Straight we were 3 wide heading for the esses. Being caught in the middle, I eased off on the sight of Yellow flags. Rik may have not seen the flags, and sped past myself and Ross.

Now…there is no easy way to communicate to other drivers other than with your hands. Both myself and Ross were frantically gesturing for Rik to give the places back. The green flag was shown on entry to the hairpin, and we were back racing again.

Sadly what followed was some car on car contact on entry to Gerards between Rik and Ross. Rik went sideways and right onto my immediate pathway. I had no choice but to chuck the car left onto the grass and sit out a long drawn out trip to the barriers!

Thankfully no major damage done as the nose cone had a gentle kiss with the barriers. Accident avoidance is now becoming a speciality – this felt like Brands Hatch all over again.

With everything crossed, I was able to restart the car, have another bumpy trip across the lawn, and finish the race sadly in last place.

That didn’t dampen my spirit though as I’d had a good day’s racing. I’ve definitely seen an improvement in my pace overall and I felt more confident behind the wheel. The next checkboxes for improvement are having more consistent lap times…and…not spinning out!

Next race report will be from the picturesque Anglesey race track in North Wales.

Until then folks…