Sorry for the delay but I've been away all week since donington and not had a chance to get the report or the videos uploaded. Was a bit of a mixed weekend tbh as I had my laptop, wallet and Oakleys stolen from my car in the paddock on Sunday afternoon, hopefully the culprits will get their cumupence in time.
Anyway, after getting to donington in plenty of time on Saturday afternoon the good people of donington park refused us entry to the circuit until 8pm due to an event taking place, great news so off to the pub!
Finally got unpacked and set up abd had a ride round the circuit with
dinger and
sonny and the boys, the main point to note was how wet the grass/ground was beyond the track limits, it was agreed between us that nobody fancied leaving the black stuff during the races or quali!
Quali
Hadn't done a great deal of prep on the car since Rockingham as it was all in good order apart from the alternator wire, it looks like the alternator was damaged at Rockingham so as soon as I set off in qual the battery light came on, I knew straight away as the car didn't feel happy at high revs and felt a touch flat and generally unhappy. I knew I needed to get some fast laps in straight away before the car cut out on me. I was behind maybe 10 cars at the start but I sacrificed some tyre warming for track position and managed to get through and into some clear space. Me and Ian
mitsiman had a good couple of laps together but the track was really greasy and had a few moments, notably on my first quick lap into turn 1 where it was totally sideways, just wish someone had a pic as it probably looked impressive from the outside! The end result was 3rd out of the Tricolore guys and 6th overall with the Nippon guys, not bad considering but times were somewhere short of the 1.21's I was expecting. The car stopped in the paddock and wouldn't restart!
[video=youtube_share;5_TbdL2V3Ks]http://youtu.be/5_TbdL2V3Ks[/video]
Race 1
Chaos ensued after quali, trying to find someone in the paddock with a cup alternator and drawing a blank, managed in the end to get x2 non cup alternators thanks to
mitsiman and
MicKPM and a cup one from
Fred@BTM that turned out to be a dud, time running out before race 1 we swapped the regulator from Ian's non cup part to my original alternator and we were in business! Massive thanks to all the above especially Fred for getting his hands dirty on his day off, much appreciated. Got to the collection area last I think but ready to race.
Off the line the car felt good and I was in the mix with Simons Saxo and one of the Mitchell 205 you were having a proper battle which I kept out of until I saw a way past the 205 into the final chicane and set off after simon, I managed to sneak down through craners and I was in the lead! It was short lived though as I was more concerned with who was in my mirrors and missed my braking point by miles at the double right hander onto the dunlop straight, some off raiding followed and I was back to 3rd and kicking myself! I regrouped but now had Ian for company and sure enough I did exactly the same thing at the same corner and that was pretty much it and how it stayed to the line, 4th overall and 2nd in class. Another overall fastest lap but it was of little comfort!
[video=youtube_share;WZQ4cNs3ino]http://youtu.be/WZQ4cNs3ino[/video]