SLS R3 results - clockwise 23rd August
Sunday. What a day. Everyone’s preferred way around Knockhill. After my off on Saturday I had a bit of nerves heading out again in the warm up and practice, still playing with adjuster knobs to try and kill out some understeer ( still haven’t got to the bottom of this ). Steadily running in the 61’s now the suspension has made a massive difference to how the car feels.
At lunch time I get a call from
@Djw John . “Ready your wets”. Was still sunny at Knockhill but raining on the road up. Readied the wets we did.
As the rain fell for qualifying I was excited to get going, I enjoy driving in the wet and the car goes well in these tricky conditions. Setting good times around 3/4 place I enter duffus hot, set up for turn 3 and brake, front end locks and sends me hurtling towards the crash mats and tyres with seemingly none of my driver inputs doing anything I brace for impact.
Climbing out the car I’m thinking how will I repair this, I’ll need another shell. It’s only three weeks till round 4. It’s only the second round and my budgets been blown already.
With the red flag being waved and the marshalls doing a great job of getting me calm and pulled out. One of them piping up “Its not bad, If it starts you’ll be able to drive it”. It didn’t start. But it did bump.
Back into the pits.
@Djw John checks over the car. Looks to be ok. Me wandering about looking lost.
Get your helmet on. You’re going back out comes the shout from John. There’s 5mins left of qualifying. Helmet back on and away I go. Setting my fastest lap on the very last lap stuck me in 4th.
I later find out that all my other times had been disqualified, if I hadn’t gone back out I’d have been last in Quali.
The final. Still wet. Still full of crash adrenaline. I wait to go out for the hot lap. I try weave it about to get some heat into the tyres and brakes and just go for it. As I enter the pits the team put up a single digit. Was in 1st with the last 3 cars to run. As I park up to get weighed the guys had conf I’d managed to place it in 3rd. A great result for us from being in the tyres a few hours earlier. Delighted to be racing with the guys in class F some proper characters. Bring on round 4. 🏆
4th in practice - 1:01.961
4th in warm up - 1:01.320
4th Qualifying - WET 1:05.161
3rd Final - WET - 1:06.042
Clockwise PB: 1:01.961