MAD-Racing: July 2008

It's almost uunbelievable, as my first race seemed only yesterday, but Donington was to be my last scheduled race of the season for me in the Kit Car Championship, but a great venue with which to do it.

The immediate lead up to the Donington race was not quite as smooth as we had perhaps hoped. There were still lots of things to adjust and fix the day before the race with no real room for error. So when at 9.30pm Al noticed that the bottom hose was collapsing when the engine was being revved, effectively closing off the coolant flow to the radiator, things were not looking too good. With no spare parts at the Mad Racing Technical Centre to fix the weak hose, we had no choice but to leave it to chance that we could find the parts we needed at the circuit the next morning, through a process of begging, stealing and/or borrowing.

As Suz and Des unpacked the car from the trailer, I got myself signed-on and went looking for some helpful types who could perhaps supply some hose. Fortunately for us, Ian Kempson came up trumps (a huge thanks to you) and we were quickly able to fix the problem with the parts he lent us. After we had the rear tyres swapped for some more legal-looking items, it was all to quickly out to practice.

There had been lots and lots of changes to the car since its last outing at Brands, with a new steering rack, new radiator, new oil cooler ducting, modified radiator ducting, spring changes all round, new rear brake pads and a different driver. I wasn't imediately comfortable in the car and consequently my qualifying time was some way off the pace (1:23.13 vs. pole on 1:18.77) and only good enough for 13th on the grid (8th in class). After reviewing the on-board footage with my race engineer (Des), it became apparent that I was just being a big girl's blouse around the circuit and should have been attacking the corners with much more conviction. I obviously had to make a change to the car as well, to make it look as though it was the car's fault, so I went about reducing the rear dampers by the smallest amount I could - that'll make the difference then!

So the time quickly came around for the race. My grid slot had me positioned on the inside of the track for the first corner. My starts had always been fairly good in this car, and when the red lights went out, I managed to make up a few places even before the Craner Curves, so a good start again. After getting close enough to gain from a good tow down the Dunlop straight, I overtook again heading into Goddards and that put me up to 8th place by the end of the first lap. For the next few laps I held position until I was passed, heading towards Goddards. I was then able to out-manoeuvre and pass another car coming out of Redgate on the following lap which put me up to 7th place.

A fairly hairy moment occurred on the next lap when I managed to get the car extremely sideways turning into the Old Hairpin but just about kept it pointing in almost the right direction. I was then passed by a recovering front runner and then held onto 8th place right up until the last lap, where the car I had passed coming out of Redgate got a tow down the Dunlop straight and squeezed passed me on the inside going into Goddards, the last corner of the last lap! So in the end I finished 9th (6th in class) which, considering my less than spectacular qualifying session, I was quite happy with.

So that's it for me for this season in the Kit Car Championship. Over way too quickly but very enjoyable. I plan to be out for the Birkett relay however. It'll be a long wait. Thanks to Al for helping get the car ready until late on Saturday (and for the loan of the Galaxy) and to Des and Suz (and my mum, dad and Kristi) for support on race day.