We arrived at the track Friday evening after getting stuck in traffic on the way. With the light fading we unloaded the car and got it ready for practice in the morning. There was a lot of hype about the track this weekend as it’s the first time the track has ever been run in reverse for cars, this got a lot of people talking and excited.
Saturday morning and the track was wet after a night of rain but the sky was clear and the track soon started to dry out. By the time we went out for practice the Semi-Pro’s and Pro’s had pretty much dried out the track and we could push and get used to the new track layout. There was a couple drivers that pushed to hard from the start and ended their weekend early. The layout was a fast initiation as you crest the hill and then drops down through a left turn, past the pit exit, linking the straight and running along the wall into a tight 180degree hairpin and then transitioning into the last right hander.
Thinking the entry and first corner was going to be the biggest struggle I was happy to find it wasn’t and linking turn 1 to turn 2 was where I was having most trouble and spent most of the 2 practice sessions working on that.
A change of settings after practice to the grip level and I was ready for qualifying. The sun was out and the temperature was warm which is my preferred conditions to drive in. In the 1st qualifying session I had a small straighten between turn 1 and 2 so not the best start but no spins. The 2nd run I didn’t feel any errors from in the car and was reasonably confident it was a good enough run. The 3rd run felt better again until a wall tap lost me a bit of angle so not as high scoring as run 2.
With qualifying done we got the results and I had managed a 14th place qualification meaning I’m in the game but only just. Sunday, like Saturday was wet after a night of rain but this time the clouds didn’t clear and the rain continued for most of the morning. Fair play to the Semi-pro and Pro drivers as the conditions for them was soaking but they all drove awesome. By the time the Super-pro battles were due to start the clouds started to clear and there was some sun shining on the track.
The track was drying out pretty quick and my setting the car up for the wet was looking like the wrong move. My top 16 battle was against Shane O’Sullivan from Team Japspeed, he’s always on form so I knew this was going to be a hard battle. We set off for the practice run and the track was still a little damp in places and dry in others. The first judged run was aborted as there was to much distance between us at the drag cone so back to the start line for a second attempt, this time we got the green flag but Shane’s car has so much grip I couldn’t keep up but I didn’t give up in case he made a mistake.
The second run I was leading and between turn 1 and 2 the car suddenly snapped and pointed me straight towards the wall at which point I thought I was going in. Somehow the car came back round and I just scrapped the wall with the front bumper and carried on the run. Due to this mistake and Shane’s quality driving again he goes through to the top 8.
Shane won the event overall so well done for that too. As always I would like to thank my sponsors for supporting me this year, Steelmate Automotive, Huxley Motorsport, SRB Power, Garage Whifbitz, EverythingDrift/RB Photography, Utopia Signs.
