23rd March 2019 |
We arrived on Thursday evening.
With a test afternoon planned for Friday in our unknown quantity of a car we hoped that the one hour session would be long enough to iron out any bugs and get our setup correct.
We had just got the car back from Mark Freeman so we knew the car was legal and should be in fine form, so all we had to do was fine tune, which we managed to do.
When Scott came off track at the end of his session we were spanner checking the car and Scott found a suspect drive shaft. With help from Mark Hizzey the drive shaft was changed and the car was put to bed for the night.
RACE DAY
We woke to a dry and sunny morning so it would be a dry race on a track that Scott loves (the place of his 1st win and double pole) so all should be good for qualification this morning.
After an early drivers briefing, Scott started to clean his car. Even if it wasn’t going to be fast, it was going to look as good as it could, so a wash and polish was the order of the day. It was also Scotts way of relieving tensions before the racing began.
QUALIFYING
With un scrubbed tyres and 20 minute, qualifying this could be a tough one.
Scott took it easy for the first few laps and then went for it. The only instruction he wanted from the pit wall was his position in qualifying. I know better than to argue. I was watching live timing and I held out the pit board – P1
The next lap was the same and the next and the next, with the times showing purple on most laps.
When the session was flagged he was in P1 for race 1 and his times were also good enough to earn him P1 in race 2.
RACE 1
Scott, by his own standards, had a shocking start.
Not being used to the biting point when under pressure, he gave it too much gas and by the time his wheels stopped spinning and he actually got going he was down to 4th place.
He chased hard but 2 cars had a coming together hallway through lap 1 and the Safety car was deployed. As he could not overtake under the safety car he just had to sit there. .
In Lap 3 the safety car came back in meaning he could get on with making up places.
Yet another incident on that same lap brought to safety car out again but at least Scott was now in P3 (due to the incident that happened in front of him.
The safety car stayed out for the remainder of the race that wasn’t.
So, a podium for Scott in 3rd place. Not the way he wanted to do it but a podium none the less.
RACE 2
In between race 1 and 2 Scott tried a few practice starts and said he was ready for race 2
The lights went on, followed by what seemed like and eternity, they went off and the race was on.
Scott did one of the best starts he had ever done and managed to hold his 1st place. Almost immediately the safety car was deployed for an incident towards the rear of the pack.
At the end of lap 1 the safety car was back in and Scott took off like a scolded cat. (that pesky cat gets into a lot of my reports).
Lap after lap Scott withstood the pressure from Lewis Saunders sometimes a second between them and sometime a tenth of a second.
Scott controlled the pace extremely well with both of them under lap record pace, but with Lewis getting the tow off the leader the lap record went to Lewis but the race win went to Scott.
Well done Scott a double pole, a 3rd place and a win at the 1st meeting of the year. I would hardly of dared to dream it.
Next race is at Croft on 13th and 14th of April.
We would like to thank all of our partners:
Lifeline Fire & Safety Systems USA
T Jones Fabrications (Riddings) Ltd
Old Hall Performance
Amber Valley Fitness Centre
AB Welding Services & Automated Gates
NGK Spark Plugs (UK)
LVS Vehicle Hire
Air Accessories (Sheffield) Ltd
On PAR Cleaning