January 1, 2023

46. Trackday Championship Round 6 - Donington GP

This one is rather eventful! So not only did we cheat and do the test day the day before the race we also booked a trackday a couple weeks beforehand too. We were determined to be up the front so thought we'd go for broke.

Opentrack trackday at the end of August. Stayed the night before at Irondale pub which is close by to Donington, 3rd time we stayed there so would recommend!

A few red flags at the start of the day but unlike Javelin and MSVT Trackdays they actually tried to deal with it, still was pretty busy though. All going smoothly until James came in with a long brake pedal just before lunch. Changed the rear pads as they were getting low, bleed the brakes and pedal seemed better but as soon as you tried the brakes with the engine running it was still long, so had a further look and found a leak. Turned out the line to the rear going through the bulkhead had split. Shame we missed the afternoon but were pleased with our times and felt we got up to speed quickly as we had been to Donington the year before (apart from the Melbourne Loop on the GP track). Atleast the brake line broke now rather than the race weekend!

Donington Park Testday. Well this was an interesting one. Our experience on test days have been mixed so far. Being allocated a 30 minute slot just doesn't really work for us. Sharing being two drivers means limited running and not ideal having an annoying amount of time between the sessions. Added into the mix was a lot of cars on track for those 30 minutes and a massive mix too. From cars in classes below ours all the way to GT3 and BTCC cars. This ended in red flags and very limited running. James managed a semi decent session after lunch but my first session was busy and the last session might as well not existed, ended up with 2 flying laps in 30 minutes, 2 red flags and the session ending early.

For once we could have a chilled Friday night, went for a curry in Castle Donington which was excellence. Felt like this is how a race week is meant to go.

Qualifying was great. I went out first and stayed out for a while to get a lap in. Managed our fastest time from all of the track day and test day so we were really pleased. James went out after and was right on the same pace too but just didn't get a lap in because of a bit of traffic. Ended up qualifying 3rd in class which we felt was a great achievement. Now we just needed a clean and straight forward race..... does that exist??

Here is the lap from Qualifying:

Prior to the race the gearbox was starting to crunch even more and the clutch was starting to slip ever so slightly so we were praying it was how up for the race.

I started and made a good start of the line but then had a couple poor corners. Slightly hesitant into the first corner and then had to slam the brakes on as a car drifted over to avoid another, this meant a number of D class cars got past me. Didn't want a repeat of Silvetstone to happen so was determined to get past them quickly. There were a couple of spins on the first lap so a couple of double waved yellow sections whilst they were snatching the cars off track. However still managed to clear the slower cars pretty quickly.

Made a highlight video as well as the full race video so here they are:

So if you watched the highlight video you'll know what happened. Gearbox went again! Not only did it go but it went as James were chasing down 3rd position in class pretty quickly, so we were confident we could have had a good opportunity at racing for 3rd place but we'll never know.

Although we were gutted at missing out on a chance for a podium it was a great weekend and we were right up the top on pace so we were certainly getting there with the car. Unfortunately this was going to be the final outing for the car this year.

Not sure whether I should feel this way or not but I still loved the weekend and felt proud of what we achieved in only our first season.