What a weekend! First of all I was expecting to not be able to do any testing on Friday as I had to sit a Maths GCSE exam. However, my dad orchestrated an almost military operation, supported by my Head Teacher Mrs Cooke, to get me straight from the exam on the road to Pembrey. We nearly made it to the 3rd of four test sessions, but the layout at Pembrey is quite difficult - you need to cross track to get to the paddock. We arrived after the JSCC competitors had been called, so the track was closed and all I could do was watching my friends going for it. However, that meant that I was able to go out on the last test session. The great thing about Pembrey test sessions is that the are 30 minutes long. Much longer than your usual sessions. And this is where we get to the next "unfortunately". This time we had a significant red flag period (everybody was fine), which cut the session in half. Never mind, at least I managed to get out.
If there is a practice session on Saturday we always go for it as it is super important to get some extra time on the track before qualifying. At least that is how it usually works, but this weekend was just a little bit different. After a few laps, I got a knock from another car. Nothing major I thought, but somehow I lost all pace. The team was working hard to try and find the problem before qualifying, but the engine just had NO pull! As a result I qualified last for all three races. I was really hoping for at least one top 10 finish, but starting 28th out of 28 for three races is quite difficult. After qualifying the team swapped about everything they were allowed to and the car finally was back on pace.
The first race, which concluded Saturday, I managed to climb from 28th 11 spaces to finish 17th. The sweet thing was that my dad agreed to pay £10 for each position gained
. So the next "unfortunately" was that he changed the deal after the first race (I still got my money though). So the new deal was to get £5 for every position better than 20th - fair enough.
On Sunday's first race I managed to push forward 8 places, which was great, but meant that I finished 20th. Not better than 20th! However it still meant extra points for the championship. For the last of the three races I was super fired up and managed to finish 17th again!
So all in all, I managed to "fleece my dad
" for £125 and get 15 championship points. Of course I was hoping for more, but after that disastrous qualifying I would still call that a good result. Not a great one, but a good one.
You can see the official coverage from BARC on YouTube:
Unfortunately (there is that word again) there were a couple of serious incidents which led to a length red flag period. There were only minor injuries, but a lot of damage, so here is the link to the restart:
The last race of the weekend went through without any red flags:
In two weeks time we go to Anglesey - let's see...
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