Surprising Donnignton

Jul 27

Surprising Donnignton

As usual with me everything ended up being rather last minute. A ply wood splitter under tray that we had been working on for quite a while put u more of a fight on its final fitting. To the point that we finally got it on and the road at about 4am Saturday morning! So no time for any sleep. Quick trip home, shower, pack the car and then drive down to Donnington. Which thankfully was not to long a drive but having had very little sleep and none that night i was suffering a bit. Still arrive at Donnington is a state of slight confusion but it seems i was not the only one. Unloaded the car and started getting myself ready. But then it was strait into the warm up and Id not even had chance to change off my road tyres! Still they were not bad as I was expected to be a lot slower than the rest of the field. Having only around 230BHP my target for the weekend was not to be last! I was behind another car that I was assuming was warming his tyres up (something I always forget to do) but after a lap or 2 I realised I was faster and went past. As I did with a number of other cars in the other practice sessions. Looks like I might not be last after all. Was good fun running around with cars that were of a similar pace.. though I was soooo much slower on the straits I had to make the time up in the corners. My 3rd hand Dunlops were working well. Best fun was lapping round with Kev in the other Apex Performance S13s. I was 100+BHP down on him but swapped positions with him for a number of laps... until I felt a vibration and being paranoid came into the pits. Turns out my sunroof catch had come loose and was bouncing up and down! Nothing to much to worry about there. Sitting in the pits before the timed lap was stressful and a little discouraging as car id been close to in practise times seemed to be putting in much faster times. It then dawned on my that a lot of them had cranked up the boost! Something I could not do with my 14 year old T25 was giving as much as it could possibly give already. So just had to try and max out every corner and not fall off. Slightly over driving I ended up half on the grass on the inside of Craners and out braked myself into Macleans (slightly distracted by a plane taking off. Never seen that on track at Donington before) but still managed to better my best lap time by 3 tenths and finished mid table. Very chuffed with a car that is a lot less modded than most in the field.