Long haul racing – Caterham Roadsports visit Croft

The emotional rollercoaster continues. It’s an incredibly long way up to Croft. Next stop is Newcastle if you overshoot! The circuit is properly old fashioned. Not in a bad way – in a ‘what club motorsport is about’ type of way. Testing went very well and I found the pace quickly. A best of 1:37.29 wasn’t bettered all weekend – although, there are no points for being fast in testing!

Qualification

I found my sea legs and turned in a great final lap to take pole by 0.6s.

No points for qualifying either, but we were all due medals for getting out on track in soaking wet conditions. I haven’t been on track in conditions that bad throughout Roadsports so it was a voyage of discovery!

However, I found my sea legs and turned in a great final lap to take pole by 0.6s. That’s a pretty good start to the weekend.

Race 1

Come the race, the conditions were mainly dry but with some fully damp areas on track. I got  good start and remained side by side with Will through the first section of the lap. I took the outside line at Tower and got my car ahead, however, a damp inside to the corner saw Will slide me off track on the exit and that meant immediately dropping to 5th and the next lap Lee put me back to 6th.

I never managed to shake Lee Bristow from my tail for more than a corner at a time

At this point, things weren’t looking at all good. Through the race, I managed to haul back up to 4th, which turned to 3rd when Jack missed his brake pedal at Sunny in and spun out. I never managed to shake Lee Bristow from my tail for more than a corner at a time and the relentless pressure eventually told on the last lap. Going into the complex, I managed to clip my accelerator and ran wide – letting a podium slip away and ending up 5th. Queue bad mood.

Race 2

Starting 5th and with the top 10 cars all capable of circulating within a few 10ths of each others times, this was always going to be a hard race! Another good get away but nowhere for the car to go saw me slip behind Tim Dickens into 6th. Jack Sales didn’t take long at all to get up to 7th from his 10th place start and the usual balancing act of trying to attack ahead and defend behind started in anger.

Starting 5th and with the top 10 cars all capable of circulating within a few 10ths of each others times, this was always going to be a hard race!

At least 4 times, Jack and I went side by side for extended periods. He’s a master behind the wheel and is a pleasure to race with. It took everything I had to keep him at bay and an opportunistic move around the outside of Tim going into  turn one at least took the relentless pressure from the red machine away for a bit. Not that Tim wasn’t shoving his nose in all the wrong places!

The Roadsport train never really relented but a slightly missed overtake move by Dan meant I could take some speed through the Jim Clark esses and get through to 3rd. Almost immediately, the Sea’s parted as Henry missed his braking point at Sunny in and I got through to 2nd.

I chased down Will and sat on his tail for 2 laps – trying for moves where I could but alway mindful of the previous day and not wanting to throw another result out the window. That left me in 2nd at the line and MUCH happier than the previous day.

With his double win and a fastest lap in race 1, Will has almost two hands on the trophy now. I haven’t done the maths but I’m sure I’ll have at least a mathematical chance at Silverstone. Whilst there’s still a chance – never give up hope!