The Academy Racer – Episode 2
The Academy Racer – Episode 1
If, like me, you’ve always wanted to go racing – The Caterham Academy is a great, cost effective, way of doing that on an absolutely level playing field. If you want to find out what it’s like to join and take part in the Caterham Academy – then this new series is for you! Episode 1 is out now. Follow Sam on her journey and experiences as she takes on this exciting challenge.
Premature End Game at Cadwell
I’d made the decision ahead of Cadwell that this would be my final seasons racing for the forseable future. I kind of ‘semi’ retirement. I’ve had an epic time racing cars but unfortunately, my ‘sensible head’ had it’s say and realised that another season in the 420R wasn’t a good choice.
I’ve got to drive every step of the Caterham ladder, stood on every step of the race and championship podium and met some amazing people and made friendships with many of them.
It was therefore a little sad to be arriving at Cadwell. It’s a track that comes with a reputation. Both for being an absolutely epic track to drive but also a track that bights back.
It’s another new track to me and whilst it felt very familiar as I’ve raced it on the sim and seen plenty of racing on TV, it was the first time visisting for real. The first few laps out I knew it was going to take everything to find pace and hold on for the weekend.
I was blessed and curssed by exceptionally fast team mates. They never relented all year and therefore, every session of every track was relentlessly rewarding and bruising all at the same time.
It litterally took me all of the 2 days of testing to finally find the pace. However, in the final couple of sessions of the second day I found something. Suddely, everything clicked. We had a wet session and I finally found the confidence I’d lacked all year in the car and with the tyres. The result was a lap 1.5 seconds faster than my nearest team mate. And in the final dry session, I put in a time that put me in the running.
I went away from the track feeling bullish and finally things felt like they had come together.
Qualification
However, qualification didn’t go to plan. It didn’t go to plan at all. On about lap 4, a clipped the wet grass coming out of Chris Curve. The car immediately swapped ends and the rest is history.
Contact with the tyres meant some reparis were needed and, as this was the final race weekend of the season, the ‘sensible head’ once again came to the fore and I decided to pull the plug early so the car could be made right and I’d be in a good position to give some lucky person my pride and joy in mint condition.
The season has been a tremendous adventure. The whole year, I’ve compared every aspect of my racing with the best. That has weighed heavily but there have definitely been sparks of my old form there. I just wasn’t able to bring that out often enough.
The car defeinitely needed 2 years of experience and I really feel I could give things a far better go if I had my time again. But right now, that’s not possible and I am forever grateful that I’ve managed to do something I love for so long.
New adventures await and I’m sure racing cars will be a part of that again at some point. But just not in the immediate future.
Oulton Park British GT Weekend
We should have been supporting several British GT weekends through 2021. However, Covid saw the foreign rounds disappear and we were left with one final partnership at Oulton Park.
It’s not a track I have loads of experience at. However, it’s a brilliant track to drive. Such a wonderful set of corners. You really go on an adventure every lap with something for everyone. Fast and committed. Tight and technical and gradient thrown in everywhere. Plently of barriers to punish you as well if you get things wrong.
Qualification
Frustration! Slick tyres on a drying track was the correct choice and I was on the correct combination. However, I was further back in the queue than I would have liked at the start of qualification and that meant I was finding it hard to get any track position and a clear lap.
It’s not often I can say that I was held up by Will Smith, but I certainly did as he was on older slicks.
After several off track escapades in what were very tricky conditions and a session only 10 minutes long, it all came down to the final lap.
It went well, although I had to navigate Tom Eden who had parked on the final apex. I was sure this had scuppered my lap, but was surprised to find myself again in Superpole.
Superpole
A steady lap. And it showed. 4th on the grid was the result after James Murphy fell foul of track limits. I felt more was possible but I failed to get back up to speed quickly enough. A familiar defect to my season.
Race 1
A good start for once. I made up a place to run initially in 3rd. This changed to 4th when James Murphy taught me a lesson on the amount of grip you can generate early on with a specacular move into the Chicane. 4th was looking good. Great actually.
I had a gap behind and was keeping up (just) with the ultra rapid Steve Nuttal, Henry Heaton and James Murphy. This was more like it! Due to the tight schedule on the GT calendar, we were only having 2 races this weekend, back to the 30 minute race format. That comes with advantages for me; less starts; less early laps; more ‘settle in’ period. However, this year it also comes with a big downside. Fitness!
13mins in and I made a mistake coming out of the second chicane. I drifted onto the grass and lost positions gathering things back up onto the track.
I then got spooked into the final corner braking zone causing Greg Monks to hit my rear. Not his fault at all. But that saw me lose more places. So disappinting from the drivers seat. Gonig from 4th and now dropping to my more familiar mid field setting.
I got stuck behind Rob Watts and Greg Monks having an epic battle. I felt I had the speed over both of them but just not the racecraft, or energy frankly, to make it stick.
That then cost me more positions with Jake Swan-Dixon coming back through. Ultimately, he made it all the way to 5th place and that would have been a position I was capable of if I was more race hardened and fitter.
Race 2
The race that never was. Well, “half wasn’t” I suppose.
Conditions once again were extremely changeable and tricky to judge. The whole field decided on slick tyres even through there was rain threatened. With the banks absolutely chock full of specators, it was going to be an absolutely epic advertisment for Caterham racing. For whatever can be said about our brand of motorsport, it leads to endlessly entertaining and epic racing.
An initial delay being released onto the track and then an even longer delay held on the grid before we got going meant that the threatened rain had a chance to arrive.
I made a reasonable start and then managed the conditions well to move forward. I’d got all the way to 5th place when Alex Jordan found the barriers and a safety car was thrown. Unfortunately, this meant that all the residual heat from the tyres was lost and the rain was getting heavier by the second.
Unfortunately, some poor communication by race control meant that instead of calling us all in to swap to wet tyres, they showed us a premature chequered flag instead.
That’s a signal there is no recovery from. The race is over and restarting it would have lead to more technical and regulatory issues that would likely have lead to the result being void.
Finishing in 5th would have been a result to take away of course, and I would have been happy to! However, half points was all that was awarded so it was added to everyone’s dropped scores list for the season.
We all went away from that weekend feeling disapointed. It’s a long way to go to only get one race and for me, 2 potentially great results went away.