Today we left home to go and run an RMA trackday event at the Formula 1 circuit of Magny Cours. After leaving at about 12.00 pm it took my dad and I a good six hours until we arrived in the small but famous town. Once we arrived we unpacked our gear, went down to the bar to chat to the customers who were also getting ready for the following day and then eventually we moved of to bed for a good night's sleep.
The next morning my dad and I, along with all of our customers moved downstairs to get something to eat to prepare all of us for the long day ahead. As we all arrived in the dinning room it looked that it could of all been a waste of time, as we looked out the windows all you could see was drops of rain forming in the outdoor pool and bigger rain clouds in the far distance, which was worse for me more than anyone, because I was driving a Caterham Roadsport, with no roof on. After a good half hour the rain cleared to everyone's delight and after drying the entire inside of the car I drove off down the road to the circuit compounds.
As you can imagine the French being as they are, they didn't really care about what was going on at the circuit, which was great. At 9.00 am the huge barricade of red lights that haunted the beautiful pit straight switched to green and obviously I was straight in my car and was the first one out on the circuit. It was amazing; I'd never seen a circuit so clean and well presented as this one. It also offers a huge variety of different bends which vary from tight 25mph chicane and the end of the long straight up to the never-ending 120mph first corner. This was the best it could get.
But just after it was to good to be true, I approached the corner named 180° I looked in my mirrors before I made the turn and all I could see was bails of smoke pouring off the back of the car, and I instantly thought the back was on fire. So whilst still moving I slammed my foot on the brake, turned the car off and unbuckled my belts and was out of the car before it had a chance to completely stop. In the end we found out the cam-belt had broken and destroyed the entire inside of the engine. I was just a tiny bit unlucky on that one.
But all was not lost, at the end of the day all my happiness was restored as the brand new Peugeot 908 HDI started to lap. It was gorgeous, even thought it sounded how a diesel should do.
Today was the third and fourth round of the championship, and I was looking for another good result following my two previous second places. After qualifying fifth I was pretty sure I could get a good finish here. But it seems not, after the lights went out it jus got bad and then worse really. Firstly I was crunched up against the pit-wall by another car and then coming down paddock hill bend I was hit by rival leader Sam Schofield who ended my race for me by planting me in the gravel. Later on he was penalised and had two points on his race licence for dangerous driving.
After working for a lot of Saturday evening our mechanic Jaco eventually got the car looking good once again, and also once again I had gone out and qualified on fifth on the grid, at this point it wound me up because at all four races so far I had qualified on only fifth, but never mind. Now I was really confident for a good result. As the race started again I was pushed up against the pit-wall and the managed to magically squeeze through a non-existent gap into fourth place after being hit a good eight times from people behind me. Going up towards druids I managed to snatch third place which I held for a long period of the race letting the two cars in front battle knowing they were going to hit sooner or later, so I drove with my brains for once and sat in third patiently for about six laps and would you believe it, they did hit each other meaning I had a good shot at the lead which was then cut of by the leader filling the gap I was about to take. I had a few last lap final shots at the lead and held the lead for a small time on the run down to Graham Hill Bend but I was on the outside so there was nothing I could do, and I crossed the line to another second place. After the race we celebrated with champagne and all that and eventually we packed up and went home to prepare for Pembrey.
On Thursday afternoon we got ready to leave for the drive up to Hinckley just off of Mallory Park where my dad and I were running an event for the Cannonball 8000 (not the one where people got killed, that's Gumball) when we eventually arrived at this really nice hotel, we checked in, went to our rooms and got cleaned up and back of to the bar to chat to the crazy cannonballers that we had to try and control.
The next day my dad and I got up at 6.30am and left for Mallory Park, thanks to all the road signs disappearing due to roadworks it took us about an hour to find the circuit but when we did it looked like we weren't the only ones. With twenty minutes to go until track went live there was a whopping five out of fifty eight cars in the paddock. In the end everyone arrived and I had to start my instructing for the day. This is where it got fun. I being luckier than all the other instructors got the best cars. And I got the chance to drive a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale an Aston Martin DB9. also a 600bhp Nissan Skyline and a Porsche 911 GT3. After that I was quite happy and just to finish it all of I had to do a TV lap for BBC Midlands which involved me being swarmed by a load of Spearmint Rhino girls in tight all in one suits which I was quite happy to get involved with, but I also had to do a few laps of Mallory in the wet in a Porsche GT3 with one hand on the wheel explaining to the TV guy what was happening. It was all good stuff.
And just to finish the day of I ended up doing doughnuts in the paddock in a 550bhp HSV V8 Supercar which was also good stuff. And after a long days work with loads of cars, smoke and girls I was just ready to be driven all the way home by my very own personal driver. MY DAD.