Went to Donington Park on sunday (29th Jan). Had a great time and to my surprise wasn't that slow! Pictures in the photos section.

 

There were several cars there that I didn't have a chance of keeping up with with my little 100bhp monster (the exige, corvette etc), but some of the machinery that I overtook really should have been beating me by more than it was. Most memorable was overtaking a Ferrari 355 round the outside of Redgate in session 2. In the same session I also got past the black Porsche Cayman (black, brand new and VERY nice!) and a red E30 M3 (one of my all-time favourite cars). Considering I was trailing the Ferrari and Porsche by 260bhp+ I was quite chuffed with myself after only 20 minutes of track experience. Most significantly though, I was able to keep (relatively) in touch with a roadsport inter car for about 5 laps. This is good to know since the inters are basically 2 classes up on my grads car, so just being able to stay in touch is an achievement! My 'guestimate' of times (from the info that I did 12 laps in each of the 20 minute sessions) is that my average time was about 1:40 with about 1:35 as my quickest. Thats only about 6 seconds behind the lap record for a grads car which I reckon is a pretty good effort for a first ever track drive!

 

Best race of the day though was between me and a blue race prepared VW beetle. He had higher top speed but I had better cornering. Since there was no overtaking allowed, like the gentlemen we were, whenever one of us had 'the run' on the other one and could have gone passed, the lead car pulled to the side to let the overtaker through and hence it was almost like a race. We were so close it was the most fun bit of the day.

 

The end of the day was marred by a broken prop-shaft on my car. No accident just fatigue damage, and it only took away 5 minutes of the last session but annoying none the less, thanks to the RAC for towing me 100 miles home! Now to assess the damage, hopefully not more than about a hundred pounds but you never know. Still these things happen and the day was worth it either way!

 

Next one will probably be the castle combe action day in april, cannot wait.