4 May 2005

THRUXTON RACE REPORT

With the bitter weather of Donington a distant memory, the TOCA tour arrived at Thruxton to find some fine, sunny weather for a change. Straight into qualifying at 9.00am was a shock to the system and mistakes on two of my best laps resulted in qualification of seventh and sixth for rounds three and four respectively.

Race one of the weekend was held on late afternoon Saturday and it was a terrific, clean and spirited scrap for 13 laps. I was shuffled down the order to ninth whilst running fourth and battled back to sixth at the flag. Without a moment's respite throughout the race it was no holds barred racing all the way - great fun.

With 24 hours between races there was no shortage of preparation time for Sunday's finale. I got a strong start and was running with the leading group when I lost a spot to John Gaw who had made a terrific start. By the time we had swapped places a couple of times the leading group were several seconds up the road. At this point, unbeknown to me, I started setting fastest lap after fastest lap and then gradually it dawned on me that I was catching the leading group. On lap ten I was with the leading pack when Jonathon Adam, who had been leading comfortably, slipped back and was passed by Pead and Allison. As he had lost some momentum into Goodwood, Stephen Colbert and I slipped through. At the exit of the corner Stephen and I made the slightest of contacts which resulted in a spin for him (it is not my style and not deliberate!) and I was through into third place.

The final lap saw me nearly a second faster than the leaders and I caught Allison in the chicane but it was too late to make up any more positions. However, a good race, a podium, the fastest lap and beating all three of my teenage hot shoe team mates was pretty satisfying. The only problem now is keeping it up!