SPA 6 Hours Sept 2010

Woodcote RAC Trophy Race 24th-26th Sept 2010

Weather:- Qualifying Wet and cool.   Race Very Wet and cool.

Qualifying:-

25th out of 44 cars in the qualifying session of 40 mins.

Best time in wet conditions on last lap of 3mins 55sec.

Track not too bad on the Friday, only wet with not too much oil.

The Holding area just before the start:-

The Race:-

DB2 lemans blue grill in centre No.43

Race:-    17th Overall,   5th in class C3.     Best Lap 4mins 05sec on lap 14.

I started the race which was a rolling start due to the large size of the grid. Entry to the track is via T4 with a slow part lap up to the gird.

Getting darker I put the lights on the next lap

Grid positions were sorted but for some reason one car in our class which qualified 10 places behind us and 5 rows back ended up 3 rows in front which in the poor conditions made a very big difference.

The race started under a safety car and was run under the safety car for 2 laps before the green flags were shown.

The track was very slippey and wet partly due to the previous race which had a number of big oil spills around the whole track and mostly on the racing line.

I managed to get sideways up eau rouge but managed to get it back before any major disaster. I also found it very tricky at the far end of the track before the decent into the double left.

I was in 22nd position when a spinner infront of me caused me to take an off track detour which allowed several cars to over take on the straight. I managed to catch up but could not get past in the poor conditions so I decided to pit and hand over to Adrian who is quicker then me.

I thought if we can have a quick pit change we can leap frog the cars which had passed me on the straight the previous lap and so it proved.

Adrian managed to gain more places towards the end of the race as the rain started to reduce.

We finally managed 17th overall and 5th in class although this should have been 16th overall and 4th in class except for the error in the grid start line up.

Very Heavy rain during the race Adrian in car?

We were happy to finish the race in one piece both us and the car. The car ran very well during the weekend with no issues which was very pleasing considering the rain.

Overall very enjoyable if some what challenging and I hope I will be back next year with a bit better weather.

Some other cars in the holding area just before the race:-