We headed to East London this past weekend for Round 1 of the 2010 National Championships. Due to last minute sponsorship deals, I had to drive a loan as there was no time to get another car ready.
As a result, we found ourselves in trouble from session 1 on friday - 0.8s off the initial pace. Our lack of pace, due to lack of horsepower from an "old" motor haunted me all day friday, to such an extent, that I think I actually forgot how to be a race driver.
Added to the struggle, was the fact that we managed to discover a cracked rim on my quali tyres just before qualifying. This meant we weren't able to get the tyre refitted to another rim, and so... we went into qualifying with 3 new tyres, and 1 used tyre. The worst part is the it wass the left front, and the track had 7 right hand turns out of 10 corner!
So, battle as I may, I could only manage a 4th in qualifying, 1s off pole! The car was dreadful, slow as hell (track has a 1.5km flat out section so you can just image), and totally off balanced!
We arrived at the track to find more problems on sat morning. The team, for some reason, unknown to me, had not changed my left front, which meant, according to series rules, that I would now have to race on the 'used" left front, and without another tyre, I was left with no option but to skip warm up (warm up wouldve meant an extra heat cycle!!).
So we made a conservative decision to just run for points in heat 1. To my luck, my team mate slowed up on the first lap with a broken gear linkage. After 2 laps I lost the toe to the 2 leaders and finished 3.6s behind in 3rd.
What we found in the time betweeen heats, was a worn bolt and plate on the front suspension. With the reverse grid for heat 2 (based on laptimes from heat 1), I found myself in 5th place. An awesome first lap and I crossed the line 2nd. I chased and chased the leader, but just couldnt get close enough in braking zones, not even with the help of a tow/toe. On the last lap, I managed to get good drive out of T3 and "bullied and bumped" my way into the lead to win by 0.3s.
The win also gave me overall victory on the day, and the points lead!
