A Successful Trip To Wales
Anyone who knows me will be well aware of the fact that Pembrey is far from my favourite place, in fact it is only kept off the bottom of the list by Swansea. As a result my expectations for the weekend were roughly those of Tim Henman going into Wimbledon. Consequently it was a great feeling to come away from the weekend with a hard fought 7th and a very hard fought 5th.
Qualifying has never been my strongest suit, so I was delighted to end Saturday’s session 8th and 9th respectively which meant I would actually get to watch the heats. After a seemingly endless wait Saturday’s final was a cracker, following a good start I was up into 5th place, before Ryan Lindsay used James Birch as a brake bringing out the reds. The restart saw me make another good start and I was again in 5th dicing with Martin Farmer, Ian Buxton and Simon Robinson. Ian and Martin were able to break away leaving me dicing with Simon for 6th. Coming into the hairpin on the last lap Simon grabbed the place and as I tried to take the place back on the twisty bits we touched, both of us spinning scattering the cars behind. Amazingly I wasn’t damaged and recovered to 7th, which is where I had been anyway. Apparently it was quite a spectacualr accident and from where I was sitting seeing bits of cars through the tyre smoke was not fun. On balance it was probably my fault, as the move was optimistic, but at the same time Simon did turn across me at a point where I was 80% alongside and on the inside.
After all that excitement as I was amazed when Sunday was even more spectacular. Spending the whole race dicing with Ian and Simon was by turns exhilerating and terrifying, as few come harder. I eventually found my way past Ian with a do or die move at the Crossing and then held Simon off by 0.03s on the line, after some scary moments with backmarkers - not their fault, but rather that of the marshals whose use of any flag, let alone a blue one was sporadic and random. Given the speed differentials in Vee at the moment, safe and correct use of the blue flag is essential or there will be a very serious accident.
Coming into the weekend with such low expectations, to come away with two solid points finishes was all I could have hoped for and leaves me well poised heading into my favourite tracks Cadwell and Brands.
Finally a note on the circuit staff and officials from Pembrey who for the 3rd year in a row I found to be nothing but impolite and unhelpful.
