Fridays testing

Two years had passed since the last time i was at castle combe so i was excited to get back out on the track but also anxious to string some decent lap times together. The track was dry all day and the aim of the first session was to bed the new brake pads in. As soon as i was out on the track i could feel the huge difference in the brakes to the point where i was actually braking too early and my times were being compromised.

By lunchtime i had got used to the brakes and was able to really push the car. We played around with a few different setups and by the latter sessions found a great setup and was putting in some good lap times.
In the last session we changed the setup yet again and managed to go 3 tenths quicker in traffic, however on the 6th lap coming out of quarry it felt like the gearbox gave up and i couldnt get any drive so had to pull off. The session was red flagged and i was towed into the paddock. The team got straight to work taking out the gearbox and clutch to find the clutch plate has disintegrated and infact the gearbox was ok (what a relief!).

Luckily the racing wasn't until the bank holiday Monday so we had all weekend to get the car sorted. We left the car and trailer at combe while we travelled back to Hull on the Friday night picking up a new clutch on the way.

Sunday Charity Kart Race
Eaton Motorsport (Me, my dad and mechanic Chris) had been invited to take part in a charity kart race organised by Le Mans 24hr winner Guy Smith on the Sunday at PFI Kart track in Lincolnshire. There was a huge range of drivers there from Le mans drivers, Sportscar drivers and Formula Ford drivers. I managed to qualify 7th out of around 60 drivers and 19 teams.

On the first lap of the race I had to take avoiding action at the first hairpin which dropped me back to around 16th. The race was 100 laps long and 7 stops were needed so we all had around 15 laps in the kart and i did a double stint at the end. After my first stint i got back up to 8th position and handed the kart over to Chris. After 100 laps we ended up finishing in 6th place and i had the 5th fastest lap time. All in all we had a great day and it was fun to get the team together and raise some money for charity.

We left PFI at around 6 and headed straight to Castle Combe and arrived around 10pm to put the gearbox and new clutch back in the car with only car headlights for help!

Monday Race Day
Qualifying kicked off at 8.30am on a wet track. Unfortunately we didnt have the car dialled into the conditions very well and we also only have 1 set of tyres which are at optimum dry track depth which isn't ideal for extremely wet conditions. I predicted i wouldn't have even qualified top 10 and i came in to find i had qualified 12th. We immediately put the setup on the car we had for Donington's wet races and hoped for the best.
 I got a great start in the first race and made it up to around 6th position and was pulling in the guys in front, i was loving it. However going into tower on lap 7 i locked up the new brakes and by the time i had regained control i was on the wet grass and hit the tyre wall on the left side of the car. I rejoined in around 16th position and battled my way up to finish 10th. I was frustrated with my little off but happy that I managed to improve my lap time by 3 seconds.

For race 2 i started 13th and got another good start on a greasy but drying track. I had Will Chappelle, Jim Edwards Snr and Luca Furbatto in front of me and was also being chased by Matt Robinson. I caught up to the guys in front and was having a great battle trying to get past them. Chappelle was driving defensively making it very difficult to overtake however as the track was drying out i took a gamble and braked late at Camp corner and drove round the outside of him and Furbatto. I got a great run out of the corner and got alongside of Edwards Snr at Folley and made it up to 7th position. I held 7th position for the rest of the race and managed to gain 5th fastest lap time. So all in all a very good race, one of the best i've had in the Mazda Mx5 Cup.