Cadwell Park - Race 2 May 1st 2006

Monday dawned with a very dark cloud layer giving fairly persistent drizzle after a night of rain and some surprisingly strong winds. With the Class A / B race due before lunch the drivers were prepping for a wet race and adjusting setups including their estimation on the fuel loads required for the 30 mins duration

The Class C race however was set for a mid afternoon race and all the forecasts predicted a change to dry condition post lunch but still left the drivers with some uncertainty over the track conditions.

For once I made a good start, managed to keep my (4th place) starting position for a change thanks to some suggestions from other racers including Paul. If I was able to run at the pace from yesterday, I knew I had some good pace to get past Jonathon Thackray and John Goodwin even if I had a little work to try and get on the pace of Tim at his favorite circuit.

Lap 1, I made an attempt to pass Jonathan T but he help the position.
Lap 2, I got a good run through Coppice and Charlies to give me a run at Jonathan T down the long park straight and carried out a simple down the inside overtake into Park corner. That’s 3rd!

Next up was John Goodwin and I knew he would not like to let me past as easily as in the first race of yesterday, in fact he has said exactly that between the races. So I did the same at the previous overtaking move on lap 4, concentrated on a good run onto the Park Straight.

It all came down to who would brake the latest and John made sure I did not have it easy. Well I then learnt a new lesson in my new found racing experience. Lesson to self: “ It’s OK to attempt an overtaking move and then abort it when it looks like it will not work. There are other opportunities and sometimes you need to try and then try again later”. You can probably guess this does not end brilliantly! Well I did go for the overtaking move but unfortunately I had left the braking just a little (and I mean just a little) bit too late meaning that although I made the overtake OK, I ended up running wide on the exit of the corner and found out just how slippery the grass is after a night of rain A little sideways and then backwards sliding is great fun unless you are watching lots of cars that were previously behind you rush past. So I rejoined the track behind Tim in 8th place and set about a meteoric come back. Lets see if Cadwell is really one of those tracks where passing is hard.


Took me a little time to get past Tim Hoverd, he was rather more reactive to a car spinning and loosing his bonnet in front of us on the brow of park straight which meant I need to brake harder than I expected and it took me a little while to get back behind him for an overtake. Although I was a bit quicker than Tim around Cadwell, he is actually quite neat and tidy, meaning that most of my time difference is actually on the faster interlinked corners where it is hard to pass. Compared to some of the other group around him it was much harder to just pass at the end of a straight. Maybe I was being a little more gentlemanly towards Tim as he has helped me quite a bit in my preparation for racing this year by answering the newbies questions so honestly! On Lap 4 I passed Tim going into Coppice!
Next up was Jonathon Thackray who I caught and we both passed David Whale passed into Park on lap 7. Into the Gooseneck on that same lap, we come up to Adrian Chapman to lap him and
Lap 8 the slip stream down over the start/finish line and I dive to the outside racing line before Jonathan can and go around the outside of him into Coppice.
As I came behind John Cutmore in the Westfield I realized making much more progress was going to be hard with so little time left. It did however prompt John to push quite a bit harder, he in fact dropped his lap time down to low 1:39s from previous 1:40’s as I approached. I also at this point noticed that Tim in the lead was not be chassed by anybody and thought to my self that this might mean he was not pushing that hard. A new idea then popped into my mind that I could gain another point (equivalent to me finished in 4th instead of the actual 5th which would be the same position as I started in) if I could achieve a fastest lap for the race.


It was also a little bit of a personal challenge as I know I could improve on the lap time I had posted in qualify but had not managed to achieve this in the first race due to battling with John Goodwin. So I set about some clean and then more aggressive laps and saw the sector and then lap times come down and down until I hit a 1:38 which was very satisfying indeed for the first outing at this circuit.