Donington Race 2 Report

The second race was after lunch and this time I had a 4th place in class grid position behind Tim, Mike and John.

For the first couple of laps it was Tim out front with John and I chasing for the remaining podium positions until John would go straight on at the old hairpin when he hit the throttle as well as the brakes. By this time Tim had pulled away, making the most of a clear track and the many laps of experience he has at this track. I reminded myself that I had only completed about 20 laps of the circuit and concentrated on refining my lines and keeping the car in shape to minimize mistakes. After a few laps though I noticed that my lap times were not reducing much. Definitely not as much as I would expect with the tyres coming up to temperature and the fuel loads reducing.

Even more evident when I had some clear space. In fact over the next couple of laps I could see Mike catching me up, especially down the back straight. The car did not seem to be pulling 6th well at all so I changed the dash to show revs and speed rather than lap sector times and saw just 115 – 118mph for a peak speed as compared to 125mph or so in the first race and qualification. Hmm this did not bode well.

By lap 6 Mike had caught me up but more significantly he came in the tow of Paul Haynes who was making the most of his 30 or 40bhp advantage.


Paul caught me on the back straight unsurprisingly and in the processed of him overtaking enabled Mike to come right up close. The next few corners of that lap Paul was concentrating on defending his position where I was quite happy for him to just run off in the distance so I could keep in front of Mike. Paul’s defending slowed us down and Mike found it easy to pass my down the craners.

Up front Rob was doing an excellent job keeping with Gordon and Jonathon. Great improvement in speed this year and just a pitty we did not have separate races so I could watch the close running

We ran close up the other side and as we came around the last left to straighten up before the next right hand turn Paul span. Mike, a cars length ahead of me went high and I braked in the straight line to give myself some more time. By the time I needed to make a decision of what direction to go, I had scrubbed of most of my speed and Paul had completed his rotations and was traveling backwards towards the outside of the track, in fact exactly where Mike had gone! There was a very interesting impact, unfortunately just out of view of my camera, sending Mike skywards and ending the race for both. In fact as they were the gravel on the outside of that corner the race was red flagged and rolled back to the last complete lap excluding Mike and Paul so that left me with another second place! Very unfortunate for an RGB race to be red flagged especially because of an accident but both Paul and Mike were uninjured and it saved me form being easy pickings for people like John and Mike Atkinson as my top speed deteriorated.

So overall a very successful racing weekend and I have come away with a real regard for the circuit. Its even more of a challenge than I remember and then is immediately obvious form a spectators point of view. Cycling around the circuit goes part way to highlighting the fun of the undulations but until you are heading down the craner curves, car sliding whilst being flat in 6th at over 120mph or turning into Coppice, blind and over a crest in 4th the reason for Donington’s high regard by many racers is not apparent