As is usual, I neglected to make full use of my camera as the day swallowed me. Try clicking on the photo to find the precious few that I did manage to snap though.May 5th celebrates my 1st year anniversary since I competed in my debut race. This year I decided to compete again in the Emblem race rather than dropping down to Clubman 2. The competition is fierce in Emblem usually and this year was no different as shown by the qualification lap times. Having missed all of the winter sessions on TC2000, I hoped to beat my personal best of 1'10.578 around TC2000.
The previous day on a crowded circuit I'd managed to get a 1'10.8 so I was very hopeful of scoring a 1'10 flat or there abouts and I pushed hard to get it. I managed to get a 1'10.2 on my first lap and a 1'10.1 on my second lap and never bettered it. I was quite happy with this as it was my best time around Tsukuba and I felt sure it would get me a good medium grid position.
Unfortunately, it was only enough to get me to 16th on the grid out of 17 cars!!! This amazed me as it seems the level is even higher this year. Imagine 16 cars qualifying all within 1 second of each other around a 2km technical circuit? Wow. Seems I'm gonna have to up my game next time out and get some more practice in.
As a quick aside to qualifying with a time of 1'10.1, I remember reading a quote in Going Faster about how a particular driver used image training to gain extra time around a certain circuit. On qualification, he did exactly that time but he made a small mistake which if he had avoided would have seen him an even faster time. Its funny because, on my best lap, I lost about half a second on the exit of turn 1 due to bad oversteer which in turn limited me to my best of of around 1'10 flat... There must be something to putting limits on yourself like that. Think faster to go faster out there!
On with the story. As lunch came and went, it started to rain and by the time it came to race it really was quite wet out on the track. I quite enjoy rain as I find it a good teacher. At the back of the bunch I was also quite content that I no longer had any pressure to preform and could just go out and enjoy the weather.
The first lap was hectic with traffic jams on each corner until the final corner. I was nearly in the back of a car as he braked suddenly mid 1st hairpin but I managed to avoid him. I was in 15th place at the end of lap 1. After the due care lap of checking out the grip, I had some nice slippage through Dunlop which made me remember why its a corner to be respected in the wet. 1 lap later, I should have remembered that as I was carrying too much speed into Dunlop when the car in front was slower than I expected and I lifted slightly mid corner only to lose the rear... Luckily though I recovered the car with only a loss of speed... oh and my 15th place... Damn back to 16th!
Having upped my adrenalin somewhat, I began attacking over the next 10 laps to try and gain a place or two back. Probably about 3 or 4 laps to go, there was a yellow flag at Dunlop and I picked up a place courtesy of car 62. Car 36 was dead ahead but proving very difficult to pass. I'd spent a few laps up his outside on the 1st corner, the 1st hairpin and the 2nd hairpin only to loose out due to being too close to him to accelerate cleanly as early as I wanted to.
On the very last lap, I took an aggressive Dunlop and got up on his outside on the 2nd hairpin where I stayed and some how he gave me the space I needed to exit cleanly on his back left corner on the outside heading up to the finish. Having gotten on the throttle that little bit earlier, I gained inch by painful inch all the way up to the final corner for a side by side up the outside. I felt that this was the thing to do as I had checked out the outside for grip earlier on and felt confident it would work out as long as he didn't spin into me. I felt pretty confident about this too though luckily enough :-)
So, elated, I drove over the line in 14th place. I'd never driven a race quite like it before nor learned as much as I did during those 15 laps of pure rush.
I can't wait for the next Party Race! Thank you Mazda for such a great car and the chance to race it! Thank you Brains for the superb organization and thank you D-Technique for the great support and having me on your team. Thanks to everyone who helped out and supported me on the day including Y & A. Finally a big congrats to all the race winners! Heros all, but watch out as I want my place on the podium back this year!
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