The first test session of the year didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. It was pretty clear from the off we weren’t going to be getting out to play today…
Races
The provisional 2013 SMRC season dates have now been published;
Round 1, April 7th – Knockhill
Round 2, May 11th (Saturday) – Knockhill
Round 3, May 25th (Saturday) – Oulton Park
Round 4, June 23rd – Knockhill
Round 5, July 14th – Knockhill
Round 6, August 11th – Knockhill
Round 7, September 15th – Knockhill
Round 8, October 7th – Knockhill
The BTCC is back at Knockhill on the 24th and 25th of August. Hopefully they invite us back…
In 2010, Malcolm ran his own car, with the help of Hugh at HWS Motorengineers. It was a “character building” season, I think thats what they call it when everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong!
After purchasing the car in November 2009 the car was collected early 2010 and we got to work preparing it for the upcoming season. She got a mechanical overhaul, general clean up, new bonnet/windscreen/scuttle panel [after some rocket didn’t do up the bonnet pins before a blast along the dual carriageway] and a complete respray.
With a good few late nights worked, the car was looking great for the start of the season.
Arriving at Knockhill, the weather was distinctly Knockhill. All four seasons came out to play that day, from sleet and snow during qualifying, through rain in race 1 on to bright sunshine and a dry track for race 3.
All the hard work and heartache getting the car ready melted away as the day progressed, settling more in to the car and having some great battles on track. Alas, race 3 ended after just a couple of laps with me giving the tyre wall a cuddle just before the tri-oval. Luckily the impact didnt bend the chassis but did a pretty good job of destroying everything else on the car. But hey, 21 whole days to repair her before round 2…
Our first away round of 2012 was at the leafy Cheshire circuit of Oulton Park on the full length international layout.
Oulton’s technical track was higher speed than we normally experience at Knockhill with the classic Island Bend and Shell Oils hairpin adding some high speed excitement and interesting cambers.
This race meeting gave the best results of the season to that point, 6th then 5th. The picture below was taken on lap 1 going in to the Brittens chicane, with me leading the 27 car field after starting 2nd on the grid.
