SPIN

More nail biting news from our intrepid racing driver. Another good day Wayne. Keep it up. Good luck at Snetterton.

“Hi all,

It was another satisfying day at Castle Combe in Wiltshire on Saturday. I qualified 3rd in Class D, just behind Mark James and Nik Mantikas, a decent effort as I had never driven the circuit before.

In the race I made fantastic start, so good in fact I hit Nik in the rear bumper very lightly, it was enough to make me back off the throttle and 2 cars behind me squeezed past – this wasn’t going to be easy!

I dispatched one of the interlopers within 3 corners and set about the next guy, he was obviously slower than me and this was confirmed when on lap 2 I got a good run at him out of the last corner and was driving up the inside of him when he decided he wasn’t going to allow me past and barged me onto the grass at 100mph which isn’t a particularly nice feeling.

He kept pushing me over until he actually spun himself around the front of me so at one point I was actually pushing him along whilst he was completely T-boned against my car, eventually he got turned around the drivers side and spun into the grassy field (not before giving me another tap on my way) this had seriously slowed me down in my pursuit of Mark and Nik who were making a quick getaway.

Over the next few laps I tried my hardest to catch them up but I suspect the red mist had descended in my helmet and I wasn’t driving as well as I could – the incident had knocked my rhythm and its quite difficult to regain during a race, I found that no matter how hard I pushed I just couldn’t make any ground up – I was currently sitting 3rd in class D and I had settled for the 16 points and the little trophy that third brought when I came across the smoking wreckage on Nik’s cars, he had gone off heavily into the tyres and written his car off thus elevating me to 2nd place, not the way I wanted it to happen (Nik was ok apart from whiplash and bruising) but an extra 2 points which I’d never turn down.

I had caught John Pogson in his class C Alfa 155 V6 and decided to have a play with him as Mark had long gone by now, there was no point throwing 2nd away for the sake of a foolish attempt at catching Mark – I had a lot of fun chasing, catching, overtaking and being passed time and time again by John, he would blast off on the straights – his 220bhp being too much for my little 150bhp car, but I could brake much, much, much later than him and would often approach the corners with the car completely sideways and then stick it up the inside before he could turn in!

And that’s how it finished, another top 10 position overall and 2nd in class D – very happy indeed considering the shenanigans earlier in the race.
Next race is at Snetterton in 3 weeks, looking forward as it’s a real power circuit and my little 8v engine from last year didn’t quite cut the mustard – this new 16v should go really well! J”