Thread: CSCC Donington
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Old 29 Oct 2019, 11:44 (Ref:3937463)   #30
Paul D
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Join Date: Feb 2010
England
Southport, Merseyside
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Paul D should be qualifying in the top 10 on the gridPaul D should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
Actually, we had a great (ish) day on the Saturday, despite the rain! Without wishing to blow my own trumpet too much, I am a bit of a whizz in the wet and always perform way above where I'd normally be in the dry.

And so it proved during the morning qualy session, where I finished P5 and P1 in my class by over three seconds.

I was happy with that, and duly started the very wet race from P5, looking forward to a good result and hopefully a class win. What's that they say about pride coming before a fall? On the very first lap, exiting a very slick Coppice, I spun onto the infield grass (more accurately described as a swamp by this stage) and just about managed to keep up enough momentum to crawl very slowly back to the track in what seemed like a lifetime as I watched the entire field go by, and therefore rejoined in (I think) 35th and last place! Talk about shooting myself in the foot!

However, as stated, I am handy in the wet, so I got my head down, vowed to make no more silly mistakes and see what could be recovered. By the end of lap two, I had passed nine cars! By lap three, about another four or five, and by the time I came in (early - about 10 minutes into the race) for my mandatory pit-stop, I was already into the top half of the field.

After a good pit-stop (thanks Richard!), I continued my recovery drive, and by around two-thirds distance I was into the top ten and only one car in my class (from six or seven I think) remained in front of me. I caught and passed that one with around four or five laps to go, and continued to pull away, finishing the race back where I'd qualified in P5 overall and winning the class by over 40 seconds!

So I was, as you can imagine, well pleased with that. After finding myself in last place on lap one, even I didn't think I'd be able to pull that off! I was definitely on a mission.

Moving onto the night race - things didn't quite go my way in that one, despite having qualified in P4 out of 40 cars. But the qualy was done in the wet, and for the race, it was beginning to dry out a little, and as it did, my advantage began ebbing away. So even though I managed to be second fastest overall in the night race free-practice session, I couldn't maintain that through the race. A spin at the bottom of the Craners (the one place where it was still very wet) whilst involved in a fight with the DB4 and a back-marker, which put me on the grass and left me with few options if I wanted to avoid coming together with the Aston (wouldn't want to be having that conversation with the owner of a car worth upwards of half a million!), cost me around 10 or 15 seconds and a few places. Follow that with two safety car periods which robbed me of time to make a comeback, and then finally another last lap spin when another back-marker shut the door on me at Coppice, causing me to spin and drop out of the top ten - subsequently finishing in P11. But a great race and very different in the darkness. An enjoyable experience overall - would definitely do it again given the opportunity.
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