So I decided to write a proper blog on this which i'll be publishing properly and continually updating on wordpress or something in the near future, but here is the update from my first race day. It's a bit of a lengthy read so apologies, but I spent enough time writing it let alone cutting it down for here, so just bear with it if you want to read thought it.
I didn't use my video camera as it was raining heavily and i didn't want to damage it, although it does say it's waterproof, i don't know if that meant a slight splash, or continual drenching, I didn't want to risk it.
Sunday 8[SUP]th[/SUP] April 2012 – Day before my first race
Kind of mixed emotions today, ranging from apprehension to nervousness, to excitement, and then to basically shi*ting myself. It’s all about the unknown. Let’s go through what I don’t know. The following is a list of my apprehensions / fears / concerns:
- I don’t know what the car will handle like in the rain
- I don’t know what racing line to take in the rain
- I don’t know if I’ll be able to even see due to the spray from the rain
- I don’t know if my visor will fog up beyond belief (even with anti fog, I’m not sure)
- I don’t know what the other drivers are like
- I’ve never tried doing a proper racing start yet (which will be difficult in the rain not to wheelspin all over the place)
- I’m concerned that in my eagerness I’ll forget to change up gears at the start of the race (as I’ve been told it’s so loud with the other cars I may not even hear my own engine)
That gives you a glimpse of my thoughts at this moment in time. I’m confident I’ll muddle through, but until I get around the first few laps during the race, I’ll be somewhat uneasy.
Anyway, time to get ready so I don’t have to be rushing in the morning…..
Monday 9[SUP]th[/SUP] April – 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Race Day!!!! – Historica Racing Festival
My alarm goes off at 6:30am, I’m tired. I would’ve ideally liked to get to bed nice and early on the night before my first ever race, but with all the thoughts and concerns going through my head I was VERY fidgety and restless, so I ended up heading to bed later than I wanted.
I look out the window in the hopes that all the weather forecasts are wrong and it’s bone dry with clear blue skies….. the weather forecasts were right, tits, it’s raining and looks very gloomy.
My girlfriend has decided to come with me today for some additional support and to see me in my first race, or maybe she thinks that all of this is just some overly elaborate scheme to see another woman and wants proof that this “racing” I speak of is actually true, but I like to think that it’s mainly for the support.
It’s 7am and we set off with a quick 45 mile drive to Castle Combe (which is one of the reasons I picked that championship, and the team, the track is just so nearby) – my racing debut is literally getting closer by the second!
So I arrive at the track at about 7:45 – it feels early but there’s already so much activity going on. People were camping out from the night before, teams are already in place and set up, lots of people mulling around, I’m pretty excited by this point.
I see the our team truck so I pull up behind it, people seem to just dump their cars wherever, as long as it’s near to their team. Looking around the truck I can see that the awning is fully out and there are the 5 cars of the team sitting there, all clean and ready to go. I can also see that my car now has some stickers, so it doesn’t look so bland, hurrah!!! I know the thought of putting stickers on a car to make it look better almost seems kind of childish, like I want to give myself a nice sticky gold star to prove I’m mummy’s little star ( I don’t need a star anyway, I KNOW I’m mummy’s little star!!), but this is different. The stickers are of the team name (Kevin Mills Racing), a couple team sponsors (I think) and my number, 44. It looks a lot better! I do have a couple more stickers to put on, but I’ll put them on next time out. The result is below:
Once I had taken a few minutes to say hi to the team, I promptly went ahead for a new drivers briefing at 08:15. This is a briefing that is given to people that haven’t raced at the circuit before. Even though I had tested here, I still had to attend as it’s all about having raced at Combe or not. It’s basically a quick briefing that pretty much just goes over some basics, how to enter and exit the track when qualifying and for the race, what the procedures are, safety car procedures etc. It also gives the drivers a chance to ask some questions if they have any. I didn’t particularly learn anything new at this briefing, I had pretty much already asked my team the bulk of any questions I had.
So new driver briefing done, it’s time to go over and get signed on. This is just where you turn up, with your race license, and tell the track that you are there and ready to rock and roll!! You sign the sheet, they give you a programme and a little ticket to give to the scrutineering team, and in this particular occasion, a Cadbury’s Creme egg (which in my case is breakfast, result!!).
I then make my way over to scrutineering. I’ve been told by Kev that my car had already been through scrutineering the night before, teams do this to save time, you should see the length of the queue at this time, must be about 20 cars waiting to be checked over. What they are now looking for, given that my car is already ok, is that my race kit is up to spec and conforms to all the normal British standards, and that my crash helmet isn’t just made from egg cups and an upside down cooking pot. My kit is all fine, I get a sticker on my helmet saying that’s it’s is fine for motorsport for this season, as well as a sticker that goes on my car saying that it, as well as the driver, has passed scrutiny and is good to race.
By this time it’s now around 09:30 and I’m good to go – the formalities were a bit annoying as they take time, but it’s all a part of motor racing and there’s no way around it. My qualifying session is due at 10:20 so I’m now less than an hour away.
The rain has let up a little bit, but it’s still constant. There are also fears of oil on the track. The cars out on track before us are of the 1960’s, and if you look at the roads along the paddock you can see streams of oil left behind from them as they’ve been driving around, this is not a good sign for things to come.
I decide it’s now time to get my kit on, everything seems a little bit more real when you’re all dressed and ready to go. As it’s wet and gloomy out, I, along with most people, have opted not to use the tinted visors on our helmets. I put my clear visor on, but not before treating it to a good helping of anti-fog on the inside, I’ve been told that in the rain things can get pretty steamy in the helmet, and I’ll have enough to think about without being blinded by my own breath (would that be classed as self-harming if I crashed due to my own breath and hurt myself? Hmmm).
I’m starting to get a little nervous again at this point. Even though I wouldn’t be technically racing during the qualifying, it’s the whole unknown of what a wet track is like that’s making me uneasy. I’m reassured (I think) by Kev to just expect the track to feel horrible. The car will understeer, the back will step out under power, you’ll find vision difficult, the oil from the old cars in the session before will make the road mega slippy, it’s all very reassuring stuff!! I guess ultimately if I can imagine the worst possible situation, then there won’t be any nasty surprises.
It’s now about 09:50 (qualifying is at 10:20) and my mechanics push my car over to the pits area, getting in the queue to enter the track for qualifying. I walk over with my girlfriend to where the car is. Top tip from Kev, make sure you have your head covered when walking through the rain ahead of putting your helmet on – turns out that if your hair gets wet and you then put your helmet on, this wet hair will cause loads more mist on the inside of your visor. I get to the car and finally see the rest of the other cars, there seems to be loads of them – turns out there’s 21 (which is actually a small grid, they used to get 36!!!). I put on my balaclava, HANS device and helmet. For some reason I seem to be putting my gloves on when I’m already in the car, I’m not sure why I do this, just seems to be something that I do – maybe that’s my ‘thing’ for good luck? Who knows?!? I get myself strapped in by my mechanics and patiently wait for the signal that things will be happening soon.
The rain is still coming down so as I’m sitting there in the car, with a big umbrella covering me (being held by my mechanic), Kev comes over to all his drivers with a bit of a final warning. Apparently there is oil all over the track as a result of those older cars in the previous session. I instinctively ask him where on the track the oil is so that I can take extra care in that section, his reply is “everywhere”. Well that’s just brilliant! I’m now sat here, at my first race day, in a car that I managed to crash in the DRY (although not through a driver error, it was a setup issue – I’ll maintain this for the rest of my life), with only about 2.5 hours of useful testing under my belt, in the rain (having never driven in the rain), about to go on a track also full of oil so will be incredibly slippery, could things get any worse?!? The answer is yes, I accidentally farted, it did not smell good, but o the plus side it did momentarily take my mind off of what was coming up.
Once the air had cleared it was time, we were waved on by the marshals to go ahead and enter the track and get the session under way. It was time. Time to see what this car was like in the wet and the oil, in the hands of a very inexperienced driver. Interestingly at this point I wasn’t thinking about nerves or anything, I was just focused about my driving and what I needed to do (which was just finish the session in one piece, getting a decent time was second on my list of priorities at this point).
I enter the track and gain speed going up through the gears, I can already feel that this is totally different to what I had experienced before. Forgetting about the rain hitting my visor, the feel of the car was strange – it still felt pretty good, but I was very aware that the handling had changed for wet weather and it just felt different, I can’t really explain how, I’m not experienced enough to know yet.
Going in a straight line wasn’t too different to the dry, but the corners were something else. Slowing the car down wasn’t too much of an issue (although this may be because I was being cautious and braking early), but the turn in was tricky, it was gradual and controlled, it had to be or there would just be understeer. Applying the power was difficult, if I was in a straight line I could feel wheelspin, but any amount of turn on the wheels with this power applied was met with the back end sliding out into a slow-motion spin. The track was like a skid pan. I suddenly knew (after the first corner) that this was going to be a very interesting session.
I ploughed on, continually checking my mirrors and letting anyone quicker than me pass, easily. I had enough to think about just keeping the car on the track then having the experienced drivers crawl over my backside, plus they were competitive so I didn’t want to ruin their qualifying laps.
Slowly I was getting to grips with the conditions, my lap timer wasn’t working again so I relied on my mechanics holding out the pit board. It was reassuring to see my lap times drop each lap and that there were people there that I was overtaking – it was clear I wasn’t the slowest, result!!!
I had a couple moments where I thought I may have lost it, generally by turning in slightly too late into a corner which meant that I was carrying too much speed into the wrong line, and seeing as the track was very unpredictable (well, predictable in that you know it’s going to be unpredictable, which doesn’t exactly help much) it’s difficult to just brake harder or recover easily. The reason I made these mistakes were normally caused by looking in the mirrors as slightly the wrong times and juuuust missing my braking point. Luckily though, I managed to not spin, and not be forced to take the escape road by the chicanes, so that was good. Of course, it may have been because I wasn’t pushing hard enough, but I was very aware that I didn’t want to crash in qualifying and not even take part in my first race, so I was happy not to push too hard. I know my limits, which is very important when starting out with motor racing. With more experience my limits will increase, and so will my knowledge of the limits of the car.
As the session went on I was getting more confident so I could push things a little more, even though the track hadn’t got any better, I just felt like I was getting to grips with how to put the power down and how to control the car better. Obviously I can’t compare myself with the top half of the field, my only racing experience in the wet was the previous 10 minutes. I started putting in a couple laps that I felt pretty happy with.
I saw the chequered flag and knew that I had survived my first qualifying session, a huge sense of relief came over me that I was now officially ‘in’ the race (unless I did something incredibly stupid on my way back to the pits). I qualified 16[SUP]th[/SUP] out of 21 drivers, which I didn’t think was too bad considering the conditions and never driving in the rain (and oil) before. My time was 1:40.974, which was 12 seconds off of pole position. This sounds like a lot (because it is), but considering I was about 6 seconds off of pole position pace when I was practicing in the dry, I think 12 seconds off in the wet and oil was probably about right. I think that had I had a few more laps then I would’ve knocked off a few more seconds, as at the moment every lap I have in the car (whether it be in the wet or dry) I am learning something new, and getting quicker.
As I get off the track I can see that a select few cars were being pulled to one side, with me being one of them. There were about 5 of us queuing up to be weighed, it was just part of scrutineering to make sure that we weren’t under weight. Did my blistering speed lead them to think that I was lighter than I should’ve been?!? No, it’s just random. The good thing about this particular scrutineering was that he spotted that the pin in my fire extinguisher was still in!! This would’ve been a bad situation to be in had I had an accident and needed my extinguisher! Anyway, with me and the car together, we weighed 520kgs. The combined limit is 500kgs (the car needs to be a minimum of 420kgs) – which means that I can lose a fair bit of weight and still be ok - I may try and lose a bit of weight before the next race, every little helps.
Once I got back into the garage I was told I qualified 16[SUP]th[/SUP] and greeted with a handshake from Kev saying well done. I asked Kev how those conditions compared with other bad weather days, and he said that the conditions at the moment are the worst it would ever get. I then felt pretty satisfied with myself.
After I got out of my kit and gave my helmet a bit of a clean, I spent the next couple of hours hanging around the paddock, watching a bit of racing, more hanging around, little bit of eating, more hanging around…. This is the problem with race days, there’s a lot of waiting around, which wouldn’t be too much of a problem if the weather was nice, but with the weather being so poor it just made for a cold, wet and windy wait.
I spent a bit of time asking the other drivers in the team what kinds of things to expect during the race. The strange thing is that I already know what to expect (it’s pretty common knowledge), but just having someone re-confirm it all makes it all a bit more reassuring.
Interestingly, my nerves at this point are completely under control. So many of my concerns about a wet race had been answered during qualifying and I knew that as long as I stayed out of trouble on the track with the other cars, I could get through it just fine. I think the other thing that’s helping my nerves is that everyone is having difficulties on the track, which, perhaps in my ignorance, maybe meant that nobody would try anything too wreckless. I don’t know if this is true or not, but whatever works for me to keep me nerves under control can only be a good thing.
Kev comes along with another top tip – starting a race in the wet. Normally in the dry you’d hold the revs around 5500 rpm (so I’m told) when the lights go off, but in the wet if you did that you’d go nowhere. So Kev’s tip was to literally drive away from the start line just like a normal car, no revs, just drive away in a controlled manner.
The race prior to the FF1600 (with the 1960’s cars) is 45 minutes long, so that’s 45 minutes of spewing oil and general nastiness all over the track, awesome. Once the race begins I make my way back to the trailer to get all my kit on, realising that my first race is now getting very very close. I do all my final prep, make sure my visor is clean and spray more anti-fog on the inside, I think I’m all ready. I also make sure the pin is now removed from my fire extinguisher. Kev gives me another top tip – after the formation lap and I’m around the final corner heading towards the grid, drop down into 1[SUP]st[/SUP] gear and slowly drive to the grid and keep the car in gear, just have the clutch down and DO NOT TAKE IT OUT OF GEAR. The reason for this being is that he’s seen on countless times that people think they’re in gear when they’re actually not (these cars are a bit tricky sometimes to put into 1[SUP]st[/SUP]), the result then being a poor start and lots of fumbling trying to find the gear while everyone is driving past you. Cheers Kev, I shall stay in gear!
As per qualifying, my car gets pushed over to the waiting area while I walk over under my umbrella (keeping my hair dry to minimise on the fog inside my helmet). I can soon see all the cars lined up, I’m getting pretty excited now!!
Once I’ve got my helmet on and I’m in the car all strapped in, Kev comes over again and wishes me luck, as do a number of other people. Strangely I don’t really feel any nerves at all, I kind of just want to get going. Like a lot of things, the anticipation is the killer, but now that it’s here, it’s not too bad at all.
The signal is given and the first half of cars make their way to line up on the grid, I turn my engine on and soon follow the crowd and make my way over as well. We are clearly shown exactly which spot on the grid to line up on, with me being 16[SUP]th[/SUP], I’m on the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] row, and on the left. The view when I get there is something I hadn’t experienced before, just a sea of cars in front of me, makes me wonder how on earth people can make up so many places on the start line sometimes, there’s just no space!
My mechanic comes over just to make sure everything’s ok and then heads off the grid and get behind the pit wall when we see the 1 minute sign put up.
The green flag is soon waved to signal the start of the formation lap, I see everyone start to move. I go to move and guess what, I wasn’t in gear!! Kev was right!!! I thought I was in gear but it turns out I wasn’t. I quickly chuck it into 1[SUP]st[/SUP] and I head off – had this been the real start then I would’ve lost a lot of time. I’ll definitely be staying in gear when I line up for the real start!
The formation lap was interesting, everyone just feeling the track again, to see what it’s like, trying to get a bit of heat into the tyres and the brakes, although I really question how possible this is in these particular conditions on what is a pretty slow formation lap. We get around the circuit, coming up to camp (the final corner), and I plonk it into 1[SUP]st[/SUP] gear, making 110% sure it’s in, I drive slowly to my grid slot, and then wait there, this is it!!
I’m VERY excited at this point! No nerves at all, just pure excitement and concentration (I originally thought I’d be absolutely petrified when sat on the grid, but I was wrong, I was fine – like I said before, I think the fact that people are going to be fairly careful due to the poor conditions made it easier to digest). I then see the red lights turn on one by one, this is it!! This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for for the past 9 months, my first race!!! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 red lights come on….. we’re held for about 3 seconds and then boom! The lights go out and we’re GO GO GO!!! (said in full Murray Walker style - legend).
My start was pretty good, didn’t lose any places, I did exactly what Kev said, just drive away in a controlled fashion, slowly building up speed. It’s going pretty well so far, then I quickly see something that can pretty much only be believed when it’s experienced first hand…. the wall of spray. When I say it’s a wall, that’s exactly what I mean. There are 15 cars in front of me throwing up all the water from the track, and it’s literally like driving into a cloud directly in front of me. I can’t see the sides of the track, I can barely see the red lights on the cars in front (I know they’re there and only about 15 ft ahead of me, but I can’t actually see them to confirm), it’s a very disconcerting feeling. I take it all in my stride, I turn at the first corner (normally taken flat out) at the point where I
think the corner is (as I can’t actually see it) and then make my way up to Avon Rise. As I still can’t see a thing and I know we’re coming up to a treacherous point of the circuit (especially on the first lap, and even more so in the wet), so I ease off a bit – I decided at the beginning that I want to complete the race in one piece, I didn’t want my first race only to last about 10 seconds – after easing off a couple cars pass me, and then the spray dies down and I can see Quarry (the first main corner), as I approach I can see that someone has spun right where I was heading towards, and then someone hits them, still right in front of me. I slow down quite a lot, and have to take to the grass to avoid them, and again losing another couple places. This can all be seen in the following video – it’s a video taken by a spectator while at Quarry. You can see the accident and then me driving on the grass on the inside of the corner trying to avoid things and stay out of trouble. The car that spins at the end of this video isn’t me, it’s someone else in a similar white car. I’m car no. 44.
Once I got back on track I knew that the hardest bit was over, and I just cracked on with things. Everyone was spreading out and it was now just a case of racing my own race and seeing what happens. At this point I wasn’t massively fussed about busting my gut trying to chase people down and pass them, my goal was still to keep it on the track going and to finish the race for the all important signature on my licence (required for when I want to upgrade, and to get rid of the black and yellow cross on the back of my car – this is removed after completing 6 races).
The race went on, I witness a couple spins right in front of me, saw a car or two go down the escape roads along the chicanes, the conditions weren’t getting any better.
I did manage to pass a few cars, which I was quite pleased with – it was just so difficult to get the power down and to trust that the car was going to slow down, the tarmac still felt awful – to the point where it’s incredibly frustrating, just wanting to go a bit quicker but physically not being able to.
Once again my lap timer wasn’t working so my mechanics were putting the pit board out – I could see my lap times dropping lap by lap, which was encouraging.
About 4 or 5 laps in and the safety car signs are out – I started to wonder if there had been a big accident. Was it wrong that I secretly hoped that it was all the faster Class B cars, so that I would work my way up the Class B field by default? Hmmmm. A few laps went around and I still wasn’t sure why the safety car was out – it actually took a couple laps to catch up with the rest of the field!! I didn’t realise how far back I’d dropped! I could see a car stopped by the side of the track with no apparent damage, but was very close to the track, so I assumed this was the reason for the safety car.
After a few more laps the safety car went in, I didn’t get a good run – problem was the field was so long I couldn’t actually see that the safety car was going in and couldn’t see its lights, so the car in front was a fair distance away by this point.
It didn’t take me long to catch up with the car in front, still keeping an eye on the cars behind me, but I knew I was faster than them so after a little bit I was far enough in front not to worry about them and to just concentrate on the in front.
We were about 7 laps into the race (of 12 laps) by now and I was right on the arse of the car in front, a white Swift SC93. I did my best to try and get by but it was so difficult. I knew I was quicker than him as I could feel myself having to brake a bit earlier than I would normally, but in those conditions it was next to impossible to dart up the inside of a corner and beat him to the apex, I just couldn’t trust the track not to throw me off. My best bet was through camp – a corner where you brake a little, but can get on the power quite early to drive out down along the start/finish straight. I knew I was quicker. Lap after lap, I was getting a better line and getting closer to him coming out of the corner, but lap after lap, I could quite get juuuust enough more speed to beat him off the corner. The closest I got was level with his rear wheels going along the straight, but I couldn’t quite get that little bit extra. I’m pretty certain I would’ve been able to do it had I pushed myself a bit further, but being my first race, and my first experience in the wet, I just wanted to make it around.
I lost track of the laps a bit as I was just focused on that car in front, then sure enough I came around camp and saw the chequered flag waving. I had finished my first race, in the worst possible conditions.
Driving around on that final lap into the pits I had some mixed emotions. I was thrilled that I managed to get through that race and not crash the car, and to still have a couple little battles as well as overtake people, but I was also disappointed that I couldn’t get in front of that other Swift.
After driving back to the garage I park up and get out of the car, satisfied that I had got over two big milestones, my first race and my first wet race. Kev came over to shake my hand and congratulate me on a job well done. I find out at that point that I came 15[SUP]th[/SUP], which wasn’t too bad considering that I started 16[SUP]th[/SUP]. I knew that had I not eased off at that first corner then I would’ve been a few places higher, but then I may have been involved in that accident if I hadn’t eased off, so it’s hard to speculate as to what would’ve been, you just don’t know.
My girlfriend eventually gets back to the garage and tells me that she was very nervous watching me, praying that I made it around each lap and that when the yellow flags were waved that it wasn’t me that caused them. Then apparently after a bit of time she was starting to get into it a bit, willing me on to go a bit quicker and pass that damn Swift (I’ve decided that this other car is my first goal for the next race – I WILL beat him, assuming I don’t crash). She said that on every lap she could see that I had better speed coming out of camp, but just couldn’t quite get there.
After getting myself together Kev tells me that the other 4 drivers in the team took up the first 4 places in the race, result!! A bloody good team result! Kev was a happy man.
The other drivers get back to the garage and I speak to all of them, congratulating them on their race and them doing the same to me. It was a good atmosphere. Nick Jones (one of the other drivers in the team) managed to come 3[SUP]rd[/SUP], his first podium finish since 2004!! Well done nick!
I get my kit off (settle down ladies), and put my normal clothes back on to find that everyone is just hanging around the garage and the team are starting to pack things away. I literally popped back into the trailer for a minute and when I get back everyone’s vanished! Turns out it was the prizegiving, a very informal affair within the same room that the drivers briefing was held. Trophies were awarded to the first 3 places in each of the classes (I came 5[SUP]th[/SUP] in Class B), each with a nice round of applause from everyone. I then decided that my goal for the next two races was to get on the podium for Class B – I knew that if I can get a dry race then I have a chance, my wet experience is still a bit off the pace.
At that point I remembered that I need to get my signature on my licence to say that I’d completed a race, however this came to an abrupt halt as I didn’t have a photo on my signature card. I’ll have to get the signature at my next race, as long as I remember to bring along the printout of the results.
It was then time to go home, I say my goodbye’s to the team, I get a final congratulations from Kev and know that I’ll be seeing them all again in 3 weeks time for testing on the Thursday, ahead of the May bank holiday race day (7[SUP]th[/SUP] May), which is a double-header, and televised live on Motors TV!! I can’t wait!!! I just hope it’s dry.
So in summary – I qualified 16[SUP]th[/SUP], finished 15[SUP]th[/SUP], came 5[SUP]th[/SUP] in my class (Class B), got 8 points for the Class B championship, didn’t crash the car, overtook some people, didn’t give any places away (apart form on that first corner), and most importantly, I learned a hell of a lot.
Roll on May bank holiday!!!!!
