Weekend Review - Anglesey 30/31 May 2010
Rounds 5 and 6 of the 2010, 750mc Stock Hatch Championship

This review is under construction and will be continually updated over the next few days until this message is no longer here!!

Without sounding like I am braging, all in all another great weekend. However all good things do not seem to last forever and although a successful weekend from a championship point of view the racing has left 'Pinky' feeling a little under the weather. Luckily there is a good 5 weeks before the 'home' race at Cadwell. Here follows a review of the weekends events.

As well as arriving during daylight hours and being able to see while putting the tent up the video camera functioned fully throughout the whole weekend and as such we are able to bring you highlights of the Qualifying and four, yes four races!

Saturday Practice

Qualifying was an interesting affair. Although bright and sunny on Friday, from about midnight it rained and rained and rained. Not only did this mean I didn't get any sleep at all, but that Qualifying was going to be interesting! As with stock hatch generally, there were too many entrants for a single session (49 cars in total) and I was placed in the second session. This turned out to be a good thing as the although the rain had pretty turned to drizzle for the first session the track was slightly dried and thus faster for my session. Even though i put a new set of tyres on the front it was still very slippy though and the damper settings and tyre pressures were a bit of a gamble!

With the car running pretty well I made sure i got the mandatory 3 laps in without incident before starting to build up the speed. With it being a longer lap than Brands the time allowed for 8 laps and it was on Lap 8 that i set my quickest time of 1min 30.36s, 1.64s faster than the next Class B car of Adam Lichtig (XR2i No. 40) and thus my first Class B pole. This put me 3rd on the grid for the heat and with a second best time of 1min 30.84s I was 5th on the Grid for Sunday's heat and Class B pole once more. To say I was pleased with that is abit of understatement and qualification to the final looked promising. Just had to get the starts right!!

Highlights below from the first wet qualifying session of my season.

Saturday Heat - Started 3rd out of 32

Starting 3rd on the grid I knew there was a good chance of making the final with the top15 or so going through. After my starts at Brands I also knew I needed to improve. I was able to get off the line pretty well considering the conditions but with the car and the rest of the weekend in mind was probably a touch cautious entering the first 2 corners dropping me from 3rd to 9th.

Having dropped to 2nd in Class at the start to Adam Lichtig (xr2i No.40) I saw my opportunity on Lap 4 (10 laps in total) to regain the Class B lead position and dived down the inside heading up the hill into Rocket. I was able to build a small lead over Adam over the next could of laps untill about Lap 6 when i got a touch excited and ran wide at turn 1 allowing him to catch right up. A swift bit of defensive driving was able to keep him behind.

At the end of Lap 8 Amy Barker(saxo, No.17) got lightly caught by a spinning Martin Ward (Saxo No.6) allowing me to catch right up. I was just linning her up for an overtake into Rocket, but as i pulled out I saw the waved yellows (missed the stationary being to focused on the back of Amy's car) which caught me out. This lost the place back to Amy and allowed Adam through. I learnt my lesson with 3 points on the Licence and a 10 second penalty putting me back from 6th to 8th. I'd made my first final!

Highlights below from Saturdays Heat race.