Hi guys,
Just an update to let you know I WON!
I qualified second after getting pipped by a lotus exige by 0.2 of a second, and the start of the race was delayed by an hour after a car dropped its oil from Turn 1 to 6.
While we were waiting for instructions to go form back up on the grid I sat stewing in the pits, surrounded by friends all laughing and joking and all i could do was sit down and try not to hurl! The nerves really did get the best of me sitting there.
but managed to "BANZAIII!" into turn 1 with a late dive on cold tyres and brakes, fortunately I was able to hold him off until the tyres warmed up and we passed the oil that was left on the track earlier in the day.... from that point on I was on one!
I managed to pull out a 14 second lead and was driving the wheels off my little EP3 because I had a fuelling issue that I knew could finish me off at any moment so I wanted to build as big a gap as possible to give me some room to play with. In the end the car broke as soon as I came off VTEC after the finish line. I barely dragged it to the pits and it has been misfiring ever since, its possible I cooked the valves with it leaning out on the corners due to fuel starvation.
Thankfully the prize money will more than cover the rebuild so happy days!
As an idea of how hard I drove it, here is what happened to one of my wheels
....(I was braking so hard and late I melted off the paint!)
Pictures to follow tomorrow
I shall post up a link when the video of the race is released.
I was pretty emotional in the interview given after as I'd just realized a lifelong ambition and goal (how would you feel if you won your first ever race and it was a round of the BTCC?!) so I'll hope you'll forgive me for that.
