2005 Stock Hatch Rounds 13 & 14, Cadwell Park

We went to take advantage of a track day on the thursday, followed by testing on the friday afternoon, and then of course the race weekend itself. The track day was very relaxed, plenty of problems found on the car, but all were readily solved, and the car became much more drivable by the end of the afternoon, especially after a few of the supposedly faster subarus got out of the way!

Our thanks to the support crew of a road going Rallye who were willing to take us into Louth to get our exhaust welded up. Darren was able to repay the favour by providing their driver with some on track tuition, and they were delighted with the increased pace they found.

By the end of the day both Darren and myself were setting lap times that would ensure grid slots up the front if this had been qualifying.

Day 2 and things changed a bit. The weather was wet, and we found it very hard to get a setup that Darren could get on with. Normally he's very good in the wet, but not on this occasion. We got a setup that was 'alright' but certainly not as good as we wanted, so we would have to hope for dry weather.

Race weekend came, and qualifying was dry. Stuart Pearson put his XR3i on pole for both days, with Darren making it to row 2 for Saturday, and row 3 for Sunday. Maurice Hayden and Terry Roughton came out slightly better, ensuring the championship fight was on.

During the lunch break, the Saxmax championship for 14-17 year olds in largely standard Saxos was launched with a selection of cars for the Macmillan clan. One of these was later to be raced in the heats, a reasonable finish for a car using standard dampers, albeit with one corner less than it started with. Exclusion for a lack of door cards reflects the slightly differing regs. The car was none the less out again on Sunday, but suffered a DNF in the tyre wall! First final start, and Darren gets away well to slot into second behind Terry Roughton, but this was to be short lived after much of the rest of the field came together at the first corner, and although all cars carried on, the race was stopped to clear the track of debris.

At the second start, Darren got a blinding start and was several lengths clear in first place by the time they reached Charlies for the first time. His lead was under pressure throughout the race, but he hung on to take the win from Maurice.

Sundays race, and again Pearson was unable to get his car to start as quickly from pole as those behind him, but this time it was Maurice Hayden who took the lead, with Gareth Wright in second. Darren was down in 5th, and looked set to stay there until mid distance when Pearson got on the attack against Pete Morgan ahead of him. Sensing an opportunity, Darren lunged from a couple of lengths back, and got past both of them as they slowed each other up. Meanwhile Hayden continued to build his lead on Wright who fell back into the following pack, now 5 cars strong with no gap at all. In the end Mauriuce got the win from a tightly packed Wright, Blumson, Morgan and Pearson, and all this leaves the title fight still wide open with Blumson just slightly ahead going into the last round. Its all to play for!