1999, Round 9, Silverstone

When the race came, I got a good start, closing up on the car in front, and losing no ground to others around me, but it is a long blast from the back of the grid to the first corner, and by about half way along the straight, suddenly two cars from behind were showing much higher power, and blasted past. (I really must find more power sometime). So, I was two places down by the end of Copse corner. By contrast, I got in just the right place for Maggots and Becketts, and gained three places in just that pair of corners (although maggots is hardly a corner). At Brooklands I lost one place, and then I gained another two at Luffield, and we are only at the end of the first lap!

Lap two seemed to be going fine, along the straight, through Copse, and up towards Maggots I was gaining all the time on the gaggle of cars in front. Then at the apex of Becketts, something unexpected happened. Another car tried to get in through my driver's door. I later discovered what had happened, as I had not seen it at the time. Maggots and Becketts are close together, the first is a left kink, and that is followed by a relatively sharp right. The car two places behind me had tried to overtake the car behind me round the outside of the left kink at Maggots, and was therefore way too late on the brakes, unable to turn left, went straight across the grass, and straight into the side of my car as I went round the right hander. It was a hopelessly over ambitious move, and needless to say it didn't work. My car was thrown about 12 feet sideways, but I kept control, lost just one place, and carried on.

I gained another one at Brooklands, as a car a few places ahead spun. The next lap, he had recovered and was back past me at the same place. I gained another place on each of the next two laps through better exit speeds at Copse, and then two cars seemed to have a heavy shunt on the run into Becketts, putting them into the gravel. On the next lap I passed a struggling car on club straight, only to lose the place again at the corner, and then took that place, and another struggling car at the exit to Luffield and along the pit straight.

The next time I got to Luffield, I went in too quickly, not for the first time, but this time it nearly cost me a place. Luckily I was able to pull in tight as we approached the pit straight and block him, but the chequered flag came out at this point, two laps early. With the race over, I knew I had gained a lot of places, and guessed I would be around 20th, but now my attention had to focus on the damage to the car. The drivers door is destroyed, both inner and outer sills are squashed, the floor is buckled, the front wing was destroyed, and the back wing dented. This will be a costly repair. To be fair to the guy who caused all this, he apologiosed profusely, and said it was all his fault. He even showed me the video from in his car so I could see how it happened, but none of this will put my car back together.

That was probably the most action I have seen in any eight laps so far this year, and I really enjoyed it. Question is whether I can recover from the damage well enough to carry on this year. Following a clarification on the definition of a 'standard' camshaft, I am expecting some cars to be slower at the next meeting, so it would be a shame not to be there to capitalise on that, but some miracles need to happen before then.