My day started at 3.30am. Many of you will know the feeling, you're facing an early start, the butterflies in your gut don't want to settle so you reckon you may as well get on with it. An hour ahead of my scheduled alarm call, I roll out of bed, kiss Tan goodbye and get my stuff together for the big day. Trackdays in themselves are no big deal for me but this one was 145 miles away at Donington and I was towing my Sierra there so I had a few more things to consider than normal. The weather leading up to the weekend had been crap, torrential rain in the Midlands for days and Bart telling me his local ponds water levels being 6 foot higher than normal didn't help. I was in the Hilux and on my way by 4am so at least I had the peace of mind knowing that I had gained an hour. Towing was a doddle. The Hilux is so slow it doesn't seem to matter whether it's got one and a half tonnes on the back or not, so I settled down for my 60mph cruise up the A11, A14 and onto the M1. The Sat Nav was reassuring, as much as anything it gives me an estimated time of arrival, perfect if I fancy a spot of breakfast on the way up. Speaking of which I stopped off at the services by Leicester on the M1 for a top up, both me and the truck and spotted a couple of interesting VW's for those of that persuasion.
The bacon and egg sandwich with two cans of Relentless (or whatever its called) at 6.30am did the trick and the in no time at all I was pulling into Donny. The car park/paddock area was besieged with Moto GP vehicles everywhere setting up for the 24th.
The forthcoming race and associated people certainly added to the atmosphere as, even at this hour, most of the garages were already taken by the drivers of the day. The mix of cars was more varied than I have seen at this sort of thing in years. Everything from race spec Escort Cosworths, classic ducktail 911's, GT40 replicas, some sort of miniature Hot Rod and home brew specials joined ranks with the normal track refugees like Radicals and Caterhams. Only a smattering of M3 based cars and a couple of Golfs looked comparable to our humble Fords (mine being more humble than Pablo and Barts)
There were a few familiar faces. I met a guy called Wayne Howlett on Wednesday at Snett who was kind enough to show me just how quick a well sorted e30 could be. He was there again in another car this time testing the suspension set up for a client.
Fell sorry for him really...............poor lamb
With the Dagenham massive in their garage, my nerves started to settle. We exchanged banter and Al had the kettle on for the first of many times, my tension slipped away. This confidence ebbed and flowed throughout the day, I suppose that's only natural bearing my relative lack of recent experience in the car and my only having done Donny once, years ago, in a car with no brakes
It was clear that the guys loved this track and treated it much as I do Snetterton. I was very much in their sandpit now and I had a feeling I would need all of any available luck, experience and lightweight (the car not me) if I was going to stand an earthly of keeping up.
Our sessioned day meant that we would be out every 20 passed the hour, ensuring 7 sessions for our
