Qualifying was hard work, the car/track still not working for me, and feeling that I must be well off the pace. Fortunately, the timesheets showed that I wasn't that far off the rest with just 0.448 seconds separating 2nd to 9th places!First race, and 7th on the grid, so pointing downhill and holding the car on the handbrake. Lights went out, and we were away. Not a bad start, and taking a tighter line at Paddock gave me a good run up to Druids, but not enough to get in front of Richard Breland (Championship leader), forcing me to take the inside line at Druids. I'm not sure what had happened at the apex/exit of Druids, but the inside line seemed to almost stop, and costing me positions.
Richard, Myself, & Mark Pierpoint were in a tight pack until lap 7, where Dean Parker managed to get past Mark and started catching myself. On Lap 9 Nick Wright spun on the exit of Graham Hill bend, and I lifted for a fraction under the yellow flag as he was still spinning. Dean was able to avoid lifting, and had sufficient momentum to get past me before Surtees. I held station until lap 13, where Nick finally managed to get past me, unfortunately pushing me down to 10th place at the end of the race.
Race 2 was the next day, meaning no tracktime before the actual race. 9th on the grid this time as it was based on the second best qualifying times. Still unhappy with the revised suspension settings, I went back to the settings used on the test day.Poor start due to not releasing the handbrake quick enough (still on the slope), but held position for the first 4 laps, before getting past Richard who had made a mistake at Clearways. Richard was clearly on the pace, and quickly managed to get back in front. On lap 7 Richard managed to get past Dean Parker, and my attempt to follow, led to Andy Burge getting past me at the same time. The rest of the race was excellent, with some great wheel to wheel action with Andy Burge.
Finally finishing 8th, while not a great position, I did cross the finish line just 5.3 seconds after the winner. That's 5.3 seconds after 14 laps, and shows just how close the racing is in the MaX5 series.
Pictures again are courtesy of... Mr Bob Marsh... queue cheers of applause!
