My
instructions were quite precise. We want you to do “Correspondents Week” but
forget your week and concentrate on last week’s race. So out the door went a
week of City meetings in search of the capital for my new retiring IFAs venture
and the finalisation of Impartial’s new brochure on mortgage advice and in
came an article dedicated to my new hobby - racing Ginetta sports cars.
It
is Saturday 8am and I am at my local track Silverstone in the knowledge that a
number of chums will be arriving to witness my current madness. I am greeted in
the pits by “Team Diet” who supports 4 drivers including me.
The humour of someone my size racing with Team Diet has not been lost on
my fellow Ginetta racers many of whom are half my size and half my age. F1
pundit Tony Jardine, this meeting’s celebrity G20 driver joins us. Ginetta
racing is split into two classes and I am in the slower G20 class.
By 11am and we are called out
for qualifying. 2 laps to go and the pit wall is full of uptilted thumbs. It
transpires I am leading 4 other cars. In the last 2 laps I improve my times but
unfortunately those behind me have done even better. I have qualified 11th
and last but with only a couple of hundredths covering the last 4.
By
now guests are arriving from all parts of the circuit. The team has arranged
lunch for 50 people. 67 arrive. The heavens open and one of my guests says he
hopes it will continue so there will be more crashes to watch. Gee thanks Buddy!
After lunch the guests melt away spreading themselves around the circuit
30 minutes before the race and fortunately Silverstone is bathed in
sunshine. I am heading for the
assembly area where you wait for the previous race to finish. Interruptions are
not welcome as I usually spend this time doubting my sanity.
On to the grid which is offset allowing me the chance to rush between the
two cars in front and as one of them is a notoriously slow starter this seems a
good plan. We line up for the start and the cars in front have closed ranks. I
have 5 seconds to think of a new plan.
The red light turns to green and I jink right and run between my slow
starting team-mate and the pit wall. By the time we all reach Copse all hell has
broke loose. 6 cars in the other Ginetta class have tangled taking out at least
one G20. I sneak through. Most rejoin including the G20 whose driver is now
having a “red mist moment”
At Becketts he nearly chops the nose off my car forcing me to stop thus
losing those immediately in front of me. By the end of the Club straight waved
yellow flags abound. Our chum has taken out himself and my 2 nearest rivals.
Suddenly I am 8th but alone on the track. On Lap 8 more waved yellows
signify another stricken G20. That makes me 7th. But one of my rivals
has rejoined and is making up on me fast.
Lap 10 and more flags. This time another G20 has crashed and is marooned
across the track. I elect to go around his rear; my rival plumps for his front
and gains 2 seconds. I am now in 6th place and it is a race for the
line with the white G20 ever larger in my mirrors. The pit board confirms one
lap to go and they better be right. I put in my fastest lap of the race and
slide across the line half a second in front.
I have had a pretty uneventful race, only overtaken stationary cars, and
finished 6th. Who says the meek will not inherit the earth.
