On returning from my travels this was a very good start to my racing season.  After testing the car at Mallory on Wednesday to make sure me the car and I were still working, we set off to Croft.

Fridays testing was taken in mixed conditions with wet and dry sessions.  The morning brought poor times which led to a pep talk from Robin.  Amanda Whittaker produced consistently good times throughout the day despite having troubles with her car.

Qualifying brought good conditions allowing for some quick lap times.  Amanda, as expected, put in a quick time securing her second position on the grid for the first race.  Paul Walton (dad), Stuart Kestenbaum and myself all put in good times as a result of the days testing previously.  The star of qualifying turned out to be Steve Pearce who put his car on pole position with an excellent time of 1.32.653, half a second clear of Amanda.

Simon Davey and Ben Hopton had troubles with their cars meaning they didn’t finish the qualifying session, however Simon Davey stall managed to produce a time of 1.34.8 on the second lap of qualifying putting him eighth on the grid.

Race one – I started third on the grid and after planning for a good start everything went wrong, when the lights changed and I fell to sixth position.  Stuart had an excellent start gaining several places.  It was a clean start through the first few corners with all cars getting through safely.  Amanda got away first leading the first lap of the race.  Crossing the start/finish for the first time saw me in fourth position following Stuart.  The car was going well and I found myself catching the leaders.  Stuart not letting me past easily led to a small battle for a few laps.  After passing him the chase began for Amanda who I was able to pass at the start of the back section after going round Tower side by side.  Crossing the line first for the first time ever with my dad second in class and seeing Robin and Liam hanging over the pit wall was quite emotional.

Race two saw me alongside Amanda on the front row.  A good start allowed me to keep my position however I was overtaken by Jonathan Davies on the first lap.  Unfortunately Jonathan had a spin at Complex allowing me to regain second position.  I tried the same passing move on Amanda as before but unfortunately she was ready this time not allowing me to pass after Tower.  So a dive up the inside at Complex was needed hitting the bottom of the car on the bumps, (sorry Robin).  This put me in first place where I was able to gain a small lead.  After a few laps I became a little complacent but a quick check in my mirrors saw my dad and Simon closing the gap (Simon overtaking 14 cars to gain third position!).  As the laps counted down I thought a 1, 2 with my dad was approaching, however this wasn’t to be this time, as a spin for both my dad and Simon at the hairpin resulted in a DNF for dad and Simon falling into fifth place.  Amanda took second, winning class B.  A good weekend for Ian McMillan winning both novice trophies with an eighth place finish in race two.

Thank you Robin and Liam for all their work allowing us to get our first win in the Crossle.  This is a good starting point for my first race in the Ray at Oulton Park in two weeks.

Novice ramblings (2) – Croft

It was really good to get an engine in the car before Croft. While the Brands Hatch explosion was character building in many ways, I was really glad to see the back of it and see a nice blue BB Engineering unit in place. After a bit of a carburetion issue the car really went really well at Croft. I have to say that I was really hesitant about two things: 1) not having been there before [well that’s a lie really, I did race and crash there a few times 25 years ago but it was on a completely different track then] and 2) blowing the engine up again.

If anyone felt bad over the weekend – forget it because I bet no one felt as bad a Steve Pearce, who simply had a mare of a weekend. After what was clearly a selling your soul to the devil lap in practice to claim pole position to seeing his car fall apart like a cheap watch in both races. Hard luck Steve! I did ask him if the throttle had stuck open on lap 9 of qualifying but he said no. I am not so sure…

I must say without doubt the best thing for me over the weekend was to see the speed of Ben Hopton. He was in 6^th place in race one when the gearbox stopped working and had a tyre problem in race 2 [basically he ran into a load of tyres] but showed great pace all weekend and great promise. I felt a bit of a cheat taking both novice awards – but consoled my conscience with some consistency on my part and staying on the track till the end. While these are some skills I keep from racing around places like the TT course Ben, when they come to him, will be ‘the man’ and I look forward to seeing him do it.  

Ian McMillan

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