Moving target
Mallory Park, having never driven here was a complete unknown for me. We rocked up without testing. "It's got three corners, how hard can it be?" that was answered pretty quickly, when I qualified down in P18.
Fortunately, with a bit of help from a friend who had popped down to show his support I knew exactly where I needed to improve and how to find some time.
On the grid for race one, I just kept reminding myself that I'm better than P18. The lights went out, I launched hard and I was 15th before the first corner.
I started to pick cars off one-by-one until I knew I was near the top 10 by the P7 on someone elses pitboard - It's worth mentioning that we had forgot to bring a pitboard this weekend.
Martin made a dive on me in the hairpin and hit the dirty part of the track, he unfortunately hit Sam and I squeezed past. I set my focus forward and continued the chase. I caught up just as Matt made a mistake, he ran deep in the chicane and I got ahead. Just as I hit the brakes into turn 1 he tapped me on the rear right corner, putting me into a slide - I some how managed to save it.
Matt then banged doors with Lloyd, pushing him on the grass. Lloyd bounced along the grass and back on track. Ian managed to squeeze by both. Matt checked up and I sent it up the inside of the chicane. Similar to the way Martin had done on me earlier and it yielded the same result. Ian turned into the corner and I couldn't stop. I slammed into the side of his car, ripping the steering wheel out of my hands. As I tried to give the position back I quickly realised that his car was wounded - it turns out, I had ripped the valve out of his wheel.
A very poor way to end what was a fantastic race for us. Thankfully, Ian was okay and he was able to get out for race two without much fuss.
I was very happy with the drive overall, and regardless of the mistake it would still have been a top 10. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to celebrate as we had damage to repair.
Wing and bumper put back to where it was supposed to be, we gridded up for race two.
A slightly slow launch left me losing two places. I then lost more at the hairpin and once again, I was playing catch up.
I fought my way up to P9 and I had another awesome battle with Sam.
A fantastic weekend with two top 10 finishes. We've hit our target for the year and we still have three meetings to go, all that means is that we need to move the target.
We won't be at Brands, but we'll be chasing that top 6 at Snetterton!