Race report - Craigavon Winter Series. Round 1. November 14th  15/11/2009

Round 1 of the Craigavon Winter Series.

Although rain had fallen the night before the weather was brilliant to us today.

It was bloody cold but the rain stayed away and the sun was shining on the track for most of the day. But the track stayed wet/damp all day with only a few dry patches by the end of the day.

It was a shame because there was only 5 Saloons on the day.

After 3 Rounds of qualifying  Cormac was 1st, Michael Sloan 2nd. Scott McCallen 3rd. Tom Patterson 4th. David Cairns 5th.



The main final was one of the best finals i have ever raced and im sure it was one of the best finals to watch.

Michael and I both got a good start. I was in no way pulling away from him and had to defend my line quite a bit, which wasn't easy considering i also had to watch when and where i accelerated from. Michael stayed on the rear of my car for a good 5mins. I was defending quite well but he was also putting enough pressure on me to make me work for 1st place. It ended when i overbraked slightly on the corner after the straight and lost the rear end. I recovered quickly enough but by then Michael had gone past me.

It was now my turn. With some effort i started catching up on him. When i was behind him he was defending brilliantly. Trying to find a gap in any way was hard. We did have contact at one point, which was my fault so i let him past. Then i made a mistake and he took an even further lead. I had my work cut out now.

Again, i started catching up to Michael. Getting close to him was easy but getting past was the hard part. It was only through a mistake of his own that put me past him. After getting past him i really wanted to try to build up a bit of a lead so i could then relax. It was working well enough until i over did it and actually got stuck on a kerb. By the time the marshall recovered me Michael had gone ahead again. How many more times could the lead change between us!

So i caught up and had to work for it again. Putting enough pressure on him paid off and i managed to get past him. I wasn't sure whether to try to pull ahead and risk making a mistake or take it easy and risk not going fast enough. I chose to take it easy because with the track slightly drying up the track was worse than before. Michael caught back up to me and really put the pressure on me, even going side by side through a couple of corners. He got ahead of me with about 5minutes to go.

I had it all to do now. I had to push it, but not too hard, to catch up and try to get past him. With a bit of effort i caught up to him with 3mins to go. So it was going to be now or never as they say. I pushed my driving enough that he managed to make a slight mistake and i got back ahead of him with about a minute to go. I did not want to make a mistake now so i took it easy, real easy. Michael was catching up but luckily not in time. The race ended with only a 3sec gap between Michael and I.

It was a brilliant final. I want to thank Michael for making it a brilliant final and racing fantastically. Making it far from easy. Hell i thought he had it for a while!

It wasn't easy racing in the final. We had the track conditions to think about, not making a mistake or colliding with eachother. We had the numb thumbs that had developed in the final which made it damn hard to race! Then we had the sun which was shining in our eyes most of the final.

Next Round is December 12th.