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[jwalker763]

It's Good to be Back

First race of the year due to Covid and it was suck a good one. Qualified for my team and got us a solid 4th place start. Teammate went out first and dropped for 5th, we knew he was going to drop as he was our slow driver but for a good proportion of his stint he clung on much better than we thought, only dropping 3 seconds behind the lead group. This changed dramatically however when he reached traffic dropped down to about 8 seconds but still much closer than we thought. My stint also went to plan, managed to work us back up to 3rd at one point as we were running a slightly different pit strategy but came in at the end of it in 4th. Whilst I was out there it was almost mayhem for a little while as the top 6 drivers were all very close and with the pitstops they all came out in slightly different positions than they should've been so there was lots of battling and I very quickly lost all reference to where I was. When my final team mate went out to do his stint and kept pace with the front running group. He overtook one driver and with our slightly better pitstop strategy he managed to climb up to 2nd. All in all it was a very exciting race. Final position 2/7. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Christmas Endurance

So team of three drivers for a nice endurance race today. Qualifying was good came second, race however was not so. Sent out our slowest driver first and by the end of his stint we were dead last and 4 laps down. Second driver went out and couldn't make a gain on any of the drivers but didn't lose any time either. When I went out I just hammered it as best I could in the hopes I would make up some time. The stint itself didn't feel all that long but I did make up the four laps and was 4.023s behind the person in front whilst being consistently faster than him. If I'd had 5 more minutes I would've gained a place and not finished 8/8. Still my personal performance I was happy with putting in good consistent lap times and being effective with my overtaking. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Long Time Coming

So I haven't been racing nearly as much as I would like to have been but I've had a lot going on off the track I simply haven't had the time or money to do so. Anyway to businesse. Practice we had an issue with low end acceleration so came in running about 7/16. Had a quick look and sorted it as best we could for qualifying which went well allowing us to start 3/16. I've always said a good qualifying means a bad race which was half true today. The start was to be expected as I was slow off the line due to the low end power issue not being completely resolved causing me to lose one place by the first corner. I held on though knowing I was slightly faster waiting for a mistake. It came when we were lapping a back marker, where he wanted to get past too quickly and forced the overtake causing him to be on the wrong side of the track with nowhere to go making the pass very easy for me putting me back in 3/16. However, a few laps later the driver behind me took advantage of my wide line and got in front of me. I was quicker but not quick enough to get past. After about 15 laps of me following him with no mistakes, and with 5 laps to go I tried to turn up the pressure but kissing his bumper in areas of the track to tell him that I was right there and to get him to think more about me than the track ahead of him. This also didn't work meaning I finished 4/16 about an inch behind the person in front but it was by far the most intense race I've had for a while. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

A Positive Negative

So today was the first time out in my new race series, if you can call it that. Didn't know what to expect so my plan was to take it as it comes and just enjoy it. There was no qualifying just a random order where I was placed 14/20 but before we even started there were issues. It may be worth mentioning that a few days before race day I managed to snap the anti roll bar linkage on my car and had a surprising amount of difficulty getting a new one in time so ended up running on different suspension to what I was supposed to be on,causing me to already be on a bad start. Anyway we had all lined up in the pit lane before we were due to go out but were late out due to one driver who had parked up and left. When the race started it was clean enough but I did drop down to last before managing to overtake someone. A few laps later I was getting into the swing of things and even though I was at the back, I wasn't being left behind which I can take as a positive for my first time out. A few laps later however, the driver who had delayed everyone then managed to put his car in the wall and red flag the race meaning I finished 18/20 and not getting as much track time as I had hoped for. Needless to say he was not flavour of the month with the other drivers either. All in all I believe I didn't do too badly considering the car wasn't set up properly or tested and for a first time out I was at a competitive speed with the back pack giving me a solid base to work from. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Lesson Not Learnt

So yet again I did no practice and it showed. In qualifying I managed to lock the rears on a corner I had been struggling with all day and effectively went backwards flat out into the wall. Consequently I qualified last, 17/17. The race was a little bit boring if I'm honest. The first lap a couple of people span and I made the places up but lost them again after a few laps. I did find my rhythm though after a few laps and was able to gain a place with a bit of really good racing. We were basically side by side for an entire lap tussling for the spot but keeping it clean and fair. Once I passed him I pulled away and was by myself for the rest of the race. I did however gain a couple of other places due to other drivers having mechanical issues meaning I finished 14/17. Not very happy with my result but in my defence pretty much all my efforts have been going into my new race series which starts next week. Hopefully I'll do better there as I've been putting more effort into the preparation there. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

New Year, Not So New Me

First race of the year and I did literally no preparation for it which showed in my performance. Qualifying went reasonably uneventfully where I qualified 8/18 a little lower than I am capable of. The race however went badly. I had a solid start with someone spinning out allowing me to gain a place. From then on however it went downhill. I couldn't keep up with race pace causing me to lose two places over the course of the race which on the face of it doesn't seem all that much but the leaders where over half a second quicker than I was causing me to drop back a huge amount. I was eventually lapped and the head space I was in was not good causing me to have a massive mistake where I ran wide and to avoid the tyre barriers had to run over a brutal bump at speed which in turn threw me over to the other side of the track. Good news however was that further up the field a couple of drivers received stop go penalties allowing me to gain a place and finish 8th where I qualified. Think I should do more training now. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Madness and Mayhem

So this post is a little late so forgive me for any vagueness. So me and a load of racing buddies all went off to have a one off race. I hadn't raced at this track since I was a kid so I had to relearn the track due to my memory being a bit off. I soon picked it up though and without any drama I qualified 10/20. Before the race started however it rained. All the drivers made the same decision going out on track, to stay on slick tyres, believing that the rain would stop almost as soon as we started. This meant the opening laps weren't about speed more about not spinning and not getting caught up in other peoples spins, an area I am strong in. In two laps I made my way from 10th to 4th. On the third lap however, I got unlucky with another driver trying to brake late in these conditions and just sliding into me causing me to drop to the back. After that the track started drying up making it harder for me to close down the positions with everyone making less mistakes. The last few laps however it started raining again but the feild was so spread out it only meant there was one driver who I could catch. When I caught up there was three corners left before the end of the race snd in my over exuberance I massively understeered meaning I was then too far back to overtake before the flag. All this meant I finished where I started in 10th. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Through Luck and the Will of the Racing Gods

Sorry for the dely with this one I just haven't done it yet. So practice felt like it went well but after coming in I was sitting 8th which was too low really so I had to up my game seeing as I stood a chnace of finishing 3rd in the championship so long as SS didn't beat me by more than 5 points. So in qualifying I did my best to step it up which worked as I qualified 4th but SS qualified 2nd so I went into the race believing I had to gain a place. At the start of the race I lost a position which almost garunteed thar I would lose the championship position. However, I kept pushing and although I was unable to overtake there was a small collision up front which allowed me to regain the place. Luck would then come into play causing SS to drop a position meaning I was in place to hold the championship position. However later on in the race I was overtaken again causing me to drop into 5th with SS in 3rd. At this point I was trying to do the maths and figure out if I was still in a position to hold my championship spot. As I couldn't do the maths I kept pushing as hard as I could for the rest of the race keeping the pressure on the driver in front. This was until 5 laps towards the end where I got sloppy and left the door open for the driver behind to overtake me. For the rest of the race I was driving as fast as I could but was unable to retake the place and I finished the race believing that I had lost the championship place in the last race. However, lady luck stepped in and it turned out that O managed to finish the Championship in 3rd place by 1 point, a little close but still in front. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Round 3

Finally since starting this blog I can give you some good news. Came into this weekend with the intent of making up for my last race. Practice was good had no issues and was reasonable on pace finishing 5/22. Qualifying went well although I did struggle to find space and I started the race in 4th place. Sat on the grid it dawned on me that I was surrounded by the best drivers in the field which was actually quite intimidating so I went into the race with a defensive mind not wanting to give away any positions and if I had to, to make it as minimal as possible. It got a bit tight at the starf but I didn't gain or lose any places. After a few laps though I realised I actually had the pace to go offensive, so I started to have a look and apply pressure being incredibly aware that if i went for it and it went wrong the cost could be very high in position loss. After a few more laps I made my move in an area where I could cleanly get past without leaving myself open to attack (it honestly took about 5/6 laps to get into the right position after deciding where I was going to overtake). After that I pulled away and caught up with the guy in 2nd place. Again I applied pressure but this time they made a mistake which I capitalised on. For the rest of the race up to the final few laps I was consious that another driver had got through who was quicker than me and I trued to stay as quick as I could to prevent them from being too much of a threat. In the closing few laps though I caught up with the leader as he had got stuck in traffic. Unfortunately at this point I lost my head a little bit seeing the win being within grasp, so I went all out to get through the back markers to try and put the pressure on the leader. Unfortunately with one of them we touched and it tripped my kill switch. I had to restart whilst coasting incredibly aware that the guy behind me was only a couple of seconds away. He caught up with me and got about half a length in front but thankfully I had the inside line so with a bit of late braking I managed to hold the positon, but in hindsight the other driver could've probably squeezed me a bit more and held the position for themselves. After that there was 2/3 laps of defending from him to come back in 2nd place. I am really happy with this result as it was done on merit and no luck was there to help me. It has also been a huge leap for me in the championship (results coming soon) which is a huge confidence boost. Until next time....

[jwalker763]

Round 2

Well this race will probably be my drop race now. Qualifying was very tight, 1.2s between 1st and 17th and sadly I came the wro g side of that second and qualified 12th. The race didn't go much better, espacially with my superstition of bad qualifying, good race. Started off with a steering issue causing the car to understeer badly. This put me on the defensive from the off but gladly I didn't lose any places. After a while the issue resolved itself and i could go onto the attack but by that point I was too far back to make anything off it, as it was the last lap that I caught the guy in front of me. Day to forget today as I could've done a lot better (lap times and consistency said I could've finished at least 8th which is more where I should've been), got only myself to blame for this one. Currently sat 10/21 (12/21 if I use this round as my drop round), need to have a good finish to get back up to where I want to be. Until next time....

[jwalker763]

The Years True Beginning

So I'm going to update this as I go along. Gone out for a practice session and come out 6/18. Feel I'm a little slow and I'm too borderline with dropping down so will have to pick up the pace in qualifying to give myself a secure position.

Qualifying done came 4th overall which weirdly I'm still not happy about considering the circumstances. Still good starting spot for what cones next.

The race was pretty intense, had last years championship winner behind me and I fought really hard to keep him behind me. In front of me was a tight pack with about 2 seconds between 1st and 6th. Spent the entire race trying to make the most of other peoples mistakes whilst not making any of my own. Lost one place so finished 5th and am now sat there in the championship. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Hi

So feel i should keep everyone up to date. The championship starts next week so i got some practice in yesterday. Nothing really happened. It was cold so the track was quite slippy but that was about the highlight of the whole day. A little off pace but I've always struggled in slippy conditions. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

And So It Begins...

So today was the first day I’ve properly got behind the wheel since last year. Wasn’t racing just thought it would be good to get some practice in before the championship begins. So not much happened we were all driving around fast doing our own thing, only points of notice were the two shunts I had with inexperienced drivers. First shunt was someone braked on a flat out corner (which is fair enough because it requires a lot of confidence, especially on a cold day like today) but it caught me off guard causing me to go into the back of him. Second one I still don’t get what was going through the guys mind, he braked on the exit of the corner, which no one ever does ever, causing me to hit the back of him. Neither impacts where hard enough to do any real damage though. However, about 15mins before the track closed I noticed one of the cars was chucking out a load of smoke going round corners. I flagged it to a marshal who went to look more closely to see if it was anything significant. A lap later the car went up in a lot of smoke. If it was me in the car at that point I would’ve been runnng as fast as I could away from that car but the driver actually carried on until the marshals had to physically jump in front of him to make him stop. So for a quiet day at the office it was surprisingly eventful. Until next time...

[jwalker763]

Update

So we’re currently out of season (I know the Dakar is supposedly the beginning of the racing season but I swear it gets earlier every year) and I’m currently in the planning stage of the next championship for this year. Last time I set a target of 4th and got 5th which was a little below expectations but still not bad. This year however the line up of drivers looks really tough and although there will be roughly 20 drivers in the line up (currently 18 but more are still signing on) I am genuinely concerned that I’m not even going to make it into the top half of the field. This being said at an early look my target is going to be 8th, well below what I would like it to be but will get a better idea of what it will be after the first race in March. Until then 🙂

[jwalker763]

Alright

First off, and it’s not really relevant to the story, I’ve crashed my bike again this time getting hit in the kidney so hard I’ve been urinating blood for the past week (hope you weren’t eating).

Anyway going into the final race of the championship I was sitting twelfth. Don’t worry about that I’d used my drop round whilst I was in Australia where as a lot of drivers had yet to use it.

So in the first qualifying session I came in second to last due to a power output issue but it was fixed in time for the second qualifier where I came in a solid 4th. The race I could’ve done better and I could’ve done worse. At the start I’d thought I’d done really well and tried to overtake around the outside only to have it backfire on me and drop down to 7th. The next few laps were pretty intense though allowing me at one point to have a shot at 3rd. In the long run however I eventually dropped to 5th and stayed there causing me to have a pretty boring second half of the race.

This result meant that I finished 6th out of 18 which isn’t bad but I was hopping for better. Until next time.

[jwalker763]

The Trials and Tribulations

So let’s start with the race. The rules of this championship comes with a drop race to allow for holidays, sick races and bad performances. This race was my drop race as I was in Australia, resulting in me dropping down to 12th. This is bad news for my target of finishing 4th/5th as it will require a monumental finish to get to that point.

In other news I recently applied for a job as a race driver for a team in the Formula Ford championship. Didn’t think they would even look at my application but they invited me down for a trail day, which basically was drive around as fast as I could. I was excited and hopeful about it as a good performance could be a huge step forward. However, to state my luck two days before my test I crashed my motorbike and broke my kneecap. Still attended the day though but having difficulty with my injury caused me to be 3 seconds off the pace. I did speak to the guy who was in charge on the day and he’s said he’d take it on board and either give ,e another chance or try and work out how much time I lost exactly due to the lack of mobility in my leg on the day. Unfortunately I haven’t heard back from him yet but the successful applicant won’t be told until February so I don’t know whether to get nervous or not. Anyhow until next time

[jwalker763]

The Day

Well I would like to bring some good news since I've started this online racing thingy but I have yet another bad race for you. So in qualifying the issue of double pedalling wasn't as gone as we thought and it rose it's ugly head again allowing me to only qualify 5th. I got a reasonable start not loosing any time or gaining it. However, I was behind someone who I was faster than for the race but who was driving aggressively. I got my nose in a few times but was forced out again to avoid crashing. Towards the end of the race I finally got past though but he decide to have a comeback with a late dive on the narrowest part of the track causing us to hit each other and the wall. The time lost by that crash caused me to drop down to 8th and annoyingly he only dropped to 6th. That result meant I am now joint 5th with 3 other drivers and with me missing the next race due to family doesn't put me in good stead for hitting my top 4 target. Still until next time