Team MacRenault

On Thursday, 22 of us headed for the Motorsport Sensation at Bedford Autodrome. Over the past few years we've had up to 8 going along, but this year we had enough for a team of 20 of our own. Dave Morgan had also bought 2 places from a charity auction on Radio Forth, so he booked in for the same day. Of the 22 attendees, around half race karts fairly regularly, and most drive good road cars, so we reckoned that we'd have a fairly competitive day. After the recent good weather, it was a bit strange to arrive at the circuit under a heavy sky and temperatures more like autumn, but it was dry, so all looked good. We were to be the Renault team, with Dave M and Neil M joining the Red Bull team (max 20 per team). We had a hectic morning starting with the Jaguar JP1, karts and the FPA race car. It was almost as much fun as driving to see peoples faces after having been round the west circuit in these cars. Then it was off to the north circuit for the Clio's and the Nissan 350Z. I always have my worst of the circuit events in the Clio, which i really like driving, and this year was no different - I guess I need to learn to drive a FWD car. The 350Z is just a fun car to drive - Opposite lock everywhere :-) Then it was over to the offroad area where, new for this year, they have a Caterham head to head (or really back to back) race. I was first up against Craig , and got well and truly thrashed 3-0. In my defense, I have to say that my half of the course was much wetter, and over the whole 10 races , only the last guy won on that side. Then it was the off road, and for once, I managed to hit every target and stay on the rails. Lunch was the usual quality affair, and then we were off to the east circuit for the Caterhams. After the FPA, this is my favourite event, and this year I managed to go sub 50 seconds for the first time. Then it was off to the south circuit for the Porsche JP3. I was really struggling with this car and it didn't make sense as I had managed a 70.85 in May? My instructor then told me that they'd had to use harder tyres as the orig ones were too sticky and they'd snapped a number of half shafts - So I pushed on and was way up on my previous best, but managed to spin on the exit of the chicane just before the timing beam, throwing away what would have been my quickest lap. It was worse than that coz he then told me that I was now on my last lap. I pushed really hard and despite the slow start to the lap (due to the spin) set my quickest time before diving into the pits. And that was it, all over for another year. So how did we do? The only event we didn't win was the Porsche, and the Clio, which was won by Neil M. In the overall standings we took places 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 10 and everybody had great fun. It's not a cheap day out, but the value for money is fantastic. Apparently, the guy who finished second, has won each of the 12 times he's been there - you should have seen his face :-)