Thanks for the gearbox!

OK, so it's Friday evening and I'm on the way to Croft race circuit near Darlington in North Yorkshire. Dad and I got on the road at about 2.30pm and it should only take about four hours, however we're on the M42 and there's been an accident..

Well it's ended up taking us just over five hours, I think everyone must have been heading north this evening! It's 7.30pm and time to unload everything from the truck and set up ready for the morning.

SATURDAY

Well after a rather noisy night's sleep at the circuit (we can't afford a hotel!) it's nearly half eight so a little bit of a lie-in as we don't have anything on till 12ish. Dad will probably go over the car, checking everything is as he left it, making sure all the suspension settings are right for the conditions. Then we'll fuel the car ready, today we're just qualifying which is 20 mins long, we normally add an extra bit of fuel as I'm quite light and we need to make sure I'm not under the minimum weight of 1230kgs ( I carry 20 kgs in lead but it's not always enough!)

I'm now about to go and sign on at race control, this is where I have to take my race licence and collect my scruitineering ticket, without this my car cannot be passed by officials and I cannot race. The officials will check over my car, making sure all safety equipment is up to date, and that my race suit, helmet, gloves and boots all conform to FIA regulations.

It's now nearly 2pm and Rhea our championship coordinator is asking us to get into our cars, its raining heavily so we've just changed to wet tyres.fingers crossed!

Well I was fastest in the wet, that was until my gearbox went exiting the hairpin, had to come in and that was the end of my session. Unfortunately it started to dry and most of my competitors came in and changed to dry tyres meaning I was about five seconds a lap slower and on the back of the grid for both races..not a happy bunny. Plus I can't afford a new gearbox and I don't have a spare, so I might not be racing yet.

Luckily a nice competitor has lent me one for the weekend! Dad is now fixing the car, I'm no good at the mechanics so I'm off to play in a football tournament for the MINI Challenge, then I'll take Dad some dinner and head to bed.

SUNDAY

Dad finally got the car finished by 9.30 and we even managed to win the footie! We're not racing until 2.15pm but I have a busy morning, got to do an interview with some journalists from Japan and the later a photo shoot for their magazine.

I'm now in my suit ready, my boyfriend Rob is about to start his race so I'm off to quickly watch the beginning of that before I get told to get in my car. We have got a public grid walk before our race which is great opportunity for the public to get up close to the cars and drivers, have pictures with the drivers and get some autographs!

OK, I feel really sick, my hands are shaking and we're about to get into our cars, I can barely hold the pen! Here goes..

Race was awful, got an amazing start, then I got squeezed going into the first corner, managed to make up a few places then two S-Class cars took each other out and the safety car came out. After about seven laps behind the safety car the officials decided the cars were in a dangerous position and the chequered flag came out which was extremely annoying as I desperately needed as many laps as possible to move my way up in to the points. Also Keith Issat who was lying 3rd in the championship won the race which puts me behind him.

The 2nd and last race of the weekend is fast approaching now, Rob has just finished 4th in his other race so let's hope I can do something similar..

I managed to move up to finish 8th, was quite a good race, although I now have even more dents and scrapes on my car than I did before! I hit Aston Blake pretty hard from behind on the last lap and my neck and shoulders are feeling very sore. Luckily there was no damage from that.

Right so it's home time now, everything got packed up pretty quickly and we're on the road. It's raining heavily and I'm struggling to stay awake to write this so apologies if it doesn't make any sense! Not really sure where I am in the championship now, just have to hope I can do well at Castle Coombe at the end of next month and do some catching up!

Well its Tuesday morning and I've just looked on the MINI Challenge website to see I've only dropped one position in the table, I'm now third and only two points off second so all is not lost!

Thank you for reading, I hope you found it interesting and now have a better idea of what its like to be an amateur racing driver!