Donington Park Garage 33 & 34

CLICK HERE TO SEE A GALLERY FROM THE DAY

Arrival At Donington Park Circuit

While most people were heading to work on a cool Monday morning, for me there was a slightly different agenda for the day. After entering the competition 3 years ago when I first started karting, I have once again decided to enter the Want2Race driving competition with the goal of winning a fully funded race seat in the GRDC. Since I first started racing I've had much more experience and hopefully this will put me in a much better position this time round.

So, after not getting a great deal of sleep for fear of sleeping in (my phone has died over night a number of times recently), I was up at 5am to get ready for the off at around 6am. Fortunately the traffic was light and I arrived at Donington Park about 2 hours later, greeted by all manor of race and road cars, there are some photos in the gallery below.

My home for the day would be garage 33 & 34, where I was greeted by the friendly face of Ben Hyland and an array of warm drinks & snacks to take the chill off. Before long I got chatting to some others in the garage, including current British GT Championship contender Ben Green who'd be my instructor for the day. Drinks done we headed to the BookaTrack office for the obligatory briefing and a nose round a rather nice G55.

Track Session 1 - Familiarisation

Back in the garages now it was time for the fun to begin, after a separate W2R brief the first drivers were out on track. On a Driveday, you are given three 20 minute sessions and for reasons which I'll explain later, it's more than enough. My first session was 10:40 and while there was a chill in the air, the sun was out. As the car pulled into the pits for the driver change, I was reminded of just how small the cars are, but a few awkward moments later I was strapped in and ready to roll.

It's never been so nerveracking driving a car at 50, down the pit lane and then opening the throttle up as we got to the pit exit, but the nerves soon went. A few weeks earlier Max Coates had spent some time coaching me on the circuit layout and I'm glad I had that opportunity as it meant my time in the car was spent honing the skills I need to improve. I probably wasn't that quick in the first session, but it was great to familiarise myself with the car again and get a feel for how it handles as you start to push harder.

Gravel on the pit garage floor

The track was quite quiet for a track day, meaning lots of running with few stoppages for red flags; that was until just before lunch when one of the other drivers in our group made an error under braking and spun into the gravel approaching the last chicane. As the track fell silent we all waited to see what damage had been done to the car, as it returned to the pits on the recovery truck we were all pleased to see the car was in one piece, but full of gravel; a lucky escape.

Session 2 - Pushing Harder

My second stint was after lunch and the rain which had been forecast didn't appear to be materialising, instead the skies cleared and we were furtunate to have blistering sunshine and a warming track. As I headed back out on track it was clear that the grip had improved dramatically and my confidence in how far I could push the car had grown. In this session Ben was pushing me much harder, braking later, harder, turning in smoothly and accelerating through the corners, I could really feel the car biting and you knew when you hooked the corners up, it felt great. Pushing the boundaries also meant pushing my abilities and there were several moments in this session when the car was starting to drift nicely through the corners, opening the steering to carry the speed and control the slide.

Driver change on Want2Race Driveday

Session 3 - Driving Too Hard

I was really looking forwards to the last session, another 20 minute stint and I was fortunate to be running last. I have to admit it was a nervy wait to see if the car came back in one piece, but fortunately it did. Jumping in for the last time I was already hot, the weather had really picked up through the afternoon and the car was a warm place to be.

Heading out of the pits we were straight on the pace, picking up where we left off in the second stint. We were pushing hard and continuing to build on everything we'd done earlier in the day, carrying 4th through the old hairpin to carry more speed, braking even later into turn 1 and the last hairpin. There's no denying it was hard, hot work and the sweat beads were there for all to see.

It was going to be a great end to the day and as we were running so well, Ben had extended the stint marginally, but that proved a little too much. Heading through the Craner Curves, we carried a lot of speed towards the old hairpin and as I jumped on the brakes I didn't apply quite enough pressure, this combined with taking two stabs at turn in unsettled the car just enough to pitch me into a slide. Unfortunatetly, unlike other moments earlier in the day, this was a big slide and try as I might to save it we were spinning off track. A full 360 later we were on the grass and in a cloud of dust, I was gutted, I could have cried I was so dissapointed in myself.

DO Racing full throttle on a Want2Race Driveday

We restarted the car and got a couple more laps in before we headed back to the pits where I duely apologised to the mechanics for any additional cleaning up they had to do.

Not a great way to end the day, but what a day it was. I'm thrilled with just how much I learned and progressed and now have more confidence than ever that I can race quickly and drive cars on the limit of their grip. Hopefully I've shown enough potential to make stage 2 of the competition this year and I'm really looking forwards to getting back out on track in these great little race cars.

CLICK HERE TO SEE A GALLERY FROM THE DAY

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