Not much to say really. Donington is long and complex; difficult to learn. I could not even stay on the circuit on the Touring Car computer game, so I was uptight about the circuit before I got there. No testing, just straight out onto those notorious and terrifying Craner Curves.

Practice
To start with we had to qualify at 9 a.m., a six thirty wake up call! We were bottom of a busy bill which included the European 3000 championship, Force 5000, the Formula Boss F1 cars and all the usual club races from our meetings. I started off the qualifying smoothly to get to know the circuit and after four laps I started attacking the braking points and the corners. To my chagrin I found out later from the in-car lap-timer that my fastest lap was my fourth! The harder I tried the slower I got, but I did not know that at the time. So I still have a lot to learn about the smoother slower entries and  better exit speed. Oh dear. I was ten seconds slower than pole man Dan Eagling, and quicker only than Nick Bailey who was running his Mallock Mk30 for the first time and sorting it out.

Race
It poured! At 8 in the morning, and we lined up at 9.10 a.m. I could hardly see the car in front when we were stationary. At the green lights all of us at the back went off very gingerly, expecting carnage at the first corner, Redgate. Nothing. Just us lot in a spray-sodden train trying to see those apexes down the Craner Curves. Up the top of the hill to McLeans. The Autosport bible of how to drive each track says "in the wet there is the added problem of the corner becoming extra slippery from the aviation fuel fallout on the circuit from the flight path out of East Midlands airport". Ian Megson had told me where to look for the standing water and rivers across the track. Knowing that I wanted to bring the car home in one piece (Mallory Park, for which I have tested well, is only one week away and there would be no time to fix a breakage) my mind froze. I was slipping and sliding even at my pedestrian speed.

I dared to think I could keep ahead of Chris Burnham (No16), who had got off the line even slower than me. I was terribly ungentlemanly to him for half a lap, including two abreast through the chicane which was the only fun part of the afternoon, but he got me at the Goddards hairpin and was ahead as we came past the pits on lap 2 (photo above - what? you can't see anything? That was the natural light. Then look at it through a visor full of spray...). Even Chris spun later but I was too far behind to benefit. I came in last, 21st out of 22. Michael Taylor spun at the Melbourne Hairpin and the car was stuck on the racing line so the race was red-flagged after 6 laps and he was a non-finisher.

Oh yes, there was a race going on somewhere else. Pete Richings was in the lead into the first corner from 4th on the grid, but Peter Clark got him after a brief wet ding-dong. Miraculously there were no bent cars (unlike all the other events that day). Lots of spinners (Tony Pouyanne 31, Brian Jordan 50, Chris Burnham 16, Stefan Mumm 22, Adrian Brown 14 spun twice, Clive Woodward 2, and even mini whizzeroony Dan Eagling 7) but no reported damage. Clark won from Riching and Woodward, with Neil Bevan on a charge to 4th. Mike Luck started from the back due to qualifying coinciding with a wedding he had to be at, but he came through to finish 9th.

Statistics

Circuit	Donington Park 2.5 miles	Fastest test lap	No testing
Fastest qualifying lap	1.53.696 - 79.15 mph	Qualified in position	20 out of 21
Conditions	Damp qualifying, wet race	Number of cars qualified	21
Fastest race lap	2.18.008	Number of cars at start	22
Finishing position	21	Number of cars finished	21
Number of laps behind	I was lapped by Peter Clark and Pete Richings but when the race was red flagged on lap 7 the positions were taken on the previous lap. So I "officially" did the same number of laps as them.	Average speed	62.75 mph

Paddock chat
Stefan Mumm, one of the founders of the Scandinavian Clubmans Series, drove Chris Hart's short wheelbase Mallock Mk16 for the first time. He's going to do the whole season in 2002. We set out to watch the Formula 3000 professionals drive the Craner Curves up the hill to McLeans. Stefan said "I think the best entry to McLeans is from a car's width in from the left, not all the way to the entry curb, to keep the car balanced. Bingo. All the F3000 cars do exactly that. The many mysteries. It's exactly the opposite of racing school advice.

Chris Bicknell could have done better than Marcus in the race. The photo shows him in typical Juan-Pablo Montoya mode, out of the rain!

The curse of the video camera back-fired. Pete Richings mounted it on his car as planned, and did brilliantly in the race. Better than the camera it seems. The driving rain has got into the video camera and has boiled the digital brain. As I write this on Sunday night the camera has still not deigned to dry out and function. I'll keep you all informed as to whether we got pictures! Oh dear, it's Monday afternoon now and the camera functions again, but not the record and rewind buttons. So we have some nice shots in the paddock when we were testing the camera but none from the car. I'll get it fixed and we'll try again next time. Sorry Pete.
 

Despite no points scored today, we have 46 points on the way to raising a year's target of £5000 for Macmillan Cancer Relief. Details on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/mbicknell/racing/3relief.htm . Please email me on marcus@bicknell.com to make a commitment.