At school one day, at another race track the next. Flying backwards and forwards all the time has me feeling like a superstar already!

We were down south again, racing at Ruapuna, this track shares its main straight with a super wide drag strip, allowing for some mega overtaking opportunities.

The target lap time around here was in the 1:30’s.

 

Practice came and went just like that, I had gotten to grips with the track and I was feeling prepared for the qualifying ahead!

Come qualifying I raced around the track for a while, then came into the pits to check tyre pressures, and I sat in 8th. I went back out and made good use of the time given in qualifying to put the car in P6 on the grid.

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Day 2

Leading up to the first race of the weekend, the rain began to come down…

Off came the roll bar, on went the wet setup. I came off the line with a hiss and a roar, making up a couple positions. However the safety car came out, giving the track a chance to dry up, as it came in, the track was still a bit wet leaving me with a bit more of a chance at making up some places, I made it up to P3, but then the track started drying rapidly and I had to do the best I could with what I had on my hands.

I made it home with a P6 finish for Race 1.

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Race 2 came around, this time everyone had a dry setup on and no-one saw the rain coming. I got another good jump off the line, and was into 4th. I dropped back to 5th, but saw a gap and went for it, making it 3-wide and coming out the other side in 3rd before the safety car came out again. This time the rain came instead of went away, I was ready to do this. The leader went off as the track was far wetter than expected, and I was up to 2nd. For the rest of the race I was in a big fight for the lead with Will Neale, looking to make the move anywhere I could, I went side-by-side with him across the line to come home 2nd.

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Day 3

Then came Race 3, I had a mega start and made it up to P2!

I dropped off pace a bit and fell to 4th, then defended from Seb Manson as if my life depended on it right to the line, coming home in P4.

 

The final race of the weekend, Race 4. This time I felt a small loss of power early on, with an odd throttle response… This didn’t end too well, in fact, it ended with being towed back to pit lane, as our throttle cable had snapped.

We came home with a DNF to end the series.

That was never the way we’d want to finish off our 1st NZ championship, but I had learnt a lot, and enjoyed every moment of it. We finished the championship in P6.

Bring on next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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That’s it for 3 weeks, before we head to Manfeild to close the North Island Series!

Thank you to Dad for putting so much time aside to get everything ready to race down south, and Callum for jumping on the big metal bird, and coming across the country to help out.