Walter Hayes Trophy 2012.....

After a two days of testing Saturday got underway with qualifying in the morning and heat 1 for us in the afternoon. Qualified P12 and finished P11 in our heat which was more than enough to take us straight through to the 'Last chance' race before the semi-final, unfortunately we were disqualified from the race that evening so were relagated back down to last place (120th). Sunday morning we woke to torrential rain flooding the track in several places and causing our race to be delayed from 10.15 to 14.00, then the organisers had a days racing to cram into a couple of hours before dark. We lined up P37 for the 'Progression' race and to get throught to the 'Last chance' race had to finish in the top six, we knew this had to be done on the first couple of laps otherwise it was all over and we were going home, p20 after one lap, p10 after two laps and p5 after three laps then a big crash and a red flag on lap four just after we had our first off into the gravel putting us back down into p10! as the rules take a race finish from the previous lap we finished p3 and were through to the next race.
We started the last chance race again from p37 and for this one had to finish in the top 18 to get through to the semi's, (This race can be watched from the onboard camera on the link above) after another superb start we worked our way up to p14, the opposition was getting harder the further we moved forward.
We started the semi final again from last p35 and could only manage 20th after getting caught in battles along the way, we caught 19th and 18th place up but the race was cut short to 8 laps as opposed to 12, who knows if we could have made the finals? however, a very respectable 39th was our final position out of 120 in one day and in some of the worst driving conditions.

Eyes closed going through race start before semi final

Thank you to Dad and Mark for their help over the weekend, Louise for being my mum again and looking after me, Gavin Ray of Ray Race Cars for setting my car up properly, Ewen at Team AVIT Motorsport for building me a strong engine and finally a big thank you to Greame Finlayson and the rest of the Scottish lads that shared our pit garage and changed my head valves for me Saturday night.