What a day! The early start (5am) was definitely worth it as we had plenty of time to find our garage and sign on and have breakfast. We were a bit apprehensive as it was getting quite wet!

The briefing was comprehensive and well organised by the MSV staff, then soon it was time to get ourselves into the car for the sighting laps. Joshua went out first followed by Mark and then Jude. It was now that we realised how slow we were going to be – next door to our garage was a Toyota Supra, then plenty of BMW’s, a few Porsche, a Cupra TCR and even a Radical!

The sighting laps were soon over and the morning session started. The adrenaline was certainly pumping the first time down Craner Curves at speed but all day the car was amazing. As it got drier we were more confident to push the car and our own driving skills to learn the track and how the car handled. Amazing fuel consumption was low and the road tyres we were running on looked hardly worn!

It was great for some family and supporters with Lucy and Josh arriving early on and able to sign on as passengers for the white nuckle experience! John & Pat, Adrian and Lola made it in the afternoon and their support and encouragement is amazing.

Despite the massive differences in performance most drivers were pretty respectful, unfortunately there were two red flags for rolling Clio’s and another for a breakdown. A big thank you to the marshals who were there on the day, fortunately we were well behaved and didn’t get to meet any of them. We got plenty of track time and at the end of the day chatting to the MSV team they reckon we probably did the most laps!

Again a huge thank you to our sponsors, (more are always welcome!), Will, John, Gary and the team at Gildings Auctioneers and Adrian at Covac. The use of the van, welders and other general help has been very welcome! Unloading and packing away at the end of a very long day was tough but the whole day was so rewarding! We feel like stage one of our journey to racing is done as we can’t wait until our next day on track in March. The car needs a few upgrades and tweaks so more work and updates coming soon.

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