Toby Goodman did everything right this weekend, with the onset of torrential rain and wind at the beginning of the MINI Festival weekend at Brands Hatch, the challenging conditions should be a problem, but not for Toby! He came away with a number of trophies and a lots of championship points so we asked him to put together a summary of his weekend.
Friday – What would a race weekend be without unpredictable weather? After a dry session early on in the day, we spent the rest of the afternoon swapping tires every session in attempts to match the changing conditions. Although we didn’t leave with that “ideal lap time” that would be good to know for qualifying, we had a good idea towards the cut off points between the wet and dry tires in changing conditions, something that would be very useful for the following days racing!
Saturday – Early showers meant we headed out onto a very greasy track for Qualifying. The plan was to put in a few banker laps early on, get the tires heated up and to the optimum pressures, then dive into the pits mid-session and swap them round so that the front tires were now on the rear and vice versa. This would give a very balanced and planted car in the challenging conditions, as the rear tires are always the hardest to get up to temperature. However, two red flags in the session meant we only had two laps left at the end to put in a competitive lap time. After finding a gap in the traffic, I disconnected the part of my brain that is associated with danger, and put in a lap right at the end to put me on pole position by half a second!
Race 1 was dry; however, a sizable accident mid race meant the majority of it was spent under safety car. Luckily, we were told that there would be one lap left at the end after the safety car pulled in. After backing the pack up and getting a good gap to P2, I finished the race in P1 and walked away with a great set of points from the day.
Sunday – Great crowds for the final day of racing at the MINI festival as we headed out for race two, and what a show we put on! From the second the lights went out, the drop of the chequered flag, it was door to door touring car racing. Any of about eight cars could have walked away with the win it was so close, and a P3 finish from myself was far from disappointing! The pace was strong, but the tire marks on the sides of the car were stronger, and a P4 start from reversed top 6 grid for race three was set to be an even better race!
And it didn’t disappoint! After a great start, I managed to work my way up to P2 by lap 2, and eventually took the lead of the race before the first 5 laps! From then it was full focus on keeping it consistent and building a gap from the dogfights that were occurring behind me. As the clock ticked down, the gap grew, and as the chequered flag dropped, I took the win by over a second. Great weekend, and a nice bag of championship points to come home with as well. Huge thanks to everyone at Excler8 Motorsport and Credo Asset Finance for the support. Roll on Round 4!
Thanks Toby, look forward to the next round!
