Northampton
European Championship
14th and 15/07/07

I was in two minds about whether to race the NIR Euro meetings but after some thought decided that I might as well seeing as we would be going to spectate anyway. 

The week previous was spent sorting the car out, finishing off the troublesome clutch and generally sorting spares out etc.  We arrived at the track in good time but in practice the car was virtually un-drivable as it wanted to dive right under braking and pushed on really badly through the bends.  This problem persisted through the evening and we finally found the problem to be in the way I had set the brakes up but were unable to test the findings as there was no grand national on the Saturday night.

On the Sunday the car was completely different.  It braked well, turned in lovely and just had a slight tendency to drift coming off the turns.  I qualified for the final through my heat with an 8th place and was over the moon with the changes we had made. 

In the final I was again going OK but came to grief when I got caught by Chris Cowley and FWJ (I think).  I ended up loosing the back end and facing the on-coming traffic in turn 1, I got a head on clout from Chris Cooke but managed to get it back together and finish the race. 

In the GN I managed to get out on the front row of the whites, lined up directly behind Ed Neachell who was starting from a lap handicap after winning the meeting final.  As I was confident with the way the car had been going I decided that my best shot would be to stay with Ed for as long as possible and see how it went.  As the green flag dropped Ed shot off and I managed to stay in touch for several laps.  The car was absolutely mint and for me, it was flying.  I checked my mirror after 6 or so laps and could see nobody anywhere near close by.  By this time I was telling myself to keep it together at this pace for the rest of the race and it might just be on for a win!!  After a couple of more laps I started to come up behind the back markers but just as I was wondering what do next the yellows came out, destroying my lead.  A few expletives were uttered but that's stock car racing I suppose?  On the re-start I was pushed wide by Chris Bonner and as I got back on the gas my inside rear half shaft snapped finishing my race.  Somehow I wasn't to disappointed as we seemed to have the car going much better and we'd got away with little or no damage.