Northampton
24/06/07

Got to Northampton at about 11am and Al, Derek, Steve, Brian and I set about repairing the front bumper etc straight away.  The weather was foul but the team pulled out all the stops and got me out for heat two. I was having a good race with Stu Smith (397) for most of the race but as the race progressed I thought I felt the clutch slip a couple of times. I carried on as I didn’t seem to be going too bad but by the end of the race the slipping was getting worse and I was basically just nursing it home.  We checked the car over and made some adjustments to the cutch in the pits and I decided to give it a go in the consolation to see how went.  As soon as the green flag dropped it was very obvious that we hadn’t managed to sort the clutch problem out, the rest of the whites streaked away and before I knew it I was in the middle of the pack with next to no drive from the gearbox!!!  A quick exit was definitely the order of the day so I pulled the car off to the safety of the centre as soon as I possibly could.  As the clutch was not something we could attend to at the track all that was left to do was to load up and watch the rest of the meeting.

Even with the clutch damage and hard work repairing the car for NIR, I really enjoyed the weekend again. Big thanks as ever go to Trish, Steve, Ales, Al, Brian, NFR and all the 218 team. My next meeting will probably be Buxton (29/07) unless I get a rush of blood to my head and book in for the Euros at NIR!!!! Keep an eye on the web site for a possible announcement regarding a certain ex-ministocker who may be debuting a senior class in the near future!!!

Mike