2012 Birkett Relay

2 weeks after the final mr2 championship round at Mallory park where I equalled my personal best result of 3rd in class and 4th overall, I was heading for my home track of silverstone for the 63rd running of the Birkett 6hr relay.

I was competing for Dawn gp for the 3rd time in as many years, it was great to be back with the very experianced team, last year it was possibly the worst race that could have happend every car that went on track had some sort of issue which resulted in the team ending up at the bottom of the results list. This year we hoped all of our bad luck had been used up previously however.

The team consisted of myself, David Bryant, Rob Barnett, Matt Palmer and after a years absence Steve Lumley was back out in his mr2. The team was ran by Dawn Bryant.

The start of the race went to Rob, he went out and put in a solid drive throughout his 1hr and 10min stint gaining a couple of places before he was due to pit. 2nd up was Steve Lumley a little bit rusty to start with but he soon got to grips with his mr2 again and his lap times began to drop, he also returned to the pits without any issue.

Then it was my turn! I went onto the track and straight away back into the groove of driving the mr2 on the edge around the arena gp layout at silverstone. During the hour and 10mins I had a few battles with various cars and really enjoyed the driver, sadly just past the half way distance the Anti Rollbar sheered off of the chassis (not ideal!) I began to loose time and I knew something was wrong because the right rear wheel kept spinning when loaded up. However I thought it was best to stay on the track for 90% of my stint before signaling to the pits something was wrong this was to avoid an extra pitstop which would cost us a lot of time.

Thankfully I made it back to the pits and Matt Palmer went out on track and not long after joining the track he was nibbeling at my fastest time (which was the fastest in the team at the time!) towards the end of his stint it began to rain and it even hailed for a little bit. During this phase he was one of if not the fastest on the track this was due to the mr2 being one of the heavier cars and matt being a very strong driver.

For the final ‘damp’ stint David Bryant took control and drove really well and held the car on the road, picking off a few positions along the way.

The team eventually finished 7th overall on Handicap and 3rd in class, so in generall it was a really good day for the team, everyone seemed very keen to race again next year!

(Photos by Johnathan Blanco)