Two festivals and a handful of podium finishes

Whilst we’re now on the build up toward our penultimate round of the season at Donington Park on the 19th / 20th September, now would be a good time to bring you up to date on the season so far.

Since my last blog, we’ve had two meetings, both of which were Mini Festivals… these are great events and I thoroughly look forward to taking part each season.  One reason is they are held at Brands Hatch and Oulton Park, two of my favourite tracks, but in addition, the atmosphere at both is always excellent.  Drawing in big crowds of like-minded Mini enthusiasts, lots of racing action from a number of different Mini championships, coupled with loads of other non-race related things to see and do, make it a brilliant event to be part of.

BRANDS HATCH
First up was Brands Hatch, using the Indy layout, this was where I took my first ever MINI Challenge UK win, back in 2013 in the Cooper Class… so very fond memories and I love the flow of the track.  It’s a short lap, so you tend to get into a rhythm.  With it being such a short lap, I felt this would really be beneficial to us as we are more than a match for the championship leading JCW through the corners… So we went to Brands confident of a strong showing.

Testing went really well and qualifying was close… top 3 being separated by less than 0.15 seconds, I lined up on the front row for race 1, just 0.1 off pole.  A cracking start in Race 1, saw me into the JCW lead and ahead of a couple of the faster Gen 3 cars.  Everything had gone to plan and I was set up perfectly to control the race.  Unfortunately, this was not to be the case… a move further back by the JCW championship leader caused a knock-on effect accident, putting me out of the race with a split intercooler and radiator.  In the process about 5 or 6 other cars were taken out resulting in the race being red flagged.  

The damage to my car was such we couldn’t fix it in time for the restart so frustratingly had to sit the race out.  Lady luck was shining on my nearest rival though and his damage was all bodywork and he went on to finish 2nd.  Post-race he was deemed to have caused the incident and awarded points on his racing licence and sent to the back of the grid for Race 2.  However, with the points gained from the race being more than the penalty imposed, his was still a net gain.  This was my first DNF in two and a half seasons racing… which I have been told is a new record within the MINI Challenge. 

Race 2, due to the DNF in the first race I too had to start from the back of the grid… I fought my way to 2nd which was a good recovery drive and an excellent way to repay the hard work the team were faced with after Race 1 - repairing a very sorry looking car.

FINAL RACE

The frustration of Race 1 and the boost of Race 2 really got me fired up for the final race of the weekend… with it being a reversed grid, we had to start further back on the grid.  I knew a good start was crucial and the importance of trying to hit the front as quickly as possible, so I tried to focus my energy on this.

The race couldn’t have gone more to plan… a blistering start saw me up to 2nd within a couple of corners and I was into the lead by the last corner of lap 1.  After that I tried to keep my head down and push, although some of the slower Gen 3 cars were battling and this did not help matters as they began backing me up into the chasing JCWs.  

A couple of incidents brought out two safety cars… I knew with a clear track I could pull a gap on the chasing pack, so I tried to make sure I wasn’t boxed in behind the Gen3s for the restarts so I could get my head down and work on building a lead.  Fortunately, this plan worked out well and on both restarts we managed to control the race from the front.  With a few laps remaining, one of the Gen 3s had a nasty looking roll at the unforgiving paddock bend which brought out the red flag, drawing the race to a close… 

A lights to flag win for me to end the weekend!!!  Couldn’t have been happier… what started off as a tough weekend, ended on a tremendous high.  The guys had their work cut out fixing the car after Race 1 and I genuinely think this gave me the extra determination to grab a win for them to repay their efforts.

Safe to say, we all left Brands tired but on a serious high and buzzing for the next MINI festival meeting at Oulton Park.

After the high leaving Brands Hatch, I don’t think we could have had a worse build up to the Oulton Park round.  As usual the guys gave the car a thorough spanner check and tidied up any necessary issues after the Brands Race 1 incident.  Everything seemed great until the week leading up to Oulton when the car developed a misfire.  Things went from bad to worse when the diff seized up whilst trying to fix the misfire… To cut a long story short, the car was without an engine, gearbox and several other bits until nearly midnight on the Thursday evening (the day before testing)…  Everyone at Interceptor and IN:MINI did a terrific job to sort the car and maintain their sanity… there were a lot of late nights, blood, sweat and tears went into sorting the issues and I’m extremely grateful.

OULTON PARK
The car arrived at Oulton in the early hours of Friday morning… with nerves all round, we began testing.  There was no way of knowing if the car was 100% sorted until we got on track.  The first session we used to warm everything up and do some system checks.  A spanner check and analysis of the data from the car before session 2 were positive so we began pushing in session 2 and 3.  I was very happy with the car, the set up was spot on and the car felt strong again, so we used the last session to scrub our tyres in and bed some brakes in ready for qualifying the next day.

We all slept a lot more soundly Friday evening, relaxed that the car was singing again.  Qualifying went well, there was a lot of cars out on track so it was important to try and find a gap.  I managed a couple of flying laps traffic free and put the car on the front row.

My starts have generally been strong all season, so I went into Race 1 with confidence starting on the front row.  The plan was to try and hit the lead at the start and attempt to make my escape.  I managed a great start, timing the lights well and comfortably into the lead by the first corner in front of one Gen 3 and launched up the inside of a second Gen 3 into cascades to put further distance between myself and the chasing JCWs.  Then what can only be described as carnage kicked off… 3 Gen 3s immediately in front of me got tangled up heading toward the fast island bend…  It's probably the closest I’ve come to an accident whilst avoiding one… taking to the grass at about 100mph to avoid the spinning cars, I was extremely lucky.  It was a big accident and the race was red flagged.  Fortunately everyone was OK and unhurt.  The downside to the red flag on the opening lap was the grid was reformed to the original starting positions… all that hard work undone.

I was determined to get another good start on the restart and fortunately this was the case… again into the lead into the first corner.  I managed to build a gap to 2nd place, until the closing stages of the race when 2 Gen 3s in front of me began battling.  I was caught right in the middle, unable to find a way past due to their straight line advantage whilst trying to  defend from the 2nd placed JCW.  It was a really tough race, with a clear track I knew I had the pace to pull away, but had no choice but to drive defensively and hold onto the lead… probably the longest few laps of my life, but so satisfying to bring the car home for another win!  It was mega to again be able to repay all the hard work the team had done to get the car sorted just in time… it really was a huge team effort to get that result. 

Race 2 was rather unexciting unfortunately… a massive accident involving several cars just after the first corner resulted in about 12 minutes of the 20 minute race being run under the safety car whilst the track was cleared.  I was lucky to avoid the incident, but had to virtually stop on the track to avoid a collision… dropping me from the top 3 down to about 6th… 

With only 8 minutes remaining when the race resumed I pushed hard.  I knew a win wasn’t on the cards as the top two running cars had a large gap to 3rd place… So I set a podium as my target and in truth wasn’t sure I had enough laps left.  By the chequered flag I had managed to climb back to 3rd and closing in on the lead pair... ending the weekend on the podium, which I felt was a good result… fastest lap was a nice bonus too.  In some ways it was unfortunate as we had the pace to win both races, but I have to look at things positively, we could have quite easily been caught up in the accident and been faced with a DNF… so we left Oulton happy after another strong weekend.

Next up for us is Donington Park this weekend (19th/20th September)… another track I love, this time we’re on the GP layout as opposed to the season opener which used the national format.  Again, we go there with nothing to lose… the championship really isn’t in our thoughts any more, we’re sitting strongly in second place with only Snetterton left after Donington.  The championship leader has quite an advantage now and would have to have an absolute disaster of a meeting to lose it now… he pretty much has one hand firmly on the trophy!  So we go to Donington pushing to fight for race wins and another strong weekend… nothing quite beats that feeling of standing on the top step!

For more information on Panda Racing and Hamish please visit
www.PandaRacing.com / www.HamishBrandon.com, ‘like’ the Facebook pages www.Facebook.com/PandaRacing and www.Facebook.com/HamishBrandonRacing or follow @PandaRacingTeam / @HamishB on Twitter.