A Day Out at Donnington Park

It's been a long time since I went to see my mate's Grandson - Josh Watts - go racing, I had seen him testing a Ginetta GTP8 a few weeks back but the last actual race I went to was at Snetterton a year or so back. Donnington is a great track, fantastic views of the circuit if you know where to sit, great facilities and it's only about 2 1/2 hours from home.

My dear old mate Russ picked me up from home just after 6 am and we made our way there, no traffic at that time on a Sunday so we arrived just before 08:30 in plenty of time for the first race just after 9. Fiona's boyfriend Andy met us at the gates with our passes, I was rather pleased that mine was a VIP one that included meals and coffees in the SRO Motorsport hospitality tent.

It was a full day of racing with the TCR cars there, the GP3's and 4's as well as the Ginetta Juniors, which was our primary reason for being there. The weather was largely good, although the heavens opened just as we were about to go to the lunch time grid walk. I did the sensible thing and dived in to the performance one paddock and waited with Josh, Fiona and Russ for the rain to stop. Sadly it didn't stop in time for the grid walk so I missed that but there's the breaks.

The highlight of the day from a non racing perspective was a visit to the Fox Motorsport pits, Malc knows the Father of the team principal so we got an invite to have a look around. First we saw the operations room where the team were monitoring the timing and telemetry, it was quite interesting to see how much effort goes on behind the scenes. We then moved to the work area as a pit stop was imminent. It got a bit delayed due to a safety car but it was worth waiting for. It is choreography at it's finest with everybody knowing their role and executing it flawlessly. The Aston Martin came in hot and they were on it like a rash. The rules in this series dictate that they have to refuel first and are not allowed to start changing wheels etc until the fuel pipe is clear. Everybody knows exactly where everybody else is at all times, it all happens quickly. They changed from wets to dries, swapped drivers and the car was gone in a cloud of noise and tyre smoke. We left to go back to the performance one pit and wait for Josh's last race of the weekend, which turned out to be his best.

It had been delayed, the day had been pretty much incident filled so by the time it came to the last Junior race it was about 20 minutes later than planned. The cars had all been expertly prepped by the Performance One team, they are only a small team but their professionalism is second to none. We took our place up on the hill overlooking Craner Curves, you can see nearly half the circuit from here. I had watched the first one from near the Melbourne hairpin which was good because you get so close to the track but you get to see a lot more overlooking Craner. Josh did really well and drove a sensible race, starting 11th and finishing 6th. I had hoped he would get higher than that but to gain that many places in a 20 minute race of identical cars is an impressive feat. There were lots of penalties for exceeding track limits, same in every other race, it's all got a bit silly really. If that many cars and that many drivers are getting penalised surely the sensors are too close to the track?

Russ and I left after that race, it was a long day for two old fellows like us but we were both very happy with how the day had gone. We always have a good laugh and enjoy each other's company to be with the Leggate clan and a few of the other circle of friends made it an incredible day. We did a bit of shopping, I don't normally buy things at these places but there was a clothing place there with some incredible bargains and I couldn't resist the Bentley Racing tee shirt that they had in my size. We grabbed a couple of goody bags from the SRO Motorsport hospitality tent and went on our merry way feeling rather content.

Being with Malc at these events is always good, he knows all the places to go, knows loads of interesting people and always has a story to tell, I really appreciate him setting it up and hope to get to other meets in the future to watch Josh develop in to the winner I know he is going to be. Hey, he already has a win under his belt, it sure as hell isn't going to be the last. 

The journey home was unremarkable, we got back to mine just after 6, tired but well chuffed with how it had all gone. You can't compare watching races on telly with actually being there. The atmosphere, the noise, the hive of activity, the whole place buzzes all day, there is nothing quite like it. 

It isn't a cheap thing to do but for what you get ie a whole days racing, one race after another with hardly any time in between it's pretty good value, these things cost a fortune to stage. I hope to get to go again some day, it's definitely the sort of thing treasured memories are made from. And the tee shirt fits perfectly.