Despite the promises of rain, the day was dry and sunny - which was just as well as I had never been to Oulton Park before.

Qualifying was in 2 sessions as there were 45 of us present, and only room for 26 cars on the track at any one time. With new brake pads to bed in, I was taking it slightly easy, but was disappointed with my 22nd place with a time of 1 min 19.1 secs.

With the top 16 places going straight through to the final, the bottom 26 raced in the heat to fill the remaining 10 places on the final grid. Starting 6th in the heat, I was overtaken by Helen Saunders (51) in a bold move on the outside of Cascades, and out-braked going in to Fosters. Despite being faster than her in a straight line, I could not get the required sling shot out of a corner for a couple of laps - much to the commentators amusement I was told later! I finally overtook her down the start/finish straight, making the position mine in Old Hall corner. I then set about chasing 4th place, and despatched him in the same place a couple of laps later. I then caught 3rd Stuart James (99) and 2nd Dominic O’Donnell (26) who were having a mighty tussle of their own. Sneaking up on them, I took them both on the start/finish straight before they really realised what was going on! Or so it seemed at the time! Now in 2nd place and on lap 7 or 8, it looked unlikely that I would catch the leader (Jon Glover 96) who was well over 5 secs ahead. However lady luck struck in my favour, and poor Jon broke down at the beginning of the last lap. Managing to stay ahead of Dominic, I held the lead, and WON MY FIRST RACE !!!

This put me in 17th place on the grid for the final. A good start saw me make 2 places prior to the first corner, but my attempts to avoid contact at Old Hall lost me them again. However the fact that I had an extra race under my belt compared to those people I was now tussling with started to show, and I slowly moved up the field. However it was all so frantic I can’t remember who I overtook! By about the 6th lap I had broken clear of Andrew Crapnell (7) by some 10 secs - he became embroiled in his own battle with Nik Tarry (88) and Danny Cassar (24). I then caught the battle for 2 - 11th place - a huge gaggle of cars that looked ripe for disaster! I bided my time, and stayed just behind them, trying to avoid contact. My tactics paid off, and on the final corner of the last lap, I gained 2 further places as I passed 2 cars who had spun off.

Finishing 10th place was good reward for a tough and exhausting day on a track I had never been on before! My fastest lap had improved by almost 3 seconds from qualifying to 1 min 16.48 secs.