Donington is my favourite track, and I hoped for a good day.  Qualifying unfortunately was not good.  The circuit was re-tarmac'd over the winter, and those who had been testing said that it was very slippery in the wet.  The track was damp for qualifying and incredibly slippery, although it was not actually raining.  For some reason, the officials only let us out for the first session of the day some 15 mins late.  One person (un-named, but not me) then managed to spin off on the 2nd corner after getting 2nd gear rather than 4th, whilst Des (18) spun off on lap 2 at the Old Hairpin, ending up in the gravel just off the track in a dangerous position.  This led to the red flag coming out by which point we had had a warm up lap and just one lap, during which, most of us were baulked by other cars or spinners.  After the re-start, we got just 3 laps in - again one to warm up, one to slow down and if you were lucky a clear lap in between.  I was not so lucky, being held up by Jamie Robinson (26) who had never driven there before.  I slowed down to get some space, only to find the chequered flag out.  5 qualifying laps, of which 2 were "out-laps" was extremely frustrating, and not good value for money.  Miraculously I qualified 14th - clearly other people must have had similar bad luck.

Conditions for the race were dry, but extremely windy.  It turned out to be the most enjoyable race I've ever had - which was perhaps just as well, as I'd not had a good time at Mallory the week before.  The grid at Donington was more compressed than last year - more reminiscent of Mallory, than the open expanses of Donington last year.  My new start technique is still working well, and I seemed to surge ahead.  Mind you, with 30 of us arriving at Redgate (1st corner) all at pretty much the same time, it's difficult to remember what happened next.  We all made it around somehow, but I think I lost some of the places that I had made up.  My fuel problems from last week re-appeared, and with the wind so strong, you needed every bit of power possible - I was mis-firing onto the start of every straight, and struggling as a result.  The wind was so strong that you could catch someone in their slip-stream, but if you pulled out, you couldn't get past them as the wind was too strong.  Most amusing!  I soon ended up going around with Colin Beckwith (17), Martin Gambling (77), Rob Fitter (34) and James Kmieciak (81).  This was a good clean tussle, with positions swapping on most corners - sometimes many times (huge fun).  The odd tail ender got in the way, and the odd mistake was made, although luckily not by me.  My consistency out-weighed the engine mis-fire, and I ended up in the middle of the group of 5, finishing in 12th place. Not a bad result, but I'm sure if the engine was on song, I'd have been higher up!  Clearly never the driver's fault!  So the modifications made during the week were partially successful.  My new gear linkage worked a treat, with not a single missed gear.  However our adjustments to the float levels in the carburetor did not cure the mis-fire.  The fuel pump is now looking very guilty, and may well get changed......

Next race, Sun 11 Apr at Snetterton in East Anglia.  Another fast track, where I do not need a mis-fire!