Circuit:	Mallory Park, Leics
Date:	September 17th 2006
Championship:	Caterham Academy Championship 2006

I attended a day at Jonathan Palmer's Motorsport Sensation at Bedford Autodrome on the Saturday (which had been booked many months ago and part of a friend's birthday celebrations so certainly not possible to re-arrange), whilst many of my fellow racers in the Caterham Academy Championship were booked on a track day at Mallory to hone their skills ready for the race. This proved to be a decision of mixed blessings ! Whilst missing out on the experience of getting to know Mallory a little better, apparently the driving standards were so poor that it necessitated a special mention in the driver's briefing on the day of the race. 5 Caterhams had been involved in incidents on the Saturday (not all of their fault it has to be said) and the midnight oil was burnt by some to try and repair their cars in time.

In the meantime, I'd had a great day with my friends at Bedford securing 4th place overall out of 59 participating and just missing out on the first place in the Caterham event by 4/100ths of a second.

Come the morning of the race, although I thought I had set the alarm for a 05.00 wake up, I hadn't actually confirmed it. So, knowing I had to be at Mallory to sign on at 08.25 (roughly 90 mins away by the time I've hitched up the trailer and race car etc), there were several expletives in the Jennings household as I woke and glanced at my phone to see it was 07.05 !!! Bugger, bugger, bugger !!!

To this day, I'm not sure how I managed to get to the circuit by 08.25 but there was then quite a rush to get the car off the trailer, get changed into my race overalls, get signed on, then to scrutineering on the far side of the paddock only to have pointed out that one of the "tow" stickers on the car, was no longer there, thanks to some OIK "having a laugh" (several stickers were apparently pinched from other cars that day) !! Sorted that out, then back to race administration, all in time for the mandatory 09.00 drivers briefing. Stress levels were running very high at that point and I have to say I wasn't feeling particularly well.

This "more rush, less speed" approach, manifested itself as I was lining up in the assembly area, just prior to going out for qualifying. One of the scrutineers approached me and pointed out that, in my rush to get ready, I'd forgotten the mandatory arm restraints. Bugger, bugger, bugger !!!! I had about 5 mins to go to the start of the session and I reckoned it would take me at least 10 to scramble out of the car, rush across to where I was based in the paddock, find the "missing" arm restraints and then run back to the car and get myself strapped in again. P.ss Poor Preparation Prevents Proper Performance !!

However, luck was on my side because just at that moment, one of my small team of supporters was walking past the assembly area on the way to the pit wall and I managed to attract his attention and get him to track down the restraints for me, saving me the fiasco of unharnessing, scrambling out, running across the paddock and then reversing the long-winded process !! Thanks again Chris !

Qualifying started very well with what I later found to be my best time being put down in the first couple of laps when I was circulating, essentially on my own. However, at the back of my mind was the thought that to get a good time in a Caterham, you really need to get a "tow" down the straights from another car, so I set off in pursuit. I found two drivers who appeared to be trying to work with each other to do this but viewed from behind, I didn't feel they were co-ordinated enough and if anything were possibly holding each other up.

Unfortunately I made a decision to stick with them, thinking the strategy would get better but found myself increasingly frustrated as I was braking behind them where I wouldn't necessarily have braked etc. In next to no time, the session was over and I felt I'd wasted an opportunity to qualify reasonably well. I was 0.7 seconds off pole but that was enough to throw me all the way back to 11th place. Less than a second covered the first 13 places !! Is Caterham racing close or what !

Time now to chill out and relax for the first time in the morning and prepare for the race itself. The weather was now beautiful and I was starting to feel a lot better in myself.

Leaving the assembly area to go slowly round and line up for the formation (warm up) lap, there was a somewhat bizarre incident as Steve Devine (car no. 69) ran into the back of Michael Chivers (51) at the hairpin, putting both cars out of the race. A brake hose failure was blamed at the time but it's since been suggested that in fact this may not have been the cause of the crash. Anyway, it meant the start was delayed by about 10 mins whilst the debris and damaged cars were cleared from the track. Sitting in nomex, crash helmet etc in the belting September sun for yet another 10 long mins, was certainly not a comfortable experience.

The race itself got under way and my luck was about to go straight out of the window again, at the very first corner of the first lap. The cars in front of me had lined up too close together leaving no way between them in the event of one of them, say, stalling, (the grid marshal had noticed this and mentioned her concern to me, but felt there was no time to get the "offending" driver to move into his correct grid position). So going down the start/finish straight, with Matt Withers (67) close to my left, there was no chance to get through and therefore no choice other than follow Simon Naylor (5) who was in front of Matt on the left and Mark Bowles (59) who was immediately in front of me.

However, on entering the very first corner (Gerrards) at some speed, Simon started to spin towards the inside of the track. Mark got out of his way in the nick of time and Matt took the place that Simon had been in. I was therefore totally "boxed in" (thoughts of first corner incident at Castle Combe !), braking hard to avoid the spinning Simon, whilst others behind me just seemed to stream past. The incident was captured by several friends on camera, which confirmed I had absolutely no-where to go. So all of a sudden, I'm down in 13th place. Motor racing can be SO frustrating sometimes !!

Anyway, I found myself once again pushing the pedal to the floor in an effort to get back into the race. Passed a couple of cars in a couple of laps to get back to 11th and then had a great battle with Gareth Thomas (77) for about 5 or 6 laps. We caught the back-markers on the last lap (my fastest of the race despite being baulked) of what seemed a very short race.

Finished a very disappointing 11th, the only consolation being I managed to get second fastest lap of the race, missing out to fastest, which was secured by Andrew Thomas (10), the eventual winner, by just 0.05 of a second !