Now that I have had time to let the magnitude of the occasion sink in I will attempt to report on the the weekends racing at the Mission Motorsport Race or Remembrance. The weekend began early with a long journey down to Anglesey circuit in North Wales in the wee hours of Thursday morning. Travelling down in convoy with Pro Race Scotland, was shall we say comical! They ran this years compact cup car in the race for a very good team of drivers, one of whom Hamish and his dad had kindly put all of Mission Motorsport and pro Race Scotland up for the weekend at Brynteg Holiday Park which was absolutely amazing. Fridays testing saw the whole team together for the 1st time. The driving line up was David Birrell, Richard Parks, Marino Franchitti, Calum Lockie, Dan Prosser and of course myself in the 2 Mazda UK Factory Works cars as an addition to the Mission Motorsport line up which fielded 6 of us injured soldiers. We quickly got to grips with the car and circuit, Anglesey is phenomenal with isms good mix of fast corners, straights and tight technical sections. The day was also for the press to get there chance to grab us for interviews which was a surreal experience, we also had live radio from the track and 2 film crews embedded over the weekend as they followed Mission Motorsport and Ricard Parks as he took on his latest challenge of his 1st ever race an 8hr endurance!!!! That night we all attended the heros dinner which was hosted by Paul ONeill and was simply brilliant involving various members of the Wix team and accredited members of the motorsport community auctioning off the chance to cream pie them. Saturday began with qualifying in extremely wet and windy conditions which were great fun as the Mazda was so forgiving allowing us to really push the limits with the confidence that the car wont eat us alive. Given the conditions we put the car 9th on the grid for the begging of Sundays 8hr endurance. Next up in the afternoon was super car Saturday which seen a selection of exotic road cars and pretty handy race cars provide passenger laps as the Drift Team tore up the unused section of track, some included a rather tasty Mclaren Driven by Marino, a Porsche GT3 Driven by Dan Prosser, Adam Morgans 2014 Wix Racing BTCC Car & a demonstration run by the 1989 Camel Lotus F1 car. Soon though race day was upon us which brought some bad news, we were unable to resolve Marinos licence issue as he apparently held to good a licence for the event meant he would be unable to race along side us meaning he would have to be replaced by Mr James Cameron himself. With Marino cheering us on from the pit wall and not to be deterred I began the race, I initially I struggled with the lack of grip from the slicks due to the lack of temp meaning I had to be patient as I was passed a number of times. However it wasnt long before they come alive and by lap 6 my lap times were dropping and before long I was passing cars although I did genuinely believe they were back markers until the pit board displayed p9, p8, pm & finally p4 before my stint had sadly come to an end. Next in the car was David birrell who put in a brilliant performance keeping his lap times quick and consistent managing to move us further up into 3rd place. Davies stint would be interrupted by a memorial service at quarter to 1, the atmosphere at the service was electric and one of deep reflection and remembrance. It was extremely emotional and proved paticularly difficult given it was the 1st memorial Ive brung myself to attend since 2009. I found myself extremely fortunate to be in the company of people going through the same challenge, with support from Marino, Jim, Davie & Stacey I was able to pull myself back up and re focus on the job at hand. Davies stint Continued after the service however would soon be replaced by Jim Cameron who was just getting settled into his stint when disaster struck as the power steering pump packed in, this proved to be a real issue as its connected into almost everything meaning we could not simply remove the power steering unit and carry, we had to rob a new one and quickly fit it however this cost us a good half hour plus of running time. Straight back into the car would be John Hindhaugh who had the sam problem arise during his stint meaning we would sit out the remainder of the race. Not to be completely down and out we hatched hatched a plan that seen is push the car to the end of the pit lane and release Davie on the last lap board to coax her round and take the chequered flag thus completing the very 1st Race of Remembrance. Im extremely proud Hove have been a part of this extraordinary event and more so of the crew that kept us running they worked tirelessly and deserve our gratitude. Im also extremely proud of Dan Prosser & Richard Parks, Both had completed their 1st ever race and what a race it was. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures from the weekend and more will be posted soon :)
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 16:44:45 +0000
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