Oulton Park - 26th Sept 2009

Qualifying

The Oulton Park event was held on a Saturday only, most race weekends for this championship are held over two days. As it was a one day event I would be racing twice on a single day. That was the full extent of my knowledge of what lay ahead. So I arrived at the circuit having little idea of what the day would entail...

I soon found out that tea is the most important thing! With a warm cuppa in hand (the first of many) I was briefed on what lay ahead. I would need to get signed-on for the race & go through scrutineering. There would be two qualifying sessions in the morning one for each race. The races would be at 2pm and 5pm.



Signing on and scrutineering have one thing in common, queuing. The signing on only takes a few minutes. They check the forms, licences and membership bumpf. You hand over you MSA licence upgrade card and give them a cheque for the race fees and you're done.

You have to hand in the MSA licence upgrade card so it can be signed at the end of each race. Once you have completed 6 races (without incident!) you get to remove the big yellow cross sticker that all newbies are required to display on the back of the car. This is to warn the other competitors that this car is driven by someone with little or no experience.

Scrutineering involved queuing up with all the others cars to go down to the scrutineers bay. Once you make it in, the officials check the car over and make sure it is safe to race. They also check all the tags and labels on the racewear and helmet to make sure they all comply to current regulations... as I had only bought them the day before I was sure they would be fine.

Once out of scrutineering nothing to do but to drive the car back to the paddock and have another cup of tea!

Qualifying will be fairly familiar to anyone who has done trackdays. You are allocated a time on track and your best lap time determines your grid slot for the races later in the day. I did alright in first qualifying, posting a time of 2m 9s which put me a respectable 4th in class for race 1. I managed a slightly quicker time in second qualifying and would line up 3rd in class.


So far so good; I was happy and the team seemed happy.
Nothing to do but have a cup of tea and wait for the race.