Atom Cup - Silverstone National - Sat Sep 8th

[John Scherrer]

Bright sunny day but quite breezy and cool.

Arrived in time to watch qualifying at 09:00 and it was good to see Adrian (Kezzie) and Adam (Michies) in their similar white Atoms and Gav and Ursh.

Sadly Gav's car is recovering with some 'minor' damage after an arguement with an alsation.

Lots of time to chat as the excellent races were spread well apart across the day.

Nick Whitehead won the 1st race, Andy Smith the second - Apart from a couple of spins, I think the cars survived the day with no damage.

Nick Whitehead had some fan club supporters by the bucket load including some cute children (hope you can still say that) armed with "I'm Nick's No1 Fan club" T-shirts and banners !

Georgie interviewed one with Nick for Motors TV - Hope it makes the program for his sake !

Here's a couple of phone camera pictures - Adrian took a couple of hundred - or was it thousand? - He's getting used to a new camera and it was taking 10 shots at a time in burst mode. Hopefully he'll post some action shots ...

Adrian's Car

[John Scherrer]

Adam's car - They must favour white in the Bristol area

[John Scherrer]

Motors TV Interview

[John Scherrer]

and ..

[John Scherrer]

Saw this whilst walking to the track and had to take a picture. The guy was fixing something in the rear seat area and presumably the boot lid had closed whilst he was working !

[Mattv6]

Glad to see Nicks doing well still.

[Kezzie]

Here's some pictures from the day

Qualifying - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201726272859530.1073741840.1261835835&type=1&l=26acd0c664
Race 1 - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201727117360642.1073741842.1261835835&type=1&l=32670b20b3
Race 2 - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201727529450944.1073741843.1261835835&type=1&l=c721f3d92c

In response to John's comments earlier I did indeed take quite a few pictures (1428 in total). 12fps results in a 16GB memory card only lasted for 10 minutes of a 20 minute race

Adrian

[Richard Marler]

While on the day I was very frustrated with the results, in many ways this was my most competitive weekend yet. I only carded a 5th and 4th, but in both races I actually put up a serious fight. My blocking and overtaking has got a lot better, but I am still weak with someone close behind.

In the second race, where I held every position between first and fifth, I was driving pretty well in third for a big part of the race, until I saw Nick had brilliantly recovered from his spin and broken free of the pack behind. As soon as I saw that I started making little mistakes and over driving which really doesn't work in the Cup car.

At the end of the race I was dicing with James Tucker and while James took third, pushing off my much wanted podium, I did capitulate as in previous races, but fought hard and it was close and fair.

Long story short, I was really frustrated not to come away with a cap, but really pleased to have got my mo jo and fight back. The adrenaline rush is only just leaving my body now.

[Paul Donkin]

[quote="Richard Marler"]
While on the day I was very frustrated with the results, in many ways this was my most competitive weekend yet. I only carded a 5th and 4th, but in both races I actually put up a serious fight. My blocking and overtaking has got a lot better, but I am still weak with someone close behind.

In the second race, where I held every position between first and fifth, I was driving pretty well in third for a big part of the race, until I saw Nick had brilliantly recovered from his spin and broken free of the pack behind. As soon as I saw that I started making little mistakes and over driving which really doesn't work in the Cup car.

At the end of the race I was dicing with James Tucker and while James took third, pushing off my much wanted podium, I did capitulate as in previous races, but fought hard and it was close and fair.

Long story short, I was really frustrated not to come away with a cap, but really pleased to have got my mo jo and fight back. The adrenaline rush is only just leaving my body now.
[/quote]

Good for you mate, as I & many of the other driver have said, you drove very well but having had similar results, I also appreciate how frustrated you were.

Onto the next one...