I arrived at Croft Race Circuit Thursday evening after a refreshing 45 minute journey compared to the usual six hour journey to Brands Hatch for example!

I spent my Thursday evening cleaning and waxing my car with Swissvax UK Car Care. They are a main sponsor of mine and they were visiting for the weekend as it is my home track. I mentioned this to my race engineer and mechanic and they were constantly polishing the car all weekend trying to make a good first impression to the sponsor! A short meeting with the team Thursday evening ended with everyone feeling motivated to do well over the weekend.

Friday morning began with first practice. We were one and a bit seconds off the front car running in P11 – P13, but three tenths would have put us into the top six. The rest of Friday practice continued with constant changing of the setup and feedback each time I went out. This is what we should have done on a test day that other drivers attended and we didn’t know about.

Saturday morning came quickly and we had a practice session and qualifying in the afternoon. We eventually stuck to one setup and I learnt to deal with it and drive the car to the limit. Qualifying was our best session yet, although our positioning resulted in P9 & P10. However, this was a great result considering the pace I had been on all weekend! An early night was needed to gain maximum concentration for Sunday; also several of my sponsors and visitors were coming in the morning.

Sunday morning dawned and it was quite sunny, surprisingly. My family was arriving, and so were the sponsors, and the second the gates opened I was meeting people who I knew. I found this bizarre as two years ago I was at Croft watching and wishing to race around the circuit on the TOCA package but I just didn’t think I would make it. I have and it feels so surreal and amazing!

I got an amazing start in the first race, I felt like I had hit a button to activate jet planes on the rear! I made several places on the straight and then going into the first corner I travelled around the outside of Paddy McClughan without any damage, I was amazed (!), until I saw Niall Murray shoot across the chicane towards me and Seb Morris. Murray just missed Morris which meant that Murray hit my front right wheel which instantly knocked my tracking out. Fortunately I continued on but the loss of momentum through the chicane meant I lost some places going into Lodge. I then battled on through the race struggling around right hand corners. Jake Giddings and Struan Moore were battling towards the end of the race which lost them a huge amount of time, this put me right on their rear bumper. I had several opportunities to make a move but backed out because I didn’t want to ruin my ninth place I had fought so hard to get! On the last lap I had the perfect opening going into the complex, unfortunately Moore thought better of it and turned in, which didn’t go down well as I was on the wet line on the inside along with some mud, I instantly lost traction and the rear spat out… I caught it at first but because the Ginettas have a small amount of steering lock there just wasn’t enough turning to catch it. I did a 360 and carried on going but lost two or three places. I would have gone for eighth position but finished in 11^th.

In race two I got an amazing start again! I was fifth at the first corner from starting in P10. Onto lap two and Jake Giddings made a great lunge on me through Sunny In so I gave him room. An angry Seb Morris running in seventh in contrast to the usual 23 second lead tried following through and going through Sunny Out he leant on me pushing me wide and lost me five places. I accepted this and put my angry head on. I fought my way up to sixth again and had a great battle with Struan Moore for the position.

This is my best result yet in the Ginetta Junior Championship and myself and the team were very pleased with this. We now need to expand on our experience and knowledge we have learnt so far and glue it all together for the also new track, Snetterton 300.

I look forward to explaining my weekend from Snetterton 300 to you soon.

We are all getting there, slowly but surely.

Bye for now and thank you for your continued support everyone!

Myles Collins

Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey