07.Jun.2010 SPA Sensation!

SPA is one of those legendary tracks that you just have to visit, then drive.
It looks like a ski resort as it disappears up into the hills and television just doesn’t tell the story of how steep some of the slopes are.
Famous names like Eau Rouge, Blanchimont, Les Combes and the Bus Stop conjure up great motor racing memories of the past.
But my prestigecarleasing.co.uk team-mate Ben Harvey and I were here hoping to create our own memories.
And we did. Because we continued the steep learning curve we are on. We battled our way to second place in the GT4 class.
There were trials and tribulations. But we expect that. The weekend started on a high when British GT bosses revoked the decision to give us extra ballast.
It meant we could race with the Ginettas.
But then we got a 40-second time penalty on each pitstop because we only have one wheel nut per wheel whereas the Ginettas have five so we can get our wheels off more quickly.
We reckoned the fact that each pitstop had to be 70 seconds would have balanaced that out – but the series chiefs make the decisions. It was just another challenge for us to conquer.
And we gave it a hell of a go. Ben took the first stint and produced a solid performance without managing to rein in Christian Dick and Jamie Stanley.
Then I jumped in for an 80-minute stint. That’s the longest I have been in a race car, but it was probably the most exciting race I’ve had in a few seasons.
I really had a good time. There were a couple of safety cars and about 80 cars out there because were alongside the Belgian Gt series ( Belcar).
That meant having one eye on your mirrors and one eye on the road in front.
It was great getting all the information from the team on the radio and then trying to work out how we were going to pull off a miraculous win. Strategy played a big part over the 2.5 hour race and I have learned from the experience.
It wasn’t to be, and without that penalty we would certainly have given them a better run for their money.
While that was disappointing, I was so pleased to get the chance to race at Spa.

But I do have one major complaint about Spa. Someone has to do something about the walk to the car park. It is like climbing a mountain. Goats would struggle to get up there.
I wanted one of those motorised scooters. Or maybe a Stannah stairlift would be the answer.