Its 5.30am and the alarm goes off,i drag myself from my nice warm bed to go and pick up robin then a short trip up the road to collect Chris c, the m23 and m25 are nice and clear so no hold ups while on the way to Vodaphones HQ at newbury. At just a little past 8am we arrive at Vodaphones HQ and not a minute too soon for Chris c!!!!.
Chris, robin and myself get settled in and find a clear pit table for the day, a short while later Malcolm turns in and the four of us are set for the day. Now my plan was to help robin and Malcolm with any dramas they may have with there cars during the days racing, so i settle myself in and find all the items that i might need for rapid car repairs. Following a call to make sure all the novice drivers are booked in i half jokingly ask Chris to go and book me in only to be told 10 minutes later to go and talk to Kev gray as he would like a word with me! £20 lighter and with not much time to spare i am frantically trying to sort out my 3 year old falcon 4 powered demon chassis, i get myself in a muddle with my tyres so end up putting the old ones back on again just minutes before my first practice session. After the first rather slippery! practice session i can see that i am not completely outclassed with my car, a few more practice sessions pass and i start to remember how to drive the Nat's track and feel the nerves starting to settle a little more.
The qualifying format is 4 segmented runs followed by by a receding then the next 4 segmented runs. after the first 4 runs i am in the top 10 overall but i have a real problem with the car as it is starting to slow very rapidly.Then in steps one of the many hero's of the day for me Ian b, he rather stupidly tells me that i should put a falcon 7 in for the next round of qualifying, so after all of 2 seconds though i ask him if he thinks he would have time to do it for me, thankfully he says yes and before you know it another of my days hero's, Chris c, is of and procuring me a falcon 7 from Chas. I am off marshaling the next set of heats while Ian wrestles,as its soldered in in about 5 places!!!, the falcon 4 from my demon chassis to replace it with my shiny new falcon 7. Ian has the new motor in place after what seems no time at all and following chas's advice the motor is oiled and run in for as long as possible before the the next round of qualifying.
New tyres are fitted, new braids courtesy of Malcolm are fitted and of i go again for my next 4 qualifying runs, this time i struggle to drive the car with its new found urgency from the falcon 7, on the last run disaster strikes, i get the same corner wrong for about the 20th time and fall into the next lane just as that driver enters the main straight! my car takes off flat out, it then clatters full chat of the barrier and ends up, still traveling at abated speed, the wrong way up the main straight, thankfully its not collected by anything other than a marshall. But its soon apparent that all is not well. I turns out that my 2 piece cranked axle set up has parted company with the solder that was holding it there, time for rapid rebuild number 2 of the day.
Robin runs off to buy me some mickey mouse front wheels, i think Chris 'borrows' a length of piano wire from somebody and Ian finds somebody to cut it down to size, during this the organisers are asking people to choose there starting lanes so i ask Chris to go and choose for me to give me time to finish the repairs/preparations to my car.
So after all that there i am in the Nat's novice final along with fellow roedale team mate Malcolm, unfortunately robins driving miss daisy impression was not good enough to get him into the final, not too sure what happened next as it all whizzed by in a bit of a blur. I do remember that Chris managed to put the wrong sticker on my car during one lane change and then on the next one managed to put it on the track facing the wrong way!! but both times the mistake was spotted and solved. I ran as high as second at one stage but as the final progressed i settled mid pack and ended up finishing 5 overall with Malcolm finishing in 8th.
It only took me twenty years of slot racing to get to the nationals but i am sure i will be there for saloon next year, and i would like to say a very big thanks to everybody that helped me out.
One last thing, ask Chris about the photo of robin!!!!