Since my last race / win in May at the Lelystad track (2 hour endurance with Guillermo van Pamelen) I didn’t practise, not race at all.
So any activity was 4 months ago.
I decided to compete at the Dutch Championships race at the Eefde track, where I reached the A final last year.
I arrived at the track at 8.45 and everybody was there already, I managed to buy 1 practise heat in the last possible heat of the morning, at 9.30.
Guess what.. I was almost the slowest in the heat… that was not funny, and confrontating.
My group was group 5 and I had to start in the 3rd race of the day, so time enough to watch the others and kick my own butt.
My first quali was amazing! 4th time out of 18 drivers and I managed to finished 5th, where I could have finished 3rd, but the race was way shorter than I expected to my ‘late attack strategy’ didn’t work.
A very good result and I felt amazing.
Race 2 was almost as good as…. I qualified 6th, and finisned at that spot.
We had to do 4 qualification heats to qualify for the 3 seperate finals : A,B,C (A are the best 15)
Than..race 3… my worst. Qualifying was acceptable, 8 th place but I finished 11th due to a kart without any power.
It made me doubt if I was becoming tired after driving 3 heats.
My last qualy heat was the best of the day… I qualified 5th and finished 3rd, being the fastest driver in the heat, and if I had a few laps more, I could have catched the leaders!
Amazing result!
So..waiting for the final ranking and watching F1 qualy in between.
Finally! I finished 15th in the daily ranking, which meant I could start in the A final within the big boys (read average 35 years younger than me!)
And.. winner of the masters (35+)
Unfortunately I only managed to grab 1 position after a heavy fight in which I was pushed of the track and unable to climb the ranking after that, because my engine sort of gave up.
Anyway.. I’m very happy with this unexpected top result!
