MotorsTV UK Official Blog

Hello again and welcome to my third blog for Motors TV. Two weeks after my last race at Rockingham near Corby I travelled to the Knockhill circuit in Fife, Scotland for rounds 7,8 & 9 of the 2009 MSA British Formula Ford Championship.

Qualifying didn’t go exactly to plan and it left me down in seventh on the grid. One tenth of a second separated the top seven though and it would remain this close all weekend. The nature of the track kept the grid so close and this meant for some very exciting racing. Qualifying was decided mainly by who got traffic and who didn’t. With twenty two cars on a fifty one second lap there wasn’t much space to find a rhythm and get the job done, my 4th or 5th lap was going to be my best and for sure it would have been pole but I caught my team mate in the top chicane and that was that. It was a great session for the Kevin Mills Racing Team with my team mates Alex Jones and Daniel Erickson third and fifth with Alex taking pole for race two, my second best lap was good enough for 5th which confirmed that I had underachieved a little in the session so I was a little disappointed.

Race One of the weekend took place Saturday afternoon in warm and sunny conditions. Starting from seventh I immediately dropped to eighth by the first corner, a classic Cammish start, but I was getting better. I battled hard for the next twenty minutes and found myself in third with two laps to go. I then managed to pass team mate Daniel Erickson with a mega overtake at the end of the pit straight with just lap to go and held on until the Flag. Second overall, the best finish of my three meeting-old single-seater career.

Race two came on Sunday morning in similar conditions to the first. I started from fifth and quickly made my way up to third behind Erickson. My KMR Spectrum chassis was working well around this Knockhill circuit and I was feeling confident of a win. Unfortunately my confidence was short lived. At turn three Erickson just clipped the tyres on the inside which were meant to stop people from cutting the corner. The tyres bounced into the air and landed on my right front steering arm bending it and making the car very difficult to drive. I dropped to sixth by the flag which was a good recovery but I struggled to see any positives as it could have been my first win.

Race three was on Sunday afternoon, a quick but torrential downpour had wet the circuit earlier but it was fully dry by the time we came to the track. I was starting fourth as I managed to post a quick lap time in race 2 before the car sustained damage. The times were so close with still only a couple of tenths between the top runners. I made a good start and held station in fourth. Carnage at the first corner ensued when front row starters Gary Findlay and Josef Newgarden locked wheels going into turns 1 and 2, I took to the gravel to avoid the spinning Findlay but recovered to 3rd on re-joining the tarmac. A few laps later I was absolutely amazed to see Findlay in my mirrors after I last saw him facing the wrong way and spinning into the middle of the pack. He passed me a lap later and I was demoted to fourth when I lost traction on gravel spread across the track at the hairpin. The race for me was fairly boring from here on, I managed to gap the chasing pack by a good few seconds but Findlay, Dan Erickson
and Chris Palmer had done the same to me. However I could see them beginning to squabble as the race drew closer to the end and I found myself right in the thick of the action as the last lap board came out. Down the back straight we went with the top three all driving down the inside of the track defending as best they could. At the last minute Findlay pulled left to take the racing line up the hill and I darted into the gap. I just about managed to stop the car on the apex but unfortunately was right in the blind spot of team mate Erickson. As he accelerated he drove over the front of my car and span into me causing damage to both cars, his was terminal. I recovered to take fourth but couldn’t hide my disappointment. Of all the people it had to be my team mate and I was gutted for Dan and the team.

So that was my weekend at Knockhill. With second, sixth and fourth place finishes I came away still third in the championship but having closed on leader James Cole and also gained lots of points on Josef so that was a bonus. I once again won all three scholarship races giving me nine wins from nine races.

My starts were slightly better than that of Rockingham but in truth it would have been difficult for them to be worse, but I’m learning. Now with six signatures on my license I can remove that novice cross from the rear of the car so another milestone reached, hopefully I can move to the top step of the podium at the next round at Snetterton. Also I have a trip to Germany coming up for some slicks and wings action but that’s for another blog.

Cheers

Dan Cammish

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under British Formula Ford. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.