(Image: Purple M Photo)
A strong weekend in North Yorkshire saw Emily go into the summer break feeling as though she had a better handle on the car and the knowledge she can mix it with cars further up the packed Junior Saloon Car Championship grid.
On her visit to Croft Circuit, Emily finished a brilliant 15th in Saturday morning’s free practice session. Without an instructor this weekend, Danny Buxton very kindly talked through Emily’s on-board footage and pass on his knowledge of the fast and flowing circuit.
That really paid off as a busy quali session saw a 13th and 12th place start for races one and two respectively – Emily’s best qualifying results of the season so far, as she keeps on getting a handle on the performance of the Citroen Saxo.
Going into race one it was a great new challenge to be racing with drivers Emily hadn’t competed with before. However, a less than super start saw her drop behind a couple of people and lose a wing mirror at the first corner which made defending harder but it was a great learning experience.
The eventual result was 16th on track but a five second penalty for track limits – given to 14 other cars as well – dropped her back a place by only 0.1s!
Race two saw a much better start and come the first corner – Clervaux – the Teenage Cancer Trust sponsored scholarship car was running within the top 10 but unfortunately a bit of Saxo bumper cars going towards Hawthorn saw the tracking damaged and a number of body panels looking like they’d just done ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
From there, a good scrap broke out with Drydal but the damage to the tracking caught Emily out at Sunny In and she ran onto the grass. By the time she recovered she was lying dead last. However, the Midlothian racer is not one to take things lying down and some quick laps - combined with a few daring overtakes round the outside – saw a 16th place finish.
Now the summer break has begun and the wait begins until Emily’s next race – the home round at Knockhill on September 10&11!