Quite simply amazing. A result above and beyond my wildest expectations. As you know, I always just wanted this meeting out of the way. If you'd offered me a fifth place finish without racing, I'd have had your hand off.

On the Friday, the morning was wet. I was not getting on well, finding the gearbox to be very harsh on the downshifts which adversely affected the handling. There was also the problem that it had two fourth gears and no third. Glad I didn't build it! By the afternoon the track dried and we fitted a rather useful third gear. Still by the end of the day, I'd only managed to get down around mid 1m 19s whereas Ben Jacko had reportedly stuck in a 1m 16. Clearly lots of work to do.

And so to qualifying. Now pay attention. There are rule changes in the UK cup this year. Basically teams witha "professional" driver are penalised. My co-driver Rob Wheldon is viewed as a pro whereas I'm an "amateur" (or as someone amusingly put it last year, one of the "numpties"). The penalty for having a "pro" in the pairing is three-fold:
1. The "pro"s qualifying times are disregarded (although they have to do at least three laps)
2. At the driver-change pit stop, we get have to wait additional 20 seconds.
3. The "pro" can do no more than 55% of the race distance.
So you can see, the grid for the race is based upon ONLY the "amateur" drivers' lap times. So where, you may well ask, did we qualify? Where did I, lowly, scumbag, rubbish numpty qualify? Yeah. That's right. You guessed it (looks for large font tags);

POLE
Can you believe that? No. Me neither. I set the fastest qualifying (23MB) time of the "amateur" drivers with a 1m 16.5s lap. I have to write that down again because it's just unimaginable: I set the fastest qualifying time of the "amateur" drivers with a 1m 16.5s lap. There. That feels better.

Rob on the formation lap

Can you believe that? No. Me neither. I set the fastest qualifying time of the "amateur" drivers with a 1m 16.5s lap. I have to write that down again because it's just unimaginable: I set the fastest qualifying time of the "amateur" drivers with a 1m 16.5s lap.

There. That feels better.And so to the race. It's a 75 minute race and we decided that Rob was to do the first stint. I tend to go first because we're usually not on pole(!) and I am quite good at picking places up at the start. In this instance though, it was important for Rob to get us a good lead, taking advantage of our grid position and minimising the 20 second additional pit time penalty we incur by having a "pro" driver in the pairing. And so he did. Until the Safety Car came out on the second lap. And it was out for a while. Worse still, it was out again after he built another lead. Now we're in trouble.

Passing Andy Wallace in the SR8

Taking a lead from one of our competitors, we pitted during this second Safety Car period and managed to change drivers, add more fuel and take the 20 second penalty before the Safety Car came back around. Excellent work by Sally and Matt (Matilda?).

Early driver change/fuel stop

Matty looking threatening in his fuelstop kit (Pic: Ben Magee)

I tore around the track and got to the very back of the train behind the Safety Car before it pulled in. Racing restarted and I set about picking up some places. I had a good dice with either Roger Green or Andy Wallace where my skills were quite breathtaking (16MB) . And then the Safety Car was again deployed. By the time it again pulled off, others had pitted and I was now in outright first place. Behind me was the "pro" driver Ross Kaiser but he was a lap down. Behind him was Derek Johnston who was in outright second place.

Still in the lead, Johnston behind

By this time my gearbox was misbehaving and I almost put the car in the gravel (14MB) when it failed to engage second gear. This enabled Ross to pass but I wasn't really worried as I'd held him off without too much drama; there was no way Derek would even reach, let alone pass me. Unfortunately I spoke too soon. After a couple more laps, braking hard into the first hairpin, Derek was in my mind far enough back that I didn't need to protect the inside line. He thought otherwise (11MB) . A bit of a rash late brake on his part (I'd have done exactly the same) took him up my inside and I had to go wide to avoid a collision. Don't get me wrong, I have no complaints. He took the lead and that was that.

A couple of laps on, someone dumped a load of oil on the second hairpin and the race was red-flagged. It gave me second overall. Well done Degsy, but it won't happen again! Well, it might. Heres the official Radical race report .
As I've written elsewhere on this site, I was just looking to get Rockingham out of the way. To walk away from it with a pole position, Robbie having taken the fastest lap (33MB) (and with it the outright lap record) and our finishing second is beyond my wildest dreams. In fact there are two words that sum it up: Good grief.
Next up racewise is the Euro/UK round at Spa Francorchamps on
9/10th May . On the 29th April a new group called the Radical Owners' Club are holding their inaugural event on the Silverstone GP circuit. I shall be there in the SR8.