On the Friday before Amy Barker’s most recent race weekend she would be forgiven for thinking it was going to be a disaster.
The Friday test day had about everything go wrong that could go wrong, various car failures, a small collision and unexpected rain showers. If the rest of the weekend went the same way things wouldn’t be good.
Qualifying day on Saturday was bright, hot and dry however and with qualifying not until after lunch there was plenty of time to make sure the car was perfect. Amy races in the BARC Max 5 championship for Mazda Mx-5’s. This differs from other Mazda championships in that the Mk1 and Mk3 Mx5’s all race together. The faster Mk3’s are class A and the Mk1’s including Amy’s Yellow machine race in class B.
Amy took the first few laps carefully to warm the tyres up and to check that the car was back to full health. At this point she was lying second in class. Then for the rest of the session she went for it. By the end Amy had class pole by nearly three tenths of a second from her nearest rival and she was even ahead of several of the much faster class A cars in an amazing tenth place overall.
As the weekend’s two races weren’t until Sunday there was now plenty of time to make sure the car was perfect for race day with the first race getting underway at 10am on Sunday morning. Sunday was overcast and much cooler but it didn’t slow Amy down. After making a good start she gradually pulled away from her class B rivals while racing with one of the class A cars. She pulled out a lead of nearly five seconds when a class A car went off and caused the safety car to be scrambled.
This was the last thing Amy needed as her big lead was reduced to nothing. Amy had things under control though and as the race restarted she easily stayed ahead of Adam Bessell and Robert Chilcot in second and third. There wasn’t enough time to pull out a new gap but she crossed the line in eleventh to win class B.
By race two the weather had heated up considerably and so it seems had the opposition. She found Sebastian Fisher and Adam Bessell trying to take her class B lead on the first lap and even received a small tap as the pack all fought for position. But within a few laps, Amy again managed to pull away and ended up having a relatively straight forward race to win again by over 5 seconds from Fisher and Bessell. After her nightmare test day the rest of the weekend couldn’t have gone better;
“A Super weekend racing, two poles, two wins and a fastest lap. I Never thought that would happen on Friday, so thanks to Keith [Amy’s other half] for fixing my car on Friday. Overall I’m a very happy girl!”
Amy’s next races are at Oulton Park in the middle of August. By Marc Waller
