Finally the 2016 race season has begun for Andover’s Girl Racer Dawn Boyd. She was on track with her Finsport prepared Honda Civic Type R at Rockingham near Corby in Northamptonshire last weekend.
Dawn races in the CTCRC (The Classic Touring Car Racing Club) in the ‘YourITMan Pre03 Championship’. The Pre03 caters for cars produced before 2003, with up to 2000cc engines, split into 4 classes. Class A have sequential gearboxes and slick tyres, Class B are non-sequential with slicks, Class C non-sequential with treaded tyres, and Class X are by invitation. Dawn races in Class C.
The Rockingham season opener was part of the Pick Up Trucks programme, who raced on the full oval, the CTCRC races used the International circuit comprising of Turn 1 on the oval banking plus the inside circuit, the same as BTCC.
The Pre03’s (who are merged on grid with Bilstein Classic VW Championship) were first out on a wet track for qualifying, but it was so slippery the grid order was a bit of a lottery. By the end of the ‘drifting demonstration’ Dawn found herself 11th overall.
Race one began on the Saturday afternoon with a very eventful first lap, as several cars slid wide at the hairpin, but happily the CTCRC racers’ attitude is to ‘avoid’ and not ‘smash’ and everyone recovered off the grass okay. Unfortunately this meant the cars were now a bit spread out, but she set off to catch up with the rest of the pack. This season the Finsport team are testing a new tyre compound, and Dawn reported they held up well, and speeds of 120mph through the banked turn one certainly focused the mind! By the chequered flag Dawn had recovered to finish 3rd in class and 8th overall.
Race two was the last inner-circuit race of the day. With a reasonable start Dawn was with the pack and this time there was no problem at the hairpin. As the race progressed a chain of Civics ran together for lap after lap, three of them on slicks plus Dawn running on treaded tyres. Having the slicks on a dryer track gradually gave them the advantage and they began to pull away, but Dawn battled on for several laps of close racing, exchanging places and giving each other space for an epic battle without contact. It was a great race which resulted in another 3rd in class for Dawn and 8th overall.
On the Sunday Dawn took part in an additional race just for fun, a non-championship event with a mixture of cars, she joined the Pre’95 and Pre’05 group. Dawn started at the back of the grid of 23 cars. She thoroughly enjoyed showing off the Finsport power and cleanly made her way through the pack to finish 8th!
There’s 6 more rounds in the CTCRC, the next being Cadwell Park in May, with Donington Live on Motors TV, Brands Hatch, Snetterton and Silverstone, plus Dawn’s home track of Thruxton to look forward to, it’s full steam ahead for Team Finsport.
Dawn would like to thank Jay and all of the Finsport family for a great start to the year. Dawn is currently searching for a sponsor to support her and the growing team, for more information about Dawn’s racing or to get involved through sponsorship please see dawnontrack.co.uk and finsport.co.uk.
