The Junior Saloon car Scholarship winner, Emily Glanvill had her second meeting of the season at Pembrey in Wales recently.
The pre-race weekend testing was held in wet weather and Emily found she enjoyed the wet conditions, showing some encouraging pace and so she hoped that the rest of the weekend might be wet.
Sadly for Emily, when it came to Saturday, the weather and track conditions were now dry. Emily used the first practice session to try and convert what had been a great wet set up into one that would be quick in the dry. Things seemed to be going well as she was on target for sixteenth in qualifying or potentially even twelfth if she could find a further half a second so her target was a minimum of sixteenth.
However when qualifying started, Emily’s car had developed a fault with a load sensor in the braking system, making it nearly impossible for her not to lock the rear brakes. Emily was finding it tough to make it round the tight hairpin on the circuit but adjusted her driving braking earlier and lighter to keep the car under control. She had a couple of spins while she was adjusting to suit but the session at least taught her a lot on how to drive round mechanical problems. Sadly the issues meant Emily missed her target of sixteenth on the grid, ending up eighteenth. Emily was gutted despite the lower starting position being something that was mostly out of her control.
Andy, her mechanic, identified the issue and fixed it in time for the race and Emily was determined to make up the lost ground from the issue. She made quite a good start making up several places as the cars raced away from the line although she then had to avoid a rival who had run wide, costing her time and some of her newly gained places. She then had a great battle with George Smith in car 64 racing door to door all around the circuit with Emily eventually coming out on top. The safety car was then scrambled due to an incident further down the field. Emily’s restart didn’t go as well as she hoped and Smith managed to get the run on her down the start finish straight and repassed into the first corner. She tried to out brake him into the hairpin but a lock up meant she ran wide as she passed him meaning not only did Smith repass but she dropped a further position down to fifteenth. This was still an improvement on her Oulton Park results and there was still Sunday’s race to get an even better result.
Disaster struck on the start of race two when she stalled at the lights. She immediately restarted the car and set about chasing down the pack. Fortunately for Emily, the safety car came out due to an incident further ahead meaning she could catch up. The race was then red flagged and it was announced it would restart from Scratch giving Emily a second chance at the race start.
She didn’t make a great get away but at least she didn’t stall this time. Sadly it soon became clear that her car was once again not at its best and Emily was struggling to maintain her earlier lap times. Despite this she managed to finish fourteenth, one place higher than race one. Emily and the team will now work together to solve the issues with the car so they can hopefully have a car at full performance at Snetterton for the next rounds.
Emily was understandably disappointed but remains positive;
“Overall a slightly frustrating weekend for me, even though our results appear on paper to show good improvements from Round 1. However, I did learn a lot about how the car should and shouldn’t feel and about minimising the impact of disappointment and on my race weekend, so there were definitely positives to take away. Off the track, I really enjoyed the hot sunny weather and the crowds this brought to Pembrey. I was interviewed live on Heart radio on Friday and spoke to some lovely spectators on Saturday whose young children loved getting their photos taken in my racecar! We also had my Facebook competition winner’s graphics on the car, so thanks to Junction1 Graphics for the quick turnaround on that.”
The next rounds are at Snetterton on the 7th and 8th of May. By Marc Waller
