Charlotte Birch and her team made the trip across to Snetterton in Norfolk last weekend for the latest rounds of the Junior Saloon car championship (JSCC).
As usual, the weekend began with testing and this time, Charlotte had three full sessions with her instructor, Adriano Medeiros. He helped her to re-familiarise herself with the track and throughout the three sessions, her lap times reduced considerably. This left her feeling happy and confident about the weekend ahead.
There was a further chance to learn and improve on Saturday with the free practice session and Charlotte did her best to improve still further to try and get the best position possible when she took part in qualifying.
The qualifying session took place at just after midday and Charlotte pushed for a good time. Things didn’t got quite as well as she hoped but she still managed to qualify in fourteenth for both races which was a solid result for her first meeting at the track. She hoped to progress in the races. Over to Charlotte to explain what happened next;
“I was feeling determined as I started race one, only to have it over in a flash! The driver in front of me had stalled on the line leaving me with nowhere to go on the tight Snetterton grid with cars behind me and to the side. I tried to squeeze through but my wheel had caught onto the stalled car . My car went up onto two wheels before crashing back down and that was my race over. The race was red flagged but my car was too damaged to continue.”
Charlotte was devastated that her entire weekend seemed to be over before she even had chance to complete a racing lap. But her dad and the rest of the team had other ideas. With the help of Jeff Nanetti (Father of one of Charlotte’s rivals) they worked through the evening to repair the car. A lot of work was needed as they replaced the Damaged suspension, the driveshaft and the gearbox. In an impressively short time, Charlotte’s car was back in working order ready for her to race on Sunday. Her weekend was back on!
Charlotte tried to clear her mind of the previous incident as she took to the grid for the race. She got a great start but there was nearly disaster at Riches, the first corner as some rivals collided. She took to the grass in avoidance and came out the other side unscathed. She fought through the rest of the race without further incident, passing more cars and eventually crossed the line in eleventh place, narrowly missing out on a top ten. Charlotte was happy with how things had gone in race two;
“I’d made a good start but then had to avoid the collision at the first bend by going wide onto the grass. Luckily I managed to get back on track without damaging the car. I’m really happy with the result and that I got to the end with the car in one piece. I think my dad was happy about that part too!”
Originally Charlotte was going to miss Knockhill but Charlotte is eager to get racing again after her successful race two come back here, the whole team have decided to make the trip up to Knockhill where hopefully Charlotte can have her best weekend of her short career so far.By Marc Waller
