BATTLING Christie Doran showed all her fighting spirit as she bounced back from a horror 125mph smash at Rockingham by grabbing two hard-fought fourth places at Snetterton.
Christie’s Slidesports Race Engineering team had produced a miraculous effort to get the car back on the grid after she hit the concrete wall in the first round of the VAG Trophy.
The team were working every hour ahead of the race weekend carrying out the repairs before heading to the Norfolk circuit.
Then Christie had to rebuild her confidence before tackling the two races. She said: “It was touch and go. The team did an amazing job to get the car in terrific shape in such a short space of time.
“Just about everything that could be broken was broken so they had a massive job and I am so grateful to them.
“They were confident it would be quick and they were right. I was a little tentative to start off with, but I built things up over the test day.”
She then had to cope with temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius in the car as Norfolk sweltered in the sun. Christie added: “It was tough but all the fitness work I have done was paying off. Qualifying went OK. I was reasonably happy to be third in Class B but I knew I could find more time – and needed to find it.”
Christie spent most of the first race swapping places with last year’s title rival Barrie Culley as the two diced at speeds of up to 140mph, but eventually the battle was decided when she made a small mistake going into the Agostini hairpin and had to settle for fourth place in class and 14th overall.
She said: “It was a brilliant race. There was never more than a couple of seconds between us. There was one move when I caught him just going on to the long Bentley straight and we were side by side all that way through the Nelson chicane and the Bombhole and we never touched at all.
“I was locking up the back wheels under braking so we made a few set-up changes for race two. I could feel my confidence getting better and my little Golf was just amazing.”
The second race saw battle resume with Culley but this time Christie was ahead and trying to keep a gap. She managed it until the final lap when she ran wide and touched the grass. Culley stormed through the gap, but Christie was back on his tail and finished just two tenths of a second behind him – racking up more points for fourth place.
She added: “It was another good race but I was gutted not to get the podium place. That would have been a great reward for the team. However, there are positives. I got the crash out of my system, I proved there was no hangover from that and I was really pushing.
“I also got points on the board. Now we have a short break but we will back fighting at Brands Hatch.”
Christie is backed by Advance Construction Scotland, Complete Cleaning Scotland, Tunnock’s, Apex Tubulars, Macdonald Inchyra Hotel and Spa, The Sign Shop, Stove Doctor, The Scottish Sun and Draper Tools.. By Christie Doran
