Lydia Walmsley bounces back in the JSCC at Croft

Track action Photo courtesy of GJR photography

Track action Photo courtesy of GJR photographyLydia Walmsley headed for North Yorkshire last weekend for the latest rounds of the Junior Saloon car championship (JSCC) at Croft.

After awful luck in the previous two rounds which saw her car badly damaged twice she was hoping for better fortune this time. Her roll last time out at Knockhill was one of the biggest the championship has ever seen and her family team were left with a huge amount of work which would have pushed even a BTCC team. Lydia had shown great courage in going back out in a spare car lent by organisers, not long after the big crash. This earned her the driver of the meeting award.

Despite the huge damage, the car was fixed in time although just an hour and a half before they had to leave to head to Croft. It was an incredible job and even more so when you learn that it was mostly down to two people, Lydia’s dad and family friend Dave Barber.

Understandably Lydia was a little nervous when she got in the car for testing after her two big impacts but her confidence grew throughout the day as her instructor Joe Tanner helped her build up her speed.

Onto the race weekend itself and qualifying, the session saw Lydia’s times improving with every lap although unfortunately the session ended early. Despite this, she had taken an excellent eighth on the grid for race one.

As the lights went out at the start of the first race, Lydia made a great start making up three places on the first corner. Unfortunately there was then a red flag due to a roll over, fortunately not Lydia this time!

On the restart she got a good get away again and was racing three abreast with her rivals at the end of the front straight. She battled and moved up and down (and up!) the order, eventually taking a strong confidence building seventh place.

Race two started in a similar way and Lydia again was battling up the order but she then found her car slowing, which dropped her to ninth. It turned out a faulty temperature sender had caused the engine to loose power but ninth was still a great finish under the circumstances.

Lydia was pleased with how her JSCC weekend had gone;

“ Despite my race two problem, I’m still incredibly happy with my results this weekend coming back from one of the biggest crashes I could ever imagine. I’m very happy that I didn’t see any sky this weekend! I’m really grateful to my amazing team for getting me back out there and building my confidence to achieving even better results next time out! I’m really excited for Pembrey and looking forward to what the weekend will bring.”

I was ecstatic to win driver of the meeting for Knockhill from Dave Beecroft for getting back in the vehicle after such a traumatic roll!”

The next rounds at Pembrey in Wales are on the 22nd and 23rd July. Lydia will be pushing to get her best results of the season.By Marc Waller

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