Abbi Pulling headed to Donington Park last weekend for her second ever weekend in the Ginetta Junior championship.
After a positive first weekend in the championship where she took a best finish of ninth, she hoped for more of the same at Donington.
Qualifying was very wet and with only limited running in the wet previously, Pulling knew it’d be a tough session. Despite this she still managed a creditable fourteenth on the grid.
As she headed out on the green flag lap for race one, the car started playing up and it wouldn’t rev freely. “Almost like when a plug oils up on the kart” was how Pulling described it later. As the lights went out, the car still wasn’t working and this dropped Pulling to nineteenth before it suddenly cleared as she headed to Redgate. She could now have a race. Lots of rivals went off in the first few corners and Pulling made up several places before a spinning car made contact, causing slight damage and a run across the grass. This allowed the pack to get a way once more. The car was now very much less than perfect but Pulling kept fighting and a strong twelfth by the end was the reward. A great result in a damaged car which didn’t want to corner properly.
The car was better for race two and the track was now dry. It turned into a challenging race and she took twelfth once again on the final lap. The final race was on Sunday, it was totally dry by now but very cold. Feeling positive, Pulling got a great start and pulled off a great pass around the outside to gain lots of places and she joined the lead train of cars. Unfortunately it was a bit of a case of déjà vu from race two though when an incident caused her to lose ground and end up with a damaged car. It was now under steering quite heavily but pulling fought on and managed to eventually take tenth place, only one off her best result and a positive way to end her second weekend in the championship. She was pleased with the way the weekend ended;
“That’s a positive top ten result which could’ve easily been better but also easily much worse. Special thanks to Zack and Kenny [From TCR] for the panel repair work! Onwards, hopefully, to Thruxton for more high speed action! Thanks as always to our partners for helping us all the way, Alyssa Smith Jewellery, Banzai Events, Koden Helmets, FreeM Racewear, thermserve and of course everyone from TCR!” By Marc Waller
