I think I am now passed the stage where I judge a good day out with the car as being one where I haven't had to pull the fire extinguisher!

This weekend was the first round of Super Lap Scotland. This time last year I rolled the Skyline during the qualifying session. Luckily round 1 was clockwise direction and I have a bit of seat time before having to face going round the wrong way again!

Since round 1 of SMRC the car has been back at Wallace Performance getting some niggles sorted out - a new battery and alternator fitted, a rear diff brace made up to try to stop the diff from twisting and the fire damage cleaned up.

The trackday before the event went well, but my times just didn't seem to improve. I've lost count of the number of 61s laps I did, but never any better. There was also still a pretty horrid noise coming from the rear of the car when exiting the hairpin a couple of times. Hopefully nothing that would end the day early.

I left the track for the night feeling a little disheartened but determined that it would improve the next day. I set myself targets (as Adam always makes me do) of setting a 59s lap in the first session, and then improving by a second each session working my way down to a 56s lap - I thought that was a reasonable goal given the car is still running minimal boost.

Race morning arrived, after lots of data geeking from Adam and a rubbish night sleep, and it was bl**dy freezing at Knockhill! The warm up session went well and I really started to feel like I was getting to grips with the car. I've become so accustomed to driving the Skyline over 7 or 8 years that it wasn't until I started driving the Impreza as if it wasn't the Skyline that it started coming together. 59s lap in the bag!

Practice saw me hit my next target - a 58s lap. I had stuck with 2nd gear for the hairpin up until then to try to avoid the horrible noise, but knew that I really needed to get it into 3rd on my qualifying hot lap to get the times down.

The qualifying session consists of an outlap, 2 hot laps and an in lap, repeated up to three times. On my first session

I decided to put in a banker lap and stick with 2nd gear for the hairpin - 58s. I crossed the line on my second lap with a 57.3 - woooo! I went out for my second session to do exactly the same and finished with a 56.9 - even better! I decided to call an end to the qualifying after that - I'd gotten to where I wanted to be and wanted to make sure the car made it to the final.

The final is the time to pull it all together into one single flying lap, so the pressure is really on. I knew at the time that the lap wasn't going as great as it could be (I started braking way too early for Duffus - but once you start, that's it!) but I crossed the line with a 57 on my VBox, 57.3 official time. Not my quickest time of the day, but good enough to get me 1st in class and 5th overall, and my first trophy with the Impreza! :D

A really awesome, and exhausting, day!

Thanks to Adam and Stephen Darley, for their continual emails of encouragement and suggestions throughout the day! Thanks also to the guys at Wallace Performance for squeezing me in and getting the car ready to race at the weekend.

Thanks also to….

Lateral Performance
Zen Performance
K-Sport
BC Racing
Hardrace
Aim UK
Team Dynamics
Carbotech UK
Flat Out Photography