'The red Fiesta, again?'

I had to get up at 4:30 today to make it to Dave's for 6, we then took until 7 to load the track car onto the trailer and be off. When we arrived I was immediately struck by the caliber of cars present, rolling along on other trailers were some incredibly serious looking machines, covered in sponsors and manufacturers decals, and sitting in the car park waiting to go were a plethora of Porsches and Ferraris.
When we got out to unload the Fiesta we were first introduced to the cold, despite the diabolical weather up north we were blessed with absolutely flawless skies, yet the wind flew across the plains and hit with an absurdly biting cold that lasted relentlessly the entire day.
I'll take this opportunity to describe the Fiesta XR2i, on the exterior were a fair few decals with two of the four headlights removed and the others taped over, along with OZ racing wheels there was no mistaking this as a track car when you saw it. The interior was completely stripped and left only with two bucket seats and their racing harnesses, and a full roll cage which I found intensely reassuring. Tech wise all I knew they had done was fit a new induction kit and exhaust system, an intercooler and new springs.
After unloading the Fiesta we quickly found things were not well, the front left wheel was making a scraping noise once every rotation that needed immediate attention, after some investigation we found that the wheel was rubbing against the strut. We dashed into Bedford for a jack and wheel spacers as the convoy of cars (lead by an Evo VIII) headed towards the pits, after we bought the goods we headed back and fit them without incident, which was when we found problem number 2. A much louder and far more alarming scraping noise started from the rear left wheel, after taking it off we found that the wheel was scraping against the brake cable, a quick kicking in and we were good to roll.
And roll we did, very fast, and sometimes sideways. I went out first with Alex and was amazed at how good he is, his lines were mostly really good and I often found myself thinking that I would've taken them very differently when he nailed them. Going around a track is so much more intense than you imagine, you push it to the absolute limit on every corner and are always an inch from losing control and at best flying across the grass at 30mph, at worse flying into a tyre wall at over 100. It's like a roller coaster, only a million times better as a roller coaster is exactly the same thing every time and you're always completely and utterly safe, but on the track each time you take the same corners differently and are anything but safe.
As Dave demonstrated on his second lap, four corners from the pits he spun out doing between 60 and 70, we spun 360 degrees and the driver of the car behind saw the whites of our eyes before he had to go wide and bail onto the grass to avoid us. It was a close call, but we had a laugh about it with the people in the car behind once safely back in the pits. But that wasn't the last spin as after lunch I headed back out with Dave, I thought he was cutting the first chicane too much as he heavily mounted the rumble strips, and on the third lap he lost it over them and spun off to the side.
Back in the pits I had the opportunity to look at some of the other cars on display, I even got talking to an R32 owner who said he also owns an AE86 with the engine swapped out for an S200 lump. Most of the people were really cool, but there were some -like the Evo club and a couple of young hotshots- that thought the track belonged to them and kept undertaking people and acting like arrogant twats in the pits.
With an hour or so left of the day I headed out with Alex, a couple of laps in we approached the same corner that Dave first spun out on when I heard something quite heavy tinker away under the car, dismissing it as a part from someone else's car we turned into the next corner and completely lost it, it felt as if the front right tyre had burst, but when getting out and inspecting it we found the the spacer had sheared the bolts and completely removed the wheel. Quite ironic that the same item that allowed us to race was the item that would end our day. I got a lift back to the pits in one of the safety cars and got Dave to drive over with the trailer, and that was the end of our day.
Now back home, truly tired after a long day of excitement I am ready to hit the sack and clock out. That was my first racing event of the year, and it was absolutely brilliant.