Arriving at Donington Park and being restricted to using the gravelled Paddock 3 was far from ideal. The setup for World Superbikes this weekend was due to start around midday and the pits, garages, paddock 1 and paddock 2 were all out of bounds. After a frantic hour or so with the circuit management, we negotiated the use of the Melbourne Loop for parking for the trucks and trailers as a makeshift paddock and pit lane. We then set about making arrangements for the circuit access to ensure it was safe to run the track day from the loop. With advice from the BaT instructors, recticel barriers and cones were carefully positioned at the Esses and Goddards and sighting laps started on-time at 9am - seemed like a minor miracle at the time!





Thankfully the skies were clear and it was a nice mild Spring day - which meant the lack of facilities didn't cause as much of a problem as initially feared - with the atmosphere on the Melbourne Loop positively "garden party" at times.





As always at BaT, numbers were strictly limited and with just 50 cars in attendance all day, there was plenty of high-quality track time to be had throughout the day. Once again, an incident-free day with no damage sustained and just a couple of quick stoppages to recover stranded cars from the various gravel traps around Donington!








Autocar's Vicky Parrott at Donington Park in the Megane and Dan Skinner and his brother have a bit more luck this time in their 230bhp Westfield, which blew up last year at Rockingham!






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Jonny Leroux  ▶ Director 23 Mar 2011