So Saturday 29th April 2017 we rocked up at Birmingham Wheels, where Damian won the Triple Crown in 2007, a tremendous achievement that remains the highlight of his Legends career to date. The Legends formula has various venue specific trophies to compete for throughout the season, plus some overall points trophies based on performances at several events. The Triple Crown reflected Damian’s performance both on the night and for the season in 2007, very little hope he’ll reach those heights in 2017 having only just come back and having started all races so far at the back being a “rookie”.
This race was his first with a better grid placement, indeed he was somewhere just in front of centre in the “semi-pro” division, and had a good first heat finishing 4th. With results in the heats affecting the grid for the final things were looking good for a decent result. 2nd heat however and he got hit again, in fact same place as Northampton, rear left wing, which was almost torn off and he had to retire.
The wing was re-attached and quite a lot of duck-tape added to hold it together, and in the final Damian got off to a flying start, up to 3rd on the first few laps. But then he gradually lost places as the race continued coming home in a still respectable 7th but not yet “on the podium”.
A word about Birmingham Wheels, as I seem to be on a rant about the stadiums we race at. Wheels is a funny place, no sign on the road to say it’s there, or to point you towards the car park. The toilet block is probably the worst so far, there’s a small cafe, no proper seating, and the event was extremely poorly attended, with the majority probably being friends and family of the drivers. Perhaps Bangers not being on the agenda kept some fans away, but I can’t help feeling if Spedeworth spent some of the money they’d spent on Foxhall on their other stadiums it’d go some way to improving the experience all round.
Oh well, we’re at Foxhall next, on Saturday May 13th, the premier league stadium of Oval Track racing. See you there!
A single video of the race this time, both heats and final in one as the 2nd heat was a bit of a write-off:-