ROOKIE RACER 2 0 2 0
Race 3: Back with a bang
For Phil Hallam, this year’s rookie racer, the final part of his trilogy would see him take on Lydden Hill. After the harsh reality of Croft, it was important for him to get better results to keep his confidence up. Qualifying wasn’t going to be easy and with cold, damp and mainly wet conditions there was no chance of getting any real temperature into the tyres. Getting to grips with the uncharted territory of the track, Phil’s qualifying time was not that spectacular at 1.27mins, leaving a lot of room for improvement. With a total of eight races in which to do so surely the times would come tumbling down, and they did just that. From race one everything got better and better as he began to understand the characteristics of the track. By the last race of the weekend he recorded a best lap time of 1.02mins, knocking almost half a minute off his qualifying time.
Not only did he get some better finishing positions but was also starting to overtake fellow competitors along the way. This was just the confidence boost he needed and showed an improvement in each race. There was even time to get slightly over-ambitious in race six, taking a nice excursion into a gravel trap as he tried to avoid running into fellow competitors who he was attempting to pass. Thankfully, Phil and the scooter made it back out on to the track unscathed.
Speaking to him after the weekend events it was clear to see how much this has cemented his belief that going racing was the right thing to do and recommends it to anyone out there thinking of venturing into the sport. He also thanked Chalky and the team at Replay for all their hard work in getting his scooter prepped.