Race report: Joe Dalgarno at Donington

Motul-backed Joe Dalgarno gives us a report on rounds 7 and 8 of the MG Trophy Championship at Donington Park on 17th and 18th July:

I turned up to the track Thursday evening ready for Friday practice. The forecast was for lovely warm weather and over the weekend there was hardly a cloud in sight.

Friday morning comes around and I head out for first practise, however the car felt down on power so at the end of the session my dad and I checked the engine over. We deduced that the timing was a tooth out, so we set to work fixing it but were unable to get it timed correctly. Several people came over to have a look and were as puzzled as us, in the end someone gave it a go and went to start it and it sounded like a bag of bolts! We then whipped the cylinder head of and found out that the timing was even worse than before and that all of the exhaust valves were bent and two valve heads had broken off and to top it all off it had cracked one of the cylinder liners which meant I was now in need of a new engine! My dad and I went round the paddock asking if anyone had a spare engine but neither of us had any luck, until another driver phoned Steve McDermid (another MG driver from another series) who was willing to assemble an engine in the afternoon, deliver it and help fit it. So my dad and I spent the afternoon taking the knackered engine out the car and preparing for the new engine which arrived at 21:30 in the evening, our work was cut out and was working late into the night. An early start in the morning saw us back at the track working at 5:30 but after a lot of hard work we got the car back in one piece just 10 minutes before qualifying.

Qualifying was used to run the engine in and make sure everything was working as it should, I wasn’t bothered about the pace or where I came I just needed to make sure the car was ok. For race 1 I would line up 10^th in class and race 2 I would line up 9^th in class.

I got a great start in race 1, immediately gaining 3 positions but unfortunately lost them all avoiding a collision that happened in front of me  at the first corner. I quickly got myself up into 8^th place and had a good battle with Jack Chapman which lasted several laps, but before I was able to complete a pass the red flag came out at the half way through the race and at that point the organisers decided not to restart the race which was a shame since I knew I could make more places up.

Race 2 was frustrating, I got a good start that put me from p10 to p8 but after that I wasn’t able to get past Patrick Booth and each time I got close a 190 came through and split us.

Overall a disastrous weekend, however I am happy with the results that I got due to the circumstances I was in. Next and last stop of my 2021 campaign is Snetterton on the 11^th of September.

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