Nigel teamed up and raced as the second driver with Martin in rounds 7 & 8 of the Radical season.

And the duo managed team Busman's Holiday's best results of the season.

See how Nigel coped with the change to sports cars, returned to the podium and relished being a team mate of an ex Formula one driver. 

The Drivers Report
 

Having Martin Donnelly as your Formula Ford team boss is one thing, but to get an opportunity to share a race drive with him was an opportunity to dream for and one which I thoroughly enjoyed.

It was an honour and a privilege to share a drive with him and not many people can say that they have raced an Enduro race sharing the drive with an ex-formula one driver!

We drove a Radical SR3 for Team Busman's holiday in the 7th and 8th round of the Enduro Championship and scored the team best results of the season.

I learnt so much over the weekend partnering with Martin and totally enjoyed my first experience of sports car racing and endurance racing (each race being over 100km in length).

To the surprise of everyone I was as quick as Martin.

Qualifying

Learn quick was the order of the weekend as I only tested the car for the first time on Thursday and went straight into qualifying and the races on Saturday and Sunday.

And in testing we were both running well and were confident heading into qualifying. The confidence was well placed and we both managed times that put us 4th on the grid out of 27 cars. I managed a time of 57.5 seconds and Martin beat me by a whisker with a time of 57.45.

Martin said after qualifying that I would have gone quicker in his opinion had I not got tangled in traffic towards the end of the session.
 

We had decided on our tactics before the start of the race, and the team and both of us were very optimistic. Martin would drive the first 20 laps and then hand over to me on lap 21 for the remainder of the race, leaving me with 17 laps. We decided that this would be the best tactic, because in the Radical Enduro Championship the race starts are rolling, a start which I had never done before.

As soon as it became apparent we could not start the car the team thought on their feet and pushed started me. We wasted over 20 seconds getting the car restarted and exited the pits down in 15 position.

I knew I was quick and my tactic now was maximum attack. I must admit it, that I then got involved in some of the best racing of my career and racing which brought a massive smile to my face after the race.

I battled hard, and caught and past a car on nearly every lap, and by the end of 100km had made it back up to 5th overall, 3rd in class and only 18 seconds behind the winner. I had caught the forth place car and could find no way past and we finished with less than 0.2 of a second between us.

A result which achieved us 3rd in class, a podium finish and which equalled Team Busman's Holiday's best result of the season.

All in all we were very happy with the race even though we were very unlucky in the pits. So on Sunday we would start in 5th and do it all over again, I could not wait.

Again, our tactics were the same for race 2 with Martin driving the first stint. This time we diced Martin would pit slightly earlier, on about lap 18 of 38.

Again, Martin showed his class and by lap 2 was up to 2nd position. Martin then battled for second and the 3rd placed car regularly swapped positions with Martin for the first 10 laps.

By lap 18 Martin had secured second place and Derbyshire was in 1st with about a 2 second lead.

Martin came into the pit, again the driver change was smooth and this time the car fired on the first attempt. Our driver change took about 25 seconds, which is very good, however some crews had got the change down to a fine art and were changing in about 15 seconds. However, as this was our second driver change as a team we did well.

I came out of the pits in 12th place, we were one of the first crews to pit, so there was a lot of cars ahead that had not pitted. Again I went on maximum attack. Once all of the pit stops had taken place I found myself in 6th place by about lap 28. We had dropped 4 places in the pits.

Again what followed was racing which I really enjoyed, and by lap 35 I had made it to second, overtaking Derbyshire who was winning when we pitted.

I was cutting the lead on every lap and by the end of the 100km's there was only 4 seconds between us and the leading pair Dudfield and Riddiford (a lead which was at one point over 10 seconds).

Dudfield and Riddford's consistent driving and lightening driver change had secured them their second win of the weekend. Martin and myself had brought the car home second overall and second in class whilst recording the fastest lap time of the weekend, the best result to date for Team Busman's Holiday.

It felt great to be back on the podium, and need to transfer this form and speed into the Ford's, something which I am determined to do.