Watch 45-plus of these on two grids...
As preparation for your circuit racing debut goes, a couple of hours on the track in an unfamiliar road car, on the wrong circuit configuration, is perhaps not the dream situation. The fact that most of my key rivals will have had at least one test day on the track in their race cars makes things rather a lot worse.
It's my circuit racing debut in the PistonHeads Caterham Academy at Rockingham this weekend (the previous three rounds have all been one-at-a-time sprints), and it's fair to say that I'm pretty nervous.
The problem is that there's a bit of a weight of expectation upon my shoulders. Somehow, after a third and two fourth places in the sprints, I've ended up sitting in second place in the championship. This is lovely so far as it goes, except that it gives - I suspect - an overly flattering impression of my abilities, which I think have more to do with consistency rather than outright speed.
Unfortunately, the rest of the PH office seems to be fully expecting me to return to work next Monday bearing silverware...they may be sorely disappointed...
Not the best car to practice in...
Still, you make the best of what you've got I guess, and the recent press launch of the Seat Leon Cupra (read about it soon right here on PH) did at least present an opportunity to have a bash at part of the Rockingham layout I'll be racing on.
So although I'll have had no experience on the banked part of the track, nor of the notoriously tricky first hairpin, and although I won't have taken my own 650kg, rear-wheel drive racing car anywhere near the track, an hour or so in a front-wheel drive, 261bhp hot hatch weighing well over twice as much should be perfect preparation. Shouldn't it?
Mind you, Seat's UK boss Peter Wyhinny also gave me a few hot laps in the passenger seat of his slick-shod Seat Leon Cupra racer - which was genuinely useful as well as a hell of a lot of fun...
If you fancy coming along to see me fail to live up to expectations, or just want to watch some cracking Caterham racing - as well as the Academy races there will be Roadsport racing and top-end R300 action - then pop along to Rockingham this Sunday.
Best of all, Caterham and Rockingham are offering PHers half-price on the £15 tickets. All you have to do is buy online tickets from Rockingham's own website, remembering to enter Special Offer code CATERHAM677584, before clicking on the order buttons above.
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 4 3"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1 1"%3E%3C/svg%3E)